Spotlight Session - 3rd Meeting, Global Refugee Forum Progress Review 2025

We are going to move from a plenary session to a special session on the inclusion of refugees in the health system and digital identity. And I'll give the floor to the High Commissioner to introduce this session. Thank you very much. Claire, introduce the next spotlight session and. Let me just say in English what.

Claire just said in French. The theme will be Refugee Inclusion in National Health, Social Protection and Digital Identity Systems. Now this is very important. You know, we spoken a lot about inclusion and I think that the purpose of the session is to go a bit in more detail in what does inclusion mean in all these very important sectors. It is also my pleasure to invite the Director of our Division for International.

Protection and Solutions, Elizabeth Tan, to come to the podium and manage and organize the spotlight session. Elizabeth, with great pleasure, you have the floor.

Thank you, High Commissioner. And I'd like to welcome the panelists on up to our seating area so that I can introduce you all. Please come up.

Good morning everyone and welcome to this GRF Progress Review Spotlight event on inclusion in national Health, Social Protection and digital identity systems. And it is my extreme pleasure to introduce today's panelists to you. And I will start with Dr. Elke Lubel, who is the Commissioner for Refugee Policy and the Director for Displacement and Migration Crisis Prevention and Management of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development or BMZ of Germany. Welcome to you.

I also welcome Ambassador James Oweru, the Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya to the United nations and other international organizations in Switzerland. Welcome to you, Ambassador. Dr. Chikwe Ihekwezu is the Executive Director of the World Health Organization's Health and emergencies program. Welcome.

Mr. David Garoero is a Burundian refugee living in Denmark, is the founder of the refugee led organization Burundian Youth for a Brighter Future. Welcome to you. Mr. Jeremy Konindag is the President of Refugees International. Welcome to you. And Miss Sana Frost Hilt is the Senior Director of Policy Program and Partnerships at the World Diabetes Foundation.

Welcome. We look forward to a very interesting exchange.

Just a few words of the format of the session this morning. So each of the panelists will, will I will ask them a question and they will have five minutes to provide an answer.

We will then have a limited number of statements from the floor, statements of support that align with the multi stakeholder pledges and it allows some additional examples showcasing the pledge progress that we're all here to discuss over these three days. For those of you who are interested in more information about the subjects of this of this panel, there are QR Codes where are the QR codes? Up here on the screen which give you the links to the three multi stakeholder pledges on social protection, health and mental health and psychosocial support. So if you would like to look at more information, please do use those links. So in today's session and with the support of the distinguished panelists, we will be exploring how access to national systems helps ensure better protection outcomes and it lays the foundation for durable solutions.

So let me say a few words to frame the discussion. The right to health care, including mental health and psychosocial support, is not optional. It is life saving for people who are fleeing conflict, violence and persecution. But that right to health care without the right to social protection also falls short. Inclusion in national social protection systems delivers clear protection dividends and we'll hear more about those this morning.

It reduces vulnerability, provides stronger legal and physical safety. It allows stable access to basic needs and real pathways to self reliance and durable solutions. It's also important in curbing exploitation, abuse, family separation and risky onward movements that can emerge when basic needs go unmet. Ultimately, inclusive national systems protect refugees like other vulnerable host nationals and strengthens cohesion by ensuring that refugees and host communities are supported through the same systems and services.

Ensuring access to both contributory and non contributory national social protection programs is essential. It does allow refugees, like nationals, to benefit from social safety nets and resilience, building programs that protect them from vulnerability and shocks, reducing long term humanitarian dependency, as well as opening pathways to dignity, resilience and sustainable solutions.

Today, four out of five refugees remain displaced for more than five years and many of them well beyond those five years years without access to national social protection systems in their host countries, their vulnerability deepens, humanitarian resources are stretched even thinner and long term solutions remain limited for far too long. Access to essential services such as social protection, health care and psychosocial support has depended on parallel humanitarian systems. We recognize of course, that those essential life saving humanitarian assistance programs are critical, particularly in the early stages of large scale refugee displacement. However, when these services are delivered entirely outside existing national systems, they're ultimately unsustainable, they lack national ownership and they do often little to strengthen the services on which host communities also depend.

Responding effectively to displacement therefore requires a development led approach. From the outset and throughout protracted situations, the Global Compact on Refugees has been catalytic in shifting from parallel humanitarian services towards inclusion international systems.

This is no longer a future ambition. It is the foundation of sustainable responses and a prerequisite for paving the way to towards durable solutions.

In a context as we have had a chance to discuss yesterday and this morning of shrinking humanitarian resources, this shift is not only right, it is urgent, it's necessary and it is unavoidable. Realizing inclusive resilient national systems requires continued international support. It requires fair responsibility sharing, including predictable development, financing, technical assistance, reinforcing local and national capacities, strengthening national ownership and ensuring equitable access across Health, MHPSs and Social Protection allows us to protect rapid refugees and support host communities through the same systems for the long term.

One enabling factor deserves special attention. Digital identity for protection sensitive inclusion to work and last, it's essential to include refugees in national digital identity systems and to assign refugees a unique lifelong identifier, just like nationals with strong data protection safeguards in place. Humanitarian refugee data registries alone are not sufficient. Without this anchor, national services cannot be delivered securely at scale or sustainably. Inclusion of refugees in national digital foundational ID systems is not just a pathway to national services.

