R-Space at UNGA 2025 for a Morning of Policy Panels
R-Space hosted two insightful panels at The New School exploring how power is navigated within the humanitarian system.
R-Space is a refugee-led forum designed for critical dialogue that shifts away from state-centric conversations toward solutions driven by impacted communities. It brings lived experience into policy rooms and pushes past tokenism toward real influence and co-governance.
Panel I: At What Cost? Externalization – The Route-Based Approach and Refugee Protection
Route-based policies promise safety by curbing irregular movement and opening legal pathways. On the ground, results are mixed. This session looked at what actually changes, what risks fall, what new ones emerge—and who bears the cost. Drawing on EU–Tunisia, UK–Rwanda, and Safe Mobility Centers in the Americas, refugee experts and other stakeholders weighed what works, what harms, and the guardrails needed so responsibility-sharing doesn’t become responsibility-shifting.
Panel II: The Humanitarian Reset: Resetting What, and for Whom?
Everyone says the system is “resetting.” The risk: lower expectations, not higher responsibility. Budgets are shrinking, politics are hardening, and those best placed to lead are sidelined. This session asked how to turn the reset into real power-shift, embedding refugee leadership in decisions and dollars, undoing dependency dynamics, and setting accountability that survives fragilty. We focused on practical moves that redistribute authority, reform financing, and make participation decisive rather than symbolic.
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