The World Through Our Eyes (abridged transcript)

Creating space for what works: refugee leadership, feminist partnerships, and systems change.

This convening opened with a powerful reminder from Salam Mustafa, member of the Action Network on Forced Displacement, on why these conversations matter. Framed through a feminist lens, the session intentionally centered women, queer, and refugee leaders with lived experience—not just to revisit challenges, but to identify what has worked since GRF 2023, and why.

 

The discussion began with a fireside conversation featuring refugee leaders from different regions, sharing positive practices that often go unseen. Speakers emphasized that while displacement realities are deeply difficult, the fact that refugees are present, leading, and shaping solutions is itself evidence of progress.

Early examples included:

•Decent, dignified employment pathways for refugees, highlighted through UNICEF’s Youth on the Move program, which placed refugee women directly into paid roles within UNICEF systems—recognizing skills, providing fair compensation, and treating refugees as colleagues, not beneficiaries.

•Education, scholarship, and livelihood pathways for Afghan refugees, including regional and third-country solutions, particularly for women and girls whose access to education has been systematically blocked.

•The importance of allyship from governments, UN agencies, and donors in sustaining access to education, employment, and protection when national systems falter.

The conversation then expanded to a broader set of voices—refugee leaders, LGBTQ+ advocates, governments, UN agencies, and funders—sharing lessons on what actually enables impact.

A major highlight was a breakthrough partnership with the Australian Government, where refugee-led organizations worked alongside legal and settlement partners to help identify LGBTQ+ refugees and accelerate resettlement pathways to Australia—an especially significant achievement amid shrinking resettlement spaces and global funding cuts.

Across regions and sectors, recurring success factors emerged:

•Community-led, co-designed solutions grounded in lived experience

•Long-term perseverance and credibility-building, often without funding

•Strategic, patient advocacy with governments, including relationship-building and direct parliamentary engagement

•A shift from storytelling alone to delivering concrete solutions

Speakers repeatedly emphasized that refugees are not vulnerabilities to manage, but assets to invest in—if systems are designed to enable them. Calls to action included:

•Simplifying documentation and eligibility processes to reduce bureaucracy fatigue

•Compensating refugees financially for their expertise and labor

•Investing in integration systems that enable self-reliance

•Centering women-, refugee-, LGBTQ+, and trans-led organizations in funding, governance, and decision-making

Partners from governments and multilateral institutions reflected on small but meaningful systemic wins: increased funding for refugee- and women-led organizations, recognition of non-registered groups, growing inclusion of refugee leaders in global forums, and normalization of gender-responsive, locally led approaches.

Throughout the session, one theme consistently surfaced: trust—built through relationships, solidarity, and shared objectives. In a challenging global moment marked by funding cuts and political pushback, the message was clear: progress happens when we stay united, listen deeply, and build power together.