It is a gateway to trusted identity credentials, enabling interoperability between foundational systems and functional systems such as social registries, efficient social protection, benefit delivery and long term inclusion. This is why hosts take States should also include refugees in government led ID systems, building on UNHCR data where possible, with strong governments and smooth transition and of course international support. Without further ado, I'd like to start the panel discussion. So if I may start with you, Dr. Loeble. Germany is one of the leading actors in in social protection and mental health and psychosocial support in fragile and displacement settings.

Your country is a strong supporter of the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees and on advancing structural changes at country level. Germany co leads several multi stakeholder pledges including the ones on economic inclusion and social protection and mental health and psychosocial support. You are also a member of the High Level Panel on Social Protection in Fragile and Conflict Settings which recently issued a catalytic agenda. Dr. Loeble, could you elaborate on how Germany can use its political clout, financial instruments and technical capacity to strengthen national led social protection and health systems that support refugee and host communities. The floor is yours.

Thank you so much. And please allow me first of all to say I'm so happy to be here. This is not my first GRF meeting and I'm always very impressed about the energy in the rooms, the discussions. We start at 7 in the morning till 10 at night. And I just want to say how wonderful it is that we do have the Global Refugee Forum.

You have to allow me because I know the times before we had it. Let's start now with The German role and all that, given the fact that the forcibly displaced people number has been rising globally and at the same time, what everybody is telling us here, here in the room and in the conference, that humanitarian aid and development cooperation are declining. The most important sentence perhaps for me is here. Germany highlights the urgency of implementing durable and sustainable solutions and we will stay engaged in that. And having said that, we of course are strongly committed to the Global Compact on Refugees and the pledge made at the Global refugee forum in 2023.

We continue to support the issue that host countries.

We continue to support host countries in including refugees in national systems of social protection. This is of great relevance to us, especially in health care and education. And to help strengthening these systems to become comprehensive and equ inclusive is something we will go on working for. For example, we think that the access to public health care is a fundamentally important part of providing assistance and basic care to refugees in refugee context. We recognize a high demand for accessible and sustainable mental health and psychosocial support.

And we have been lobbying this with other stakeholders like the Netherlands, like minded countries and the potential that lies in focusing on MHPSs, especially in supporting social cohesion and in this help us to overcome crisis. Germany therefore prioritize strengthening mental health and psychosocial support for refugees and host communities. It's essential to do that. We do this by expanding accessible psychosocial support and investing in capacity, which is something you need some time for. It's not short placed.

We aim to ease pressure on overstretched local services where there is often insufficient availability of qualified psychological personnel, which is also a long term investment. Strengthening MHPSS has the potential to enhance resilience and promote peaceful coexistence. It supports crisis affected communities in rebuilding their lives and society and it makes communities more resilient, which is very important. Together with unicef, for example, we have started a cooperation that aims to improve the mental health of children aged between 5 and 10 years. In displacement context.

We support the piloting of this kind of support in Ethiopia, for example, with the Netherlands, as I mentioned, the Prospects Program and the Netherlands will do something similar and pilot it in Lebanon. So we learn from each other, we learn from our experiences. We look forward to this cooperation which fills the MHPSS multi stakeholder pledge with life. Germany also strongly focus on social, economic inclusion and social protection. And you mentioned that I'm part of the Social Protection Leaders Forum together with Jeremy, which is important here to mention, which is cross donors, NGOs, foundations.

We have to partner with others. It's not only to stay in our club particular through our cash for work program. In partnership for prospects, we finance short and longer term jobs, vocational training, support for micro, small and medium sized enterprises with a specific focus on women. Please let us go on strongly with this gender focused support. In Mauritania, for example, GIZ and UNHCR closely cooperating in the field of social protection through a joint project.

The BMZ also actively promotes the complementarity of social protections programs in the Sahel region and therefore supports close cooperation between programs of the World bank, unicef World Food Program and UNHCR with German Development Corporation where we really reach millions of people. So partnership makes the whole thing bigger and more relevant. To end, I would say like to state that Germany has 60 years of bilateral cooperation with different countries and they are all present here. It is key to emphasize the importance of effective and trustful cooperation and this needs time and trust to each other between hosting states, donors, multilateral institutions, NGOs and local partners to deliver coherent, harmonized support. Moreover, where possible and suitable, we aim for joint programming with the eu, World bank, unhcr, WHO and unicef.

This includes aligned financing arrangements and coordination platforms ensuring national ownership. This is so important that Kenya is here on the Panel. We believe in an effective division of labor and continuity in close cooperation with all those who want to support us. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Lobel. And you spoke of national ownership. We will now turn the floor to Ambassador James Wawero of Kenya. The Government of Kenya has made groundbreaking commitments through the Sherica Plan which showcases what governments can achieve with specific support from bilateral and multilateral entities. Kenya has made substantial progress across various sectors including public health, inclusion in enhanced social registry and access to social protection programs.

Ambassador, what lessons, good practices and remaining challenges would Kenya like to share with us in advancing national led social protection and health systems that include refugees? Particularly regarding how interconnected and integrated services for both refugees and host communities can create improved outcomes for both communities as well as sustainability in the long term. Over to you, Ambassador.

Thank you very much, Chair, and it's an honor to be here to share our reflections on this very important topic. As you have said, Kenya made some pledges during the last Global Refugee Forum and we made great strides in realization of of these commitments.

