We identify gaps in humanitarian response and then assess opportunities to build new programs to address them.

We create innovative programs in partnership with refugees that lead to lasting solutions for them.

We test and evaluate these programs to ensure that they are effective.

Once we have confidence in our programs, we scale them to reach refugees around the world. We do this by training partners, building coalitions, and influencing policy and practice to drive systems change.

In 2021, a focus on becoming a more refugee-centered, anti-racist, and anti-colonialist organization was at the core of all of our work.

Recognizing the importance of creating spaces for the voices of refugees to guide our work, we took many steps in 2021 to become a more refugee-centered organization. Our Urban Refugee Protection Program (URPP) staff in Nairobi, Kenya, completed a four-part training curriculum in trauma-informed care, which will help to strengthen RefugePoint’s ability to deliver impactful, refugee-centered programming. We also established an Accountability and Oversight Committee, with majority refugee representation, to help us gather refugee views about programs and feedback regarding approaches that will leave lasting impacts on the community.

In 2021, in partnership with a social justice organization called World Trust, RefugePoint undertook a participatory assessment of our organizational culture to better understand where and how we can improve our anti-racism/anti-colonialist systems, processes, behaviors, and practices. A Guiding Council with agency-wide representation anchored the assessment process. World Trust also hosted three Learning Laboratories with the following themes: The Roots of Social Justice: Framing and Analysis of Systems and Structures; Introduction to Strategic Questioning: A Strategy for Learning and Change; and Building Racial Equity/Transforming White Culture. The results of these exercises are still being analyzed, and our learnings will help us deepen our commitments to being anti-racist and anti-colonialist in thoughtful and authentic ways.

In 2021, our Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi, Kenya, supported 1,636 core clients (those receiving stabilizing services), including assistance with rent, food, non-food items, education, medical care, and counseling. Five hundred fifty-seven clients achieved self-reliance and graduated from the program. We provided rent assistance to 501 clients, food assistance to 1,608 clients, education support to 329 clients, medical care to 1,418 clients, and counseling to 357 clients. We also helped 1,142 refugees register with Kenya’s National Hospital Insurance Fund to access medical insurance—critical on the journey to self-reliance.

Our Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi, Kenya, supported 122 client businesses and provided emergency cash assistance to 175 clients to help offset the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative made progress toward a joint pledge made at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum. RefugePoint and five partners reached 143,967 refugees, other displaced populations, and host community members in 19 countries with self-reliance programming. Progress towards this pledge was featured in the 2021 Global Refugee Forum Stocktaking report. At the High-Level Officials Meeting in December 2021, the U.S. State Department announced that it would join the pledge.

In May 2020, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative launched the Self-Reliance Index, a tool used to measure the progress of refugee households on their path to self-reliance. In 2021, we saw rapid growth in the network of partners using the tool to measure programmatic impacts on refugee self-reliance. There was also a significant increase in the number of partners sharing data and lessons learned, which helped inform the broader community of stakeholders working to promote self-reliance.

The Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative trained 314 practitioners on the use of the Self-Reliance Index. Practitioners included representatives from 21 international, national and community-based NGOs, UN agencies, and refugee-led organizations operating in 15 countries.

A growing network of agencies is using the Self-Reliance Index to track and measure the impact of their programming to improve refugee self-reliance. By the end of 2021, we were supporting 23 agencies in 17 countries to use the SRI to measure and strengthen the impact of their self-reliance programs. The highest rates of SRI application were seen in East Africa / Horn of Africa and Central and South America.

The Self-Reliance Index has also been endorsed for use by several key humanitarian funders. The U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and Lives in Dignity, a newly-launched €24 million funding pool hosted by the EU and UN Office for Service Projects, officially recommended the use of the SRI to grantees to measure the impact of self-reliance programs.

In December, at the High-Level Officials Meeting, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative delivered a joint statement on behalf of the entire NGO community, amplifying our collective work to advance self-reliance.

In 2021, our staff assisted 12,088 individuals to access pathways to safety, including 8,250 refugees whom we helped to access resettlement and 1,044 refugees whom we helped to access other pathways to safety. Though COVID-19 continued to impede resettlement processing, we saw vast improvements compared to 2020 (when we were only able to assist 3,600 refugees access resettlement).

In 2021, our team helped refugees in 119 locations from 30 countries to access resettlement or another pathway to safety. Since our founding in 2005, RefugePoint has assisted refugees in 250 locations in 52 countries.

In August, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghan refugees to sites around the world and to military bases in the U.S. We joined the urgent response by sending staff to support the evacuees in the U.S. and began working with partners to design and implement the new Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans. The program, which allows communities in the U.S. to welcome displaced Afghans, represents one of the most significant innovation in U.S. refugee resettlement programming since the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) was established in 1980. Sasha Chanoff, RefugePoint’s CEO, spoke with NBC News NOW and CBS about the Sponsor Circle Program. The program is now seen as a model to support other refugee populations to resettle to the US.

Drawing on our experience in identifying refugees around the world for resettlement, RefugePoint continued to build other related pathways to safety in 2021. These include our labor mobility project, a first of its kind program that helps refugees in Kenya relocate to Canada, and our family reunification program, which reunites unaccompanied children with their parents and other family members. In 2021, a RefugePoint staff member served as the Coordinator for the Family Reunification Network (FRUN), the first global platform devoted to family reunification for refugees. In addition, we helped refugees to access education scholarships and other visas that enable them to relocate to a safe new country.

This year we achieved a significant milestone. Since our founding in 2005, we have directly helped 104,767 individuals to access resettlement and other pathways to relocate to safety. Through training, global policymaking, and other activities, we've contributed to a global system that has resettled 1.5 million refugees in the past 16 years.

In September, we released a report entitled Preserving the Humanitarian Nature of Resettlement, in which we identified major gaps in the global resettlement system and advocated for systemic changes to ensure equitable access to resettlement. Our findings were used in policy conversations throughout the year to help build more equitable resettlement efforts globally.

In 2021, we trained 2,747 partner agency staff, including NGOs, UN, and government officials, to help refugees access resettlement and other pathways to safety.

We deployed Resettlement Experts to help refugees from Latin America to resettle to the U.S. This included sending an Expert to Guatemala, where they supported the identification and referral of individuals in need of resettlement, often through the Protection Transfer Agreement (PTA) with the United States. Another Expert was deployed to UNHCR Washington D.C. to assist with the resettlement processing of mainly Venezuelan refugees in the Dominican Republic. We expanded because of the great need in the region and our unique expertise in identifying refugees.