PRESS RELEASE
June 25, 2025
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
[email protected]

MPI Welcomes the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative (RAFDI)

WASHINGTON, DC — The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is pleased to welcome into its fold the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative (RAFDI), which aims to expand the space for new perspectives in the humanitarian protection policy dialogue and explore sustainable solutions that improve the future for displaced people amid rising forced displacement numbers globally.

RAFDI was established in 2022 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars under the leadership of John Thon Majok, a recognized expert and former refugee from South Sudan who has long worked on issues of forced migration, refugee resilience, integration and refugee diplomacy.

At MPI, Majok will be RAFDI director and also senior advisor for institutional development. Prior to this, he was deputy director of development and senior director of grants management in addition to leading RAFDI at the Wilson Center.

In giving RAFDI a new home, MPI is adding an important strand to the substantive portfolio of work it has done in the Western Hemisphere, Europe and beyond on humanitarian protection policy analysis and design through its International Program, U.S. Immigration Policy Program, National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy and the Latin America and Caribbean Initiative, as well as its sister organization, MPI Europe.

“We feel very fortunate that John Thon Majok is coming to MPI and bringing with him RAFDI and a strong network of supporters who hail from different backgrounds and viewpoints,” said MPI President Andrew Selee.

“John Thon Majok is himself an example of how refugees can transform immense challenges into opportunity and change the world around them,” Selee added. “After 13 years in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya and then resettlement to the United States, he has compiled a strong academic record and distinguished professional accomplishments in public policy, diplomacy and development. He has challenged policymakers and publics to think of refugees as assets to the communities where they live rather than a problem to solve.”

Majok, who starts at MPI in mid-July, said: “I am very excited and honored to join MPI to continue RAFDI’s mission of expanding the space for constructive dialogue and providing evidence-based analyses that inform refugee policy changes. At such a time as this, we need perspectives that are informed by lived experience to contextualize the discourse on global forced displacement and the refugee plight.”

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The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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