The main one on refugee inclusion in national and county health systems and fostering psychosocial support to refugees is both ingrained not only in the Sherica Plan but also in the Refugee act of Kenya. We have had successful integration of refugee health services into the county's health systems in Tukana and Garissa. These are the host counties for the Dadaab and Kakuma camps and which have now become municipalities in Kenya. We have registration of health facilities in these refugee hosting municipalities. We have done over 100,000 registration of refugees in the social health insurance system and this is ongoing.

We also see that health refugee health workers as a strategy strategic asset to cap the gaps on the necessary manpower to push this. Another groundbreaking thing that Kenya has done is inclusion of refugees into the national safety net program which has culminated in the just recently enacted law, the Kenya Social Protection act that solidifies relations refugee inclusion and explicitly provides for eligibility for non Kenyan citizens such as refugees and asylum seekers. Inclusive policies have been matched where we have not only now put them, as I said in the Social Security fund but in a special one called Habana harbor which means small and small arrangements being adapted to include refugees. Maternity cash support is also given to refugees. All this has been facilitated by the gazettement of six refugee identity documents into the national registration system.

And I think you said that it is indeed not a pathway but a gateway of this. We have had a few challenges. Like everything else we all know about the limited financing for refugee health services which shows the essentiality of predictable funding. We have human resource gaps not only for the refugee hosting but also something that we see across the country. We have a high disease burden and emerging public health threats in the due to overcrowding and like the reduction of the provision of daily water intake for refugees.

We are seeing an influx of refugees unfortunately doing to the fragility of the situation around us. But going forward, what are the lessons learned? We don't like in Kenya to romanticize the problem going forward, we think to find a way in which we can put predictable funding for integration into refugee health services into the county systems. When I say predictable, I mean unearmarked multi year and commensurate funding support ensuring. We also need to ensure that our lesson learned.

The technical and logistical support for health infrastructure is of particular importance.

One other thing we've seen is that there's a need for enhanced coordination and collaboration amongst humanitarian and development actors. And this is from conception of an idea through to its implementation and monitoring and environment evaluation. We all need to be on the same table. And lastly, I think what we have seen we need to do is to support national and county governments development priorities so that you do not have this two track system that has over the years shown not to be very work very well. But in all this it is very essential that we formulate and create and push and sustain.

And I do want to thank everyone in this room for the need for durable, peaceful strategies so that we can reduce the whole entire issue of refugees. No one wants to be a refugee all their life. Everyone wants to go back home. Going forward, I think it is essential that we all uphold our shared responsibilities in the protection of refugees. We need to fully embrace burden sharing and avoid burden shifting.

Kenya has shown that political will is essential for inclusion. But the political will is also essential to address the root causes. It's also crucial to achieve peace and again, sustainable and ultimate solutions. In conclusion, I just want to say we are fully affirmed and committed to inclusion. It has taken a lot of political will against the tide.

I must say. These are not easy things to do. But I think we have shown where there is a will, there is a way. And we look forward to your continued support going forward. I thank you very much for that.

Thank you very much, Ambassador. So we've heard now from Germany about partnerships, about some of the investments that Germany has made and has also mentioned many of the other partners that are engaged in those investments. We've heard about the importance of national ownership and political, political will, sometimes against the tides. We understand that. And I think what comes out from both these presentations is that that partnership, that building of trust, that commitment over time requires us to work very firmly together.

Please count on UNHCR to be your supporters in these endeavors. We will now hear here. We'll now hear from the World Health Organization. Dr. Ihikwezu is the executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program. So WHO has contributed to substantial achievements in the multi stakeholder pledges for health, inclusion and mental health and psychosocial support, showcasing the key role that UN agencies can provide in providing technical support to governments on inclusion.

Could you describe the progress made on the multi stakeholder pledges for refugee health and MHPSs? And in light of this progress, how can specialized agencies like WHO and the wider international community best support host government governments to build strong, inclusive public services? Over to you, doctor.

Yeah. So thank you very much.

And I think the floor has really been prepared for me by the contributions of both James, my brother in Kenya, but also our friends from Germany. Because it's in the intersection of our work that we have the greatest opportunity to derive the most benefit. So if you think about these two pledges, and maybe I'll take the one on inclusion first and thank Morocco for its leadership on this pledge. You know, including refugees in national health systems, you know, sounds like a no Brainer. But it's something maybe we haven't done sufficiently.

So really congratulate all the countries that have taken this on and the examples from Kenya, because this is really the direction that we have to move in. It's beneficial for everyone, for the countries, for the work I do leading the emergencies program. When you have a health emergency, whether it's an infectious disease outbreak, whether it's measles or sometimes even more dangerous ones like Ebola, the viruses are not looking at your status to identify whether you're a refugee or you're diplomat or your teacher. So we. It's in our best interest to bring this together.

And there has been a lot of progress. You know, some of The, I think 15 countries thereabout have made the commitment. There have been progress maybe and measurable progress in 12, but at least there is some progress. And we're really happy about that and work very closely with unhcr. Without that collaboration, we are unable to work in this space.

So it's in the collaboration that we find that there has been progress. Now, this progress is not the same across all the countries that have made the pledges. And we continue to encourage countries to push forward around these spaces. Now, the work the UN bodies do is not possible without civil societies, without donors, without. Without host communities, without governments.

