The world is facing a displacement crisis, with over 82 million people forcibly uprooted from their homes due to conflict, persecution, or violence. Among them, nearly 26.4 million are refugees, seeking safety across international borders.
Historically, responses to such crises have been led by international organisations, governments, and multilateral bodies like the United Nations. But Alliance’s first special feature of the year, ‘Hope across borders’, highlights the growing role of refugee-led organisations (RLOs) as vital players in the humanitarian sector.
RLOs advocate for the self-determination and leadership of displaced people, their families, and communities. They are both the first and last line of support for those who have crossed borders in search of safety. Philanthropic funding can empower and transform RLOs. With the right resources and space to thrive, RLOs deliver powerful, self-sustaining aid that upends traditional, top-down approaches.
Speakers included:
- Dr Nicole Behnam, Center for Disaster Philanthropy
- Mohamed Ahmed, Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative
- Ana Karina Garcia, Juntos Se Puede
A few highlights from the event
Nicole: Philanthropy has a unique role to play. We can be flexible, we can enter with trust, we can listen, we can give the space that is needed for refugee organisations to lead. And this is about mutual aid. If you think about who knows a context best, who has the lived experience to bring to the table solutions that work, it’s the people themselves who have gone through displacement, who have experienced the crisis. And that is a know-how. It’s not transferable knowledge. We talk about local knowledge and how we can bring that into the system. But that’s not the same as you leading this because you know this. This is a very different way of entering into a partnership. As Mohamed said, it’s trust, it’s listening.
[…] Philanthropy can create space to let solutions rise. Philanthropy can do this in a way that bilateral public funders might not be able to as easily.
Mohamed: As someone who has personally experienced forced displacement, I’ve seen firsthand how traditional humanitarian aid often sidelines the very people it aims to support. For me, it was never just about filling gaps in aid; it was about challenging a system that needed to evolve. Refugee communities have solutions, leadership and resilience, yet they are rarely trusted or resourced to lead. That contradiction pushed me to think differently.
The resourcing refugee leadership initiative was built on a very simple but transformative idea that people with lived experiences should be in charge of their own futures. Our work is not about excluding others but about building a healthier and more balanced ecosystem where refugee leadership is not the exception but the norm. It’s about movement building, creating a system where those most affected are at the centre and where all actors work together in ways that are truly accountable and equitable.
My background made it clear to me that true dignity doesn’t come from being helped, it comes from having agency. And in today’s world, where calls for systemic change are growing louder, where conversations around decolonising aid and shifting power are finally getting momentum, the resourcing refugee leadership initiative is showing that it’s possible to reimagine humanitarian response not as charity but as a pathway to more durable and community-driven solutions.
Ana Karina:
We need to change the way we think about financing and sustainability. It’s time for businesses to allocate funds to invest in our social purpose. We know it is not easy, but it is urgent. Organisations only think that corporations and philanthropy need to get money to do the models for us. At this moment and in the current state of the world, we must change this. That is the first system change we need to do. Not only others, but all of us. It is our organisations that need to change, in our form of financing.
In terms of the ecosystem, we must begin to influence the way in which philanthropy is investing, but also in how the funds are used, because a lot of times, big corporations use funds for things in territories that don’t really need them. They end up doing a lot of programs just to have a big picture while saying “migrants and refugees are important and for that reason we are investing in this and that”. But when you go to the territories, that is not the help that refugees need. Thus, this change is very important. In this moment, we have a big opportunity to change the world; it is a difficult change, but it is a good moment to do it.
You can watch the full video here:
Natasha Chávez is Marketing and Events Support at Alliance magazine
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