Beyond Survival: What Does It Take for Refugees to Rebuild Their Lives?
About the session
Humanitarian response is designed to help people survive crisis. But what does it take to create the conditions for people displaced by conflict, climate and economic instability to rebuild their lives?
Self-reliance is about more than employment or income. Mental health, access to technology, financial support, safety and the ability to make decisions about your own future all shape whether someone can move forward. Yet these dimensions are often addressed separately, and we still have significant gaps in understanding what works, for whom and under what conditions.
This session will explore what the evidence tells us about refugee self-reliance and where practice needs to evolve. How can better measurement strengthen programmes and policy? What can approaches such as cash transfers and technology inclusion make possible? How should responses adapt as climate change becomes a growing driver of displacement? And how can research and implementation learning sit alongside the lived experience of refugees themselves?
The aim is to move the conversation beyond responding to immediate need and toward understanding what enables people to regain agency, stability and the ability to shape what comes next.
Discussion Group Leaders
Bridget Kane is Director of Engagement at Glasswing International, expanding partnerships that support young people through education, mental health, and economic opportunity.
Dekow Sagar is Founder and Chief Executive Officer at International Council for Refugees and Immigrants, Inc, advancing support and opportunities for refugees and immigrant communities.
Shelby Quackenbush is Communications Manager at Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative, advancing awareness and collaboration around refugee self-reliance and economic inclusion.
What to expect
A cross-sector conversation bringing together refugee leaders, researchers, practitioners, donors and policymakers. Participants will examine evidence on self-reliance, identify where important gaps remain, and explore how measurement, lived experience and emerging approaches can better inform humanitarian response.
Who this is for
This session is for refugee leaders, humanitarian practitioners, funders, researchers, policymakers and technologists interested in building responses that support not only immediate survival, but longer-term agency, wellbeing and economic self-reliance.
What you will get out of it
A more holistic understanding of what refugee self-reliance looks like and how it can be measured
Insights into the evidence behind approaches supporting economic opportunity, wellbeing and inclusion
Perspectives on how climate change is reshaping displacement and humanitarian response
A clearer view of where research, policy and lived experience need to connect
Connections across refugee leadership, research, funding and implementation