So our work is completely dependent on working collaboratively with our partners to move this forward. I think two examples I'll give, if you don't mind, specifically in addition to Kenya, who you've heard already, is Uganda. Uganda has done very well in bringing its refugees, refugee population and the host community together to derive the best benefit, to have access to primary health care, be captured in surveillance systems. And they have seen the benefits out of this. So it's good to highlight the work they have done and how that has then influenced how they have managed the health challenges, both in terms of primary health care and sometimes in responding to the outbreaks that they have faced from this side of the world.

Bulgaria has done excellently with integrating over 200,000 refugees from Ukraine who have the same access to the health system in Bulgaria as nationals have. So it's also great to highlight that example from Europe to show that this is not a challenge necessarily related to only one corner of the world. So I think we can learn from these examples in terms of the second pledge of mental health and psychosocial support. Again, to thank the Netherlands and Germany for your leadership on this very important integrating these into the work that we do, and especially on the assessments and the capacity building that we have to do to enable the quality of services that we provide then and provided by host countries in any of these contexts. So again, many stakeholders, member states, civil society, international organizations and even private sector partners working together to deliver these services.

Two great examples are out of chart and out of Uganda again where there's been significant integration into camps, into host communities, into service provision across both in Uganda specifically teachers are trained to recognize distress and establish referral pathways very quickly so that people can access care. So great examples of progress. Maybe not again across border. We will continue working with UNHCR to learn from each other, to support each other to deliver these services. I think specifically on what who and the international community can do.

You know, none of these pathways are self evident. I did say it's a no brainer, but how to actually do it, do it well, do it most effectively, do it most efficiently, requires us to assess what works, gather evidence of what works, analyze that, describe that and enable others to benefit from those lessons. So one of the, our primary responsibilities as a normative organization, the norms and standard organization is to measure what works and enable other countries to learn from that, gather the evidence, put it up and so that we can identify best practice and enable other countries to do that. So there's been a lot of progress in these areas and I think the challenge for us now as a global community is to learn from what has worked, collaborate with each other across society, across government, UN organizations, member states, civil society, and then implement and drive the change forward. But thanks and congratulations to the countries that have driven progress in these areas.

Thank you doctor for that. For those insights, we'll now move to to Mr. David Carrero. And.

You're originally from Burundi. You now live in Denmark where you are a youth advocate, a mental health activist and a community leader. You work across global development platforms to elevate marginalized voices and inspire young people to take leadership roles in shaping more equitable humanitarian responses. You're also the founder of the refugee led organization Burundian Youth for a Brighter Future. So we've heard a lot about the need to adapt national systems to make them accessible and appropriate for refugees.

Could you share with us how refugees and and refugee led organizations are increasingly getting involved in this work whilst also elaborating on the important function of community based services for mental health and psychosocial support, in particular complementing national led systems, especially in displaced affected areas. Over to you. Thank you.

Thank you everyone. I'm happy to be here.

Refugees are often spoken as beneficiaries of support, but in reality, we are key partners in building and sustaining systems. Most importantly, when it comes to mental health psychosocial support, as mental health psychosocial support is the backbone of all kind of social protection that's available. Refugee led organization a bridge to national system. As in the Mediterranean settings, national service mostly struggle to reach refugees because of barriers like language barriers, cultural gap, but also overstretched public system. But that's where refugee led organization step in and fill the gap.

As most refugees within refugee led organization understand lived realities.

Also, refugees tend to have more trust to fellow refugees because that's where they can explain or feel comfortable while benefiting these social protection services. It's also easier for refugee led organization to mobilize in community quickly more than external C sectors. So engaging with refugees in policy designing, implementation and delivery is not equitable, but more efficient and sustainable. This helps to the community structure become extension of national system rather than par health system. And that's where I would really like to ask global leaders present here, please engage with refugees.

Engage with refugee led organization. We are here to help. We are here to do whatever it takes to be in this together to work in close partnership with government and national health system. As I said before, mentor have psychosocial support isn't an optional add on. It's more the backbone of holding all other system.

Like social protection and digital identity, mental health is underestimated in emergency settings. However, its implications and societal losses are huge. Income, lack of men, mental health psychosocial supports leads to many issues like breakdowns in social cohesion and protection as distress and trauma undermine community functioning that affect productivity as people cannot learn. You can't attend classes when you have some mental health condition. For example, you may miss some kind of appointment.

It's also on the point on social protection. They may have the inability to manage chronic illness. Missing appointments, as I said on the point of digital identity could be difficult for them to access digital identity system like registration. So it's somehow difficult for them to process everything once mental health isn't available. Mental health psychosocial support is therefore linked to the ability of refugee to benefit from national health system and digital system.

On the inclusion point, we have to remember that in emergencies settings, doctors, nurse, psychologists are not the first responders. The first responders are family members, friends, teachers and those refugee led organization.

So if we work with refugees, including them, it helps effectively to run already peer to peer support within the camps and the youth clubs. All this intervention within camps reduce the burden of formal health system and help prevent mental health condition. We end to ask you global leaders, please. As I said, we are here to help engage with us made some advisory boards within your ministry and organization and I'm sure we be in this together and we succeed. Thank you.

Thank you very much for pointing out that refugees shouldn't just be consulted but actually they're the first responders and are the ones ones who are able to make the link to national systems. And thank you also for making that important point about mental health psychosocial support and how that is so critically important in emergencies and in the longer term and the consequences of not addressing it are very serious for the community but also for the provision of the other services. So Mr. Conindy, is that right? Pretty close. Okay, so Refugees International has carried out important work on inclusion of refugees in national systems and on assessing.

