OECD-UNHCR: Safe Pathways for Refugees

OECD-UNHCR study on third-country solutions for refugees: Admissions for family reunification, education, and employment purposes between 2010-2019
Complementary pathways for admission to third countries

OECD-UNHCR: Safe Pathways for Refugees

OECD-UNHCR study on third-country solutions for refugees: Admissions for family reunification, education, and employment purposes between 2010-2019
03 May 2021
OECD-UNHCR report 2

In July 2019, the global community launched the Three-Year Strategy on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways envisaged in the Global Compact on Refugees. The strategy sets a 10-year goal to resettle one million refugees and admit two million refugees through complementary pathways by 2028.

Since 2018, the OECD’s International Migration Division and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Division of International Protection have been working together to enable the systematic collection, sharing and analysis of data related to the availability and use of complementary pathways for admission to third countries. Implementing and measuring progress against the complementary pathways target will be contingent upon the development of a more robust evidence base. The joint OECD-UNHCR data-collection process, with the support of the States, aims to progressively fill this gap.

This dashboard was elaborated with the data collected for the OECD-UNHCR “Safe Pathways for Refugees II” report. It presents an overview of first-time permits issued in OECD countries and Brazil for family, work and education purposes to nationals of Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela over the decade prior to the COVID crisis (2010-2019). It also shows an encouraging trend, in 2019 alone 156,000 permits were issued indicating that the target set in the Three-year Strategy for 2019 was met.

 

NOTE: To be able to reflect admissions through complementary pathways in the spirit of the GCR, one would include individuals in need of international protection admitted to an OECD country for the purposes of family reunification, employment or education, following an initial stay in a first country of asylum where they sought protection. The figures presented in this dashboard are therefore indicative in nature as they may also include people who were admitted directly from one of the seven countries of origin (Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela) and thus may not have crossed an international border to meet the definition of a refugee prior to arrival in an OECD country.