In the run up to the High Level Officials Meeting (HLOM) in December 2025, this Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) blog series provides ICVA members with the opportunity to reflect on the Global Refugee Forums (GRF), focus attention on commitments, and strengthen transparency on progress on the implementation of the GCR since its affirmation in 2018. NGO members will provide perspective on pledges and highlight where further action is needed and reflect on gaps, opportunities and suggested areas of course correction. This work builds on the joint blog series with InterAction from 2024.
Novel solutions to refugee (im)mobility are urgently needed
In its 2025 Projected Global Resettlement Needs, UNHCR tallied 29.4 million refugees worldwide, including 2.9 million in need of resettlement. In 2023, however, less than 160,000 refugees were resettled worldwide. The gap between resettlement needs and departures speaks for itself: novel solutions to refugee (im)mobility are urgently needed. The sheer scale of need is magnified by the complexity and dangers of refugees’ displacement routes, which make it increasingly difficult for responders to provide assistance. In this light, it is more important than ever for the humanitarian sector to develop innovative solutions to global displacement that can complement traditional pathways.
Since the Global Refugee Forums of 2019 and 2023, the international community has harmonized policies and improved coordination to better respond to refugee flows. Through the Third Country Solutions for Refugees Roadmap 2030, it endorsed Third Country Solutions (TCS) approaches to expand the range of durable solutions available to refugees.
TCS approaches allow a variety of stakeholders to propose novel programs—additional to existing resettlement pathways, and responsive to refugees’ evolving protection needs—to help refugees access basic rights, services, and, eventually, durable solutions. For example, under emerging TCS programs, employers in receiving countries can recruit skilled refugees overseas, and then work with relevant authorities to issue immigration visas to successful candidates. Universities can invite refugees to apply for degree programs, offering targeted support to help them navigate the student visa application process while displaced. States and civil society can make it easier for refugees to access rights-based family reunification pathways. Private sponsorship programs can help support groups pool community resources to facilitate refugee arrivals. TCS approaches identify and scale promising practices, seed innovative refugee mobility mechanisms and policies, and invite new actors into the work of providing durable solutions to refugee displacement.
The Global Refugee Forum and Multistakeholder Pledges
In the 2023 Global Refugee Forum (GRF), HIAS joined multiple pledges advancing complementary pathways, including Multistakeholder Pledges on Resettlement, Skills-Based Complementary Pathways, and Family Reunification. These pledges offer an essential guide to start closing the gaps between resettlement needs and opportunities.
Through the Multistakeholder Pledge on Resettlement, HIAS pledged to continue advocating the expansion, modernization, and strengthening of global resettlement programming, to optimize resettlement as a critical protection tool for refugees at heightened risk. To this end, since 2022, HIAS’s TCS team has led the Equitable Resettlement Access Consortium (ERAC), which aims to expand equitable access to the US Refugee Admissions Program. Through ERAC, HIAS and consortium partners RefugePoint and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) identify non-governmental organizations already working with refugees, and train them to identify resettlement-eligible cases and submit resettlement referrals. By localizing identification and referral, ERAC makes it possible to bring resettlement programming to refugee groups who may face barriers accessing traditional resettlement pathways. Through ERAC, HIAS is fulfilling its pledge to expand and strengthen its own casework capacity, and that of other NGOs; and to institute systems, structures, and partnerships to help create a robust pipeline of resettlement referrals.
In its Multistakeholder Pledge on Skills-Based Complementary Pathways, HIAS also committed to help lift obstacles preventing refugees from using existing migration pathways, and to explore new labor mobility pathways. Through Canada’s Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP), HIAS connects highly skilled refugees in Ecuador, Peru, and Israel to talent-seeking employers in Canada, facilitating refugee arrivals with immediate workforce participation and promoting self-reliance. HIAS has pledged to reach at least 7,000 displaced persons through information sessions, facilitate the registration of at least 2,000 displacement-affected individuals to existing skills databases, and refer eligible profiles to Canadian employers for hiring consideration.
Finally, in its Multistakeholder Pledge on Supporting Refugee Family Reunification, HIAS has committed to build up its own capacity and that of its Resettlement and Placement affiliates, in 29 locations in all, to file family reunification applications and support refugee families, already living in the United States, to receive additional family members into their homes and communities. HIAS’s commitment to family reunification upholds a core value of TCS programming: mobilizing advocacy and building solutions around the aspirations and needs of refugees themselves.
Looking Ahead
As HIAS continues to grow its TCS programming, it is building a valuable body of institutional knowledge on complementary pathways. As new countries take an interest in receiving resettlement referrals from NGOs as well as from UNHCR, ERAC will be uniquely positioned to inform governments interested in direct-NGO referral programming. Likewise, as additional states explore labor mobility programming, HIAS stands ready to engage with stakeholders at every level to encourage refugee hiring and promote careful coordination between employers, state authorities, and non-governmental actors.
Most importantly, HIAS stands ready to advocate for meaningful engagement with the most important actors in TCS programming: the refugees themselves. Through its Multistakeholder Pledge on Refugee Participation, HIAS has pledged to support equitable and accessible participation of refugees and host communities in decisions that affect their lives. HIAS is committed to ensuring that the dignity, capacity, and abilities of affected people and their communities are integrated into every aspect of its programming. This is, ultimately, the promise of TCS: to not just open new refugee mobility pathways; but also, by engaging with local organizations and by working directly with refugees, to lead a revolution in refugee participation in humanitarian programming.
Third Country Solutions at a Crossroads
Although the suspension of the USRAP in January 2025 dealt a serious challenge to TCS programming, every crisis bears the seed of an opportunity. While the United States has historically received the world’s largest share of resettlement arrivals, finding durable solutions for refugees remains a global responsibility. HIAS stands ready to share its expertise facilitating NGO participation in resettlement identification and referral beyond the USRAP. Likewise, HIAS is eager to leverage its experience facilitating refugee labor mobility and family reunification in discussions on expanding these and other pathways to durable solutions. When refugee mobility becomes more constrained, it becomes all the more important for TCS programming to draw on its core values—localization, innovation, and adaptability—and build them into value-adds: resilient networks of NGOs, multilateral organizations, and states, working together to devise and provide durable solutions to refugees.
About the Author
Joel Hernandez is the Program Specialist for HIAS’s Third Country Solutions team. HIAS is the international Jewish humanitarian organization that provides vital services to refugees and asylum seekers in more than 20 countries. HIAS advocates for the rights of all forcibly displaced people to rebuild their lives and seek to create a world in which they find welcome, safety, and opportunity.
Learn more at HIAS.org.