On. On assessing the economic impact of inclusion on national econom.

Refugees. Sorry. Refugees International is also among other organizations that have recently been part of this high level panel on Social Protection in Conflict and Fragile Settings. I believe you were on that panel. So could you share with us some reflections on the growing importance of social protection systems in fragile and displacement contexts to ensure that protection and services can be accessed by all.

Could you also elaborate on the importance of making an inclusion investment case that emphasizes the economic impacts of hosting refugees? Over to you.

Thank you so much. Yes, along with Dr. Lobo, I served on the High Level Panel on Social Protection Protection and my organization Refugees International has worked for many years to promote refugee right to work and access to labor markets. And this is a crucially important moment for that.

The humanitarian and refugee architecture now faces a grave crisis as funding is collapsing despite displacement remaining at historically high levels. And this is placing great pressure on host country governments. As our Kenyan colleague was just talking about. The low and middle income countries that host three quarters of the world's refugees are losing access to the aid support that has long supported them but still have, you know, as you said, it should be burden sharing, not burden shifting. And so as High Commissioner Grande said back in October, we must reimagine what a sustainable humanitarian response to displacement could look like.

We must move away from a camp based model of humanitarian care and maintenance and towards models that are much more grounded in unlocking the rights and the potential of refugees and particularly the right to work and relatedly including them in national systems and national labor markets. There's really no other choice at this point. The current model cannot be sustained in the current funding environment. Just to give one example of that, yesterday Valerie Guarnieri on the panel here at the forum talked about the massive food aid cuts that WFP has been forced to make in places like Uganda and Kenya and the rising malnutrition and other challenges that come along and follow that. And so refugee inclusion in national systems, supported by a shift in donor financing and financing from multilateral development banks is now critical.

And it's not an abstract policy discussion anymore. We must make it an operational reality embedded in the laws and policies and programs of host countries and the financing of humanitarian donors and international financial institutions. Importantly, this is not only better for refugees, although it is much better for better for refugees, it's also better for host countries. It unlocks the potential economic contributions of refugees as producers and economic actors. It brings them into the formal economy rather than leaving them in the grey economy.

It enables them to contribute to expanding the tax base for host countries and unlocks them as consumers who can support local businesses, local enterprises. We have seen a number of countries shifting their policies in this direction in ways that recognize and acknowledge the importance of refugee inclusion in national systems. The ambassador from Kenya talked about how this has, how this has looked in Kenya. Kenya really is leading the way on this. And one important, just to call out one important policy shift.

Earlier this year, Kenya officially recognize refugee identification cards as a basis for registration of SIM cards, which in turn unlocks much greater refugee access to mobile banking services and other forms of financial inclusion.

The municipal authorities in Nairobi have taken steps to simplify business licensing for refugees, recognizing that bringing refugee owned businesses into formal registration helps to expand tax revenue and regularize refugee contributions to their economy. So we, you know, we have seen that this can work. We have seen that this can, that this can support both refugees and national host governments. With that in mind, there are four steps that Refugees international would propose to begin taking this decision scale globally. You know the first, and going back to the High Commissioner's comment, we need to, we need to think beyond camp based parallel service delivery systems.

Urban displacement is increasingly the face of displacement around the world. And this opens up greater opportunities for integrating refugees international systems and unlocking refugee self reliance and reducing reliance on aid. Second, as part of that and to enforce enable that it's vital to integrate refugees international systems for legal identity and digital identity. Refugee registration databases often don't interface cleanly with national identity registration systems. And this can be key to unlocking refugee access to a range of other rights and services in a country.

Third, as we just heard from our colleague before me, involving refugees and refugee led organizations in the consultation on the design and implementation of these policy shifts is critical. They are the closest to the problem, they know best the needs of their community and creating a feedback loop can help with refugee led organizations helps to identify and overcome implementation obstacles. Finally, donors and multilateral development banks must support countries to deliver on this transition over time. Shifting to a protracted refugee model premised on refugee self reliance and inclusion in national systems is likely to be much more efficient than maintaining parallel systems for decades. But in the near to medium term that will require strategic injections of financing to transition refugees onto and into national systems and expand national service delivery capacity capacity.

So this will mean embedding refugees within national fiscal planning, building costed strategies and investment cases for that inclusion, and then financing that transition with a range of grants, concessional lending and other blended finance mechanisms. So in this moment to wrap up doing the right thing on refugee inclusion is also the necessary thing. Building refugees international social protection systems linked to unlocking refugee right to work will be a crucial tool for upholding refugee well being and refugee rights in the face of this new funding environment. Thank you.

Thank you for that and thank you for sharing those recommendations for us to reflect upon.

I'll now move to miss Sana Frost Holt who is with the World Diabetes foundation and the World Diabetes foundation has been mobilizing private capital to support sustainable scalable programs that prevent and treat diabetes and related non communicable and mental health conditions in low and middle income countries, especially where health systems are fragile.

So could you tell us more about how private funding can be used to provide essential services while simultaneously strengthening national systems and capacities? And what lessons have you learned for scaling the engagement of the private sector and philanthropic organizations in settings of displacement? Over to you. Thank you so much and thank you for inviting me to be here today. Let me first briefly touch upon the World Diabetes foundation as an actor in the humanitarian space.

The World Diabetes foundation is a private philanthropic foundation funded by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk and also by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Our mandate covers the prevention and care of diabetes and related non communicable diseases such as hypertension in low and middle income countries. We have ventured into the humanitarian space as we saw NCDs non communicable diseases being overlooked in the humanitarian response despite many already having non communicable diseases when forced to uproot or developing non communicable diseases when experiencing protracted situations or displacement taking point of departure. In our long experience in supporting national health system strengthening for NCD prevention and care across a wide range of countries we saw a role for us to engage in protracted crisis situations. We have many different examples of our engagement, but in view of time today I will focus on one powerful example, our partnership with the UNHCR covering both headquarter level activities as well as country level engagement in Tanzania, Burundi and Sudan.

The initiative seeks to reduce the burden from NCDS amongst refugees and affected host populations in camps as well as in host community settings, while also aiming to institutionalize NCD care and prevention into UNHCR's global approach. I wish to highlight firstly the efforts in Burundi when NCD health services were established by unhcr. It became evident that national health NCD health services were were quite weak in many places. Absent the dialogue between UNHCR and the Burundi Ministry of Health in this regard about the inclusion of refugees and also returnees became actually a direct catalyst for mobilizing Ministry of Health to focus on non communicable diseases. In fact, the Ministry of Health subsequently came to World Diabetes foundation directly for funding to strengthen national NCD health services in general in Burundi and complementary efforts are now progressing.

I often talk about NCDS being silent and invisible here. In this situation UNHCR actually helped make the invisible visible to the host government and a double win as I see it for refugee and host populations emerged and this is really for us a good indication of sustainability of these activities in the longer run. But as mentioned, support also goes to UNHCR headquarter activities to firmly embed attention to NCDs in UNHCR's global approach to health. The focus is on policy and guidance, but also on global advocacy, bringing the need to address NCDS also in humanitarian settings to the attention of the global community. Through this collaboration we supported UNHCR and WHO in organizing an international conference on NCDS in humanitarian settings in Copenhagen in February 2024.

The conference was co hosted by the governments of Denmark, Jordan and Kenya and was instrumental in shining a light on a largely overlooked dimension of health service provision in humanitarian settings. The conference informed deliberations during the recent fourth UN High Level Meeting on NCD and Mental Health in New York. Again in a way making the invisible visible and something we could not have done without UNHCR as a partner and I believe probably also UNHCR could not have done without us as a partner and that for me really shows the complementarity in collaboration between the private sector, philanthropy and a UN agency. In closing, our key lessons for scaling are investment in national health systems, as mentioned by many, is the most sustainable approach to supporting refugees and host Communities alike, not least in an environment of decreasing financial support. This however, requires host government inclusion positive policies, which of course is not always the case.

Linked to WDF's pledge at the Global Refugee Forum in 2023, focusing on multi sectoral and multi stakeholder approaches. These are essential, as also mentioned by fellow speakers on this panel. Government, UN system, civil society, academia, no organization can do this alone. And then finally, humanitarian or non humanitarian setting, integration in health services is key. A couple of years ago in Geneva at the World Health Assembly, a powerful patient advocate from Zambia stood up and said, I'm a cancer survivor, I'm a TB survivor, I'm HIV positive and I have diabetes, but you.

And then she pointed at the audience, you cut me into pieces. The whole integration, the person centered health care, whether for humanitarian, in humanitarian settings or in national settings, it's crucially important and I would add an important piece in the puzzle is mental health, which is cross crucially important, but also largely overlooked in health service packages. With that, thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

We will now thank you so much to the panelists. We're going to hear a few interventions from the floor. We don't have a lot of time, but we have a few speakers who are just going to contribute some thoughts and also some information about progress on the on the pledges. So our first speaker is Her Royal Highness Infanta Dona Cristina of Spain, who represent the Gaicha Foundation. Over to you.

Thank you, your Highness, thank you very much. Thank you very much. As director of the International Area of Lacaysha foundation, it is a real honor to be here with you today. Our international cooperation program began 28 years ago with a clear purpose of contributing to improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable populations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To ensure sustainability and maximize impact, we work hand in hand with key actors and a prime example is our long standing partnership with UNHCR which started in 2002 and is rooted in shared values and objectives.

In 2017, we took a significant step forward by creating an alliance to combat early Childhood malnutrition in 12 refugees Refugee camps in Ethiopia. With its comprehensive and innovative approach, this initiative places mothers at the center of the humanitarian response, ensuring a process of listening to their needs and co creating the solutions. Thanks to this joint effort, we have contributed to help more than 1.5 million refugees and displaced people. And the rate of acute malnutrition in these camps has dropped significantly. Today we renew our commitment to refugee communities for 2026.

In the current global context, we firmly believe that the private sector has an increasingly vital role, not only through financial contributions, but also by leveraging its capacity for advocacy, awareness raising and sharing best practices. Foundations and philanthropic organizations are uniquely positioned to drive social innovation, to foster dialogue among sectors that otherwise might not collaborate, and to mobilize greater resources for development. We face a unique opportunity to define innovative approaches, develop new financing methods mechanisms, and harness the power of technology and digitalization to strengthen humanitarian responses and create lasting impact. If public and private actors join efforts and forces, we can deliver truly transformative actions to improve the lives of the most vulnerable. All this requires long term vision, building strong alliances for sustainable results, integrated in into national systems and adapted to structural challenges such as the climate emergency.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you for that. And I would like to now invite Mr. Mohammed Ali coordinateur du Program Coordinator. Of the National Program Social Register, who represents the government of Mauritania. Sir, you have the floor.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear participants, the speaker is hardly audible can Dear participants, I thank you for providing me with this opportunity to speak today before you on behalf of the Moritarian Social Registry and I would like to profusely thank the UNHCR for this invitation and we express our gratitude to the government of Germany for abiding with its commitments towards Mauritania in the last Global Refugee Forum and we are committed to including refugees in the national system for social protection. While we adopt the Social Register as a pivotal tool, also this is necessary and essential because it guarantees help to the most vulnerable families and this makes use of the social programs and to provide regular assistance in order to face the different shocks. And in less than five years we have achieved tangible progress. In the beginning of this year we have registered 35,000 members of the refugees in our National Register system and as I'm speaking to you now, more than 200 have been registered and we are achieving the last phases of this program where we are hosting 270,000 asylum seekers and refugees amongst 310,000 on our national territory and this task will be finalized within 30 years. God dwelling Our ambitions do not stop at this end, but through strong collaboration with the UNHCR and financial donors, and especially with the MZ and the national the International bank, we are achieving progress in order to set up a METIZ which will guarantee registration of every fragile family, including the incoming persons, in order to allow them to quickly obtain the available assistance.

Nevertheless, we have to be practical in view of the influx of returnees and refugees. Mauritania cannot by itself register all these persons in its register or to provide sufficient help to each individual and therefore mobilizing collective assistance is necessary. And if this registry in Mauritania is a reference, we understand at the same time that there are still certain gaps in comparison with international standards. And the support are exemplified essentially by strengthening having protection programs and improving the access to assistance and strengthening the logistic mechanism, since the country is very vast and developing the possibilities in managing data and having active mechanisms to monitor the results so as to take decisions that are based on evidence and to improve intervention. Ladies and gentlemen, the inclusion of refugees in our national systems is not a choice, but it is a responsibility.

And we all collectively have to cooperate and we can build the mechanism for the social protection. And we can, therefore, and we thank you profusely for your assistance. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your intervention. I will now invite Mr. Barkay Hamid. Director des Affaires Humanitaires, Head of Humanitarian affairs of the Government of Chad. You have the floor, sir.

Thank you, madam.

I also thank the organizers of this event for having allowed us to share with you the experience of Chad in terms of inclusion of refugees in the national system for digital legal identity. In the context of our pledges, the government of Chad has, with the support of the hcr, the World bank and the European Union, set up a system that allows for the launch of digital identity for refugees. We did this through our National Agency for Secure Titles as well as the national Management system. This policy has been expanded on the basis of our national social policy, social Protection system, which was inspired by our neighboring countries. We have some 100,000 people included in the system and it allows us to have a general overview on the number of refugees, but also decide on different activities.

It allows the refugees to be mobilized throughout our territory and set up activities that enable them to generate income. This is a solid foundation to develop the socio economic opportunities for refugees and include them in the local economy, including the the digital economy, creating positive dividends for the host community. With the support of our technical and financial partners, we aim to expand this coverage to all refugees and populations and include the number of single window identification systems to ensure the interoperability with other functional identity system such as the Social Registry. We call on all partners to support this effort so that each refugee can fully access national services, be they public or private, and take part in the economy of Chad whilst benefiting from different opportunities in terms of legal migration towards third countries.

To conclude, we have integrated these systems in our development policies. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our last, no, second to last speaker and please, if you could stick to the time where Omar out of time for our session. So I would like to invite Mr. Moses Mukasa from Uganda, Jesuit Refugee Services Regional advisor for Mental health and psychosocial support. The floor is yours. Thanks.

Chair. Distinguished colleagues, I come from JRS which. Is a Jesuit Refugee Services headquartered in Rome and operating across 58 countries. Across all these years of work, One. Truth has remained constant for us.

Mental health and sexual support emerge not from external systems alone, but from the relationships, meanings and capacities that exist within communities themselves. When these are recognized, strengthened and woven into national systems, refugees move from surviving traumatic issues events to contributing fully and confidently to the societies that receive them. In our work, we see daily that community laid and community based MHPSS is not a peripheral activity. It is the foundation of protection, social inclusion and development. Trained volunteers, para counselors, faith groups, caregivers, teachers and youth leaders form the first circle of care for those who are differently affected by pre existing mental health.

Difficulties and daily stressors. They help families make sense of upheaval. They rebuild networks of trust. They restore the ordinary magic of human resilience. These community structures are systems in themselves.

They do not compete with national services. They strengthen them. They extend their reach into spaces where. Policy cannot go alone. Today's global financial constraints rates make this even more urgent.

As crises deepen and host communities come under strain. Investing in community driven MHPSS is one of the most cost efficient ways to build sustainable inclusive national systems. It reduces the burden on extended health and protection services while enabling refugees to regain stability, participate in education levels and become coordinated, active contributing members of their hosting communities. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Our our last speaker from the floor is Ms. Anne Wilhoyt, mental Health and Psychosocial Support Team Lead for Child protection at the Program division of unicef. You have the floor.

Thank you. Inclusion of social protection and mental health and psychosocial support through multi stakeholder pledges has ensured progress towards tangible results in the lives of refugees. Social protection and displacement responses provide critical foundation for resilience, dignity and socioeconomic inclusion.

Under the Dutch Supported Prospects Partnership, we've seen real progress. Unhcr, ilo, UNICEF S and the World bank have jointly supported governments to strengthen national social protection systems while also working with existing informal and community based support mechanisms leading to policy reform, inclusion in national social registries and stronger links to economic inclusion initiatives. A coherent one UN approach to social protection works. The next step is to scale this collaboration through BRIDGE an interagency mechanism providing providing governments and stakeholders with coordinated technical expertise to build strong nationally led systems. Advancing the joint pledge on mental health and psychosocial support is also addressing a critical need.

Evidence shows that ensuring refugee populations have early access to MHPSS directly influences outcomes in health behaviors, educational attainment, positive family relationships and broader skills social cohesion. Ensuring mental health access for refugees means that individuals and communities are better equipped to recover, adapt and rebuild. Germany and the Dutch have joined jointly to support early mental health intervention through research on Bloom, a psychological intervention for children ages 5 to 10 and their caregivers developed by UNICEF and WHO. This is a critical gap. There has historically been no nowhere to turn for younger refugee children who have more intensive mental health and psychosocial support needs.

And finally, a core component of the joint MHPSS pledge, advancing the IASC MHPSS Minimum Service package. This multi agency effort has provided vital direction in refugee response across sectors, ensuring essential evidence based community focused care in the face of adversity. With thanks to the Dutch and earlier to the UK and Norway, the needle is moving towards clear multisectoral MHPSS implementation for refugees. Thank you. Thank you very much.

We've reached the end of our speakers, we've reached the end of our time, but I'm just going to say a few words to wrap up, but.

I. Think since we're talking about refugees in host countries, I would like to share my wrap up time with Ambassador from Kenya in order to just help me to wrap up this conversation which has been extremely rich. As you were saying Ambassador, political will at host country level. We've heard about progress but we also know that this is a difficult road. So I'd like to give you the floor for a few words to conclude.

Thank you very much for that and my apologies for taking the floor but it just hit me that it would be very remiss of me not to acknowledge the partnership that we have had with the UNHCR and all the other partners in coming up with SRI La Plan. And for this I want to say to The High Commissioner, Mr. Filippo Grande, he when he writes his memoirs he'll have a lot of stories to tell on the battles that we have fought with him and for him. But just to say that it all takes collaboration and I just wanted also to say Chikwe, you said that it's supposed to be a no brainer. We all agree inclusion, so why don't we just move from rhetoric to reality and make it inclusive systems that are funded. But I think also what was said by David, including from the bottom up, including both refugee communities and the host communities in coming up with holistic plans.

I just wanted to say that because I realized that he may not have a lot of time sitting up there. And to Filippo, my good friend, I wish you all the very best and best wishes from the government of Kenya. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you for that. You've made the wrap up easier. Just to say that I think what's clear is that this responsible transition from humanitarian assistance to government health, social protection systems, it requires. It requires urgent action.

Thank you for that call. It requires national ownership and it requires this, what we've talked about, all of us and the interventions from the floor. It requires partnership, it requires trust and it requires long term investments. Although it seems easy, it is not easy and I think we all know this. And so it is our.

We've heard a lot of pledges and a lot of progress, but we are here today to reinforce that commitment to do better on this front, to do better for refugees, to do better for their host communities, to do better for the countries that are hosting so many refugees. Maybe just to say also that whilst refugees are at the center, we need to also trust that refugees can truly not just advise on design, but be part of the solutions of the way forward. I'd like to say a few words about enabling factors. We've heard, thank you a lot about data. We do need data.

We need to measure our results. We heard also from, from who that there are no set solutions. We need to learn together how to do this, measure our results, measure the investments that we make together and learn together. I'd like to mention also that let us not forget that a lot of the suffering, the disease, the mental health issues, they're not visible. And yet if we don't address them together, we, we're not able to reach solutions, we're not able to reach inclusion, but also solutions in the durable sense.

People going home to a better life, people being able to be self reliant wherever they are. So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your contributions. I think this is a very rich session which will inform the rest of the day and a half that remains for us. Thank you very much. And I hand back to the chair.

Thank you very much, Elizabeth. And congratulations to all panelists for this absolutely excellent spotlight session. You've all deserved a break. Lunch break. I can see hungry people in the room.

So we're going to pause the plenary discussion for now and you are invited to come back here at 3pm the next speakers on my list are New Zealand, Chad, World Food Program, Turkey, Romania, Italy and Morocco. So you're all up to speed now. For those of you who haven't been able to take the floor so far, please keep your nameplate raised so that we can add you to the list. This afternoon, I'm going to give the floor to Secretariat for a few announcements on what's to come for your lunch break.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

During the lunch break, a Speaker's corner. Focused on lived experience with will take place. Additionally, three side events will be held on human settlements in room ef, implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean in room 6, 7 and 3, the Rohingya multi stakeholder pledge event in room 4. We will reconvene at 3pm today with pledge announcements followed by the general debate here in plenary. In parallel side events will be held on meaningful refugee participation in room EF, financing for education in room 6, 7 and the lawmen dialogue in room 4.

Lastly, from 4:45 to 6:00pm, the spotlight session on Making Return Sustainable and Supporting Reintegration in Today's World we take place in plenary. Thank you.