Resources

ICVA’s statement thanking Cindy McCain for her three-year leadership of the World Food Programme, recognising past achievements, along with the continued need for principled, credible, accountable, and effective governance moving forward in this transition – while underscoring the importance of reinforced and inclusive partnership with NGOs and local actors – as WFP appoints its next Executive Director.

📄 Download the document at the link below. ⤵️

We are pleased to share with you the first drafts of the collective NGO statements to be delivered at the 95th UNHCR Standing Committee meeting will take place in Geneva on 24-26 March 2026. Many thanks to all our lead drafters for pulling these together. 

The NGO statements seek to raise common areas of concern on policy or practice in response to forced displacement and statelessness, and to urge action from UNHCR and States through targeted recommendations.

NGOs are invited to provide feedback on the draft statement relevant to your region and expertise. Please download the statement (links below), insert your suggestions directly onto the document using track changes, and send them to the e-mail address indicated at the head of each document. Deadline for inputs: Wednesday 25 February COB CET. 

The statements are currently longer than the 800 words required for the oral delivery. That is OK – ICVA will publish a written statement (long version), and redact a shorter, oral version of the statement to be read out during the plenary. Both versions will be available here after the event.

Over the past decade, ICVA has coordinated collective NGO statements at UNHCR’s Executive Committee (ExCom) and Standing Committee (SCom) meetings to elevate shared humanitarian concerns and influence global refugee policy.

This study assesses the effectiveness of those statements and the consultation processes behind them, with the aim of strengthening future advocacy and ensuring it better reflects NGO priorities, including those of organisations led by forcibly displaced and stateless persons.

Download the paper at the link below ⬇️

ICVA’s official letter addressing our appreciation for Filippo Grandi’s support and leadership as High Commissioner for Refugees.

Our latest infographic captures key results and highlights from ICVA’s work in 2025.

It reflects an extraordinary amount achieved in an incredibly difficult year – with each outcome driven by the commitment, expertise, and resilience of our members and partners.

It offers a concise snapshot of just some of the value we continue to bring as a network, even as the sector faces unprecedented pressure and demands.

Dear NGO colleagues,

Please find below the oral statement delivered at the Global Refugee Forum Progress Review Meeting on Tuesday 16 December.

This collective NGO statement was delivered by Refugee Consortium Kenya, who was the lead drafter of this statement.

Please also find the longer, written version of the statement uploaded.

Thanks to all for your contributions.

With over 122 million people forcibly displaced worldwide and protracted crises lasting nearly two decades on average, durable solutions are needed more than ever. Voluntary return remains one of the three UNHCR-recognised durable solutions, alongside local integration and resettlement. While often framed as the “preferred solution,” voluntary repatriation is frequently hindered by insecurity, lack of legal protections, and inadequate reintegration support.

This report captures the key insights from the ICVA webinar “Is Return Always a Durable Solution?” held in July 2025, which explored the relevance, realities, and sustainability of voluntary repatriation in the context of today’s forced displacement.

Download the paper at the link below 👇

The global humanitarian system is at a breaking point. Needs are rising, yet funding has collapsed at unprecedented scale.

Business as usual is no longer acceptable or viable. A fundamental shift is needed: from competition to collaboration, from international leadership to local leadership with international support, and from project delivery to people-centred outcomes.

This paper proposes humanitarian complementarity as the organising framework for a more effective, equitable, and sustainable system. It focuses primarily on NGO inter-complementarity and UN/NGO complementarity, not necessarily looking to establish an overall blueprint for the system. The ideas presented are to provoke discussion, and the preliminary recommendations will be further elaborated in a forthcoming series of ICVA roundtables.

Download the paper at the link below

The Saving Lives Together (SLT) framework is a no-cost, practical, and valuable tool that enables NGOs and the UN to share information, coordinate, and align approaches in the face of resource constraints — helping aid workers operate more safely and effectively to deliver assistance where it’s most needed.

ICVA represents our members at the Saving Lives Together (SLT) Oversight Committee. Continued commitment from partners sector-wide is essential to ensure this collaboration mechanism remains meaningful in practice.

The SLT have developed a one-page brief outlining their ways of working.

Download the resource on the link below

Humanitarians cautiously welcome ceasefire announcement, demand end to two years of forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza

13 October 2025

The announcement of a ceasefire offers a long-overdue moment of relief and hope. However, it must mark the beginning – not the end – of the international community fulfilling its responsibilities.

This ceasefire announcement comes at a time of profound crisis – when life in Gaza stands on a precipice. A human-made famine has taken hold due to Israel’s continued and illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, with tens of thousands of children at risk of death by acute malnutrition in the coming months. Women, men, children and older people have been severely deprived of the essentials required for survival and dignity, including food, water, fuel, shelter and medical care.

Sustained and indiscriminate bombardment has killed over 66,000 people and maimed over 150,000 – disabling at least 21,000 children – destroying entire neighbourhoods and wiping out generations of families. Thousands more remain missing beneath the rubble. Over 92% of homes, 518 schools, as well as hospitals, water, education and livelihood systems have been destroyed, damaged or contaminated with unexploded ordnance.

Today, 13 October 2025, marks two years since Israel’s first mass displacement order for 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza – an order amounting to forcible transfer, a crime against humanity and a “form of collective punishment prohibited under International Humanitarian Law”. In defiance of international legal obligations, Israel has forcibly and repeatedly displaced at least 1.9 million people in Gaza, creating a humanitarian catastrophe in which children, pregnant women, older people, people with disabilities, the sick and injured struggle to flee, access aid, or survive in unsafe conditions.

Forcible transfer is happening throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, thousands have been forcibly displaced since October 2023, most alarmingly is the mass forcible displacement of around 32,000 Palestinians from northern West Bank refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarem and Nur Shams, denied return till today.

Last month, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that the Israeli authorities are committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Leaders of major aid groups called on world leaders to intervene following the UN genocide conclusion.

These findings trigger clear legal obligations on all States to act to prevent further destruction, ensure accountability, and uphold the protections guaranteed under international law.

The ceasefire must establish the conditions for safe, principled humanitarian action and protection of civilians. To date, humanitarian access has been systematically denied or severely obstructed, with hundreds of aid and health care workers targeted and killed. Despite the existence of a principled UN coordinated mechanism that has reached communities despite countless obstructions by Israeli authorities, aid has been restricted through a militarised and unsafe distribution model implicated in the deaths of over 3,000 of civilians.Aid convoys are obstructed, bridges and roads have been demolished.

Diplomatic efforts have too often failed to uphold international law or protect civilians. The ceasefire must be the foundation for sustained action to restore protection and humanitarian access, enable the safe and voluntary return of displaced people, and ensure accountability.

We, as the humanitarian NGO community, therefore call for:

• A permanent and meaningful ceasefire with guarantees.

• All parties must protect civilians and humanitarian and healthcare workers.

• The safe, voluntary and dignified return of Palestinians to their homes throughout the occupied Palestinian territory accompanied with the scaled and sufficient humanitarian response to meet all needs.

• The protection and restoration of essential civilian infrastructure and services, including health, water, and sanitation systems.

• Full and unhindered principled humanitarian access for independent organisations to deliver comprehensive and swift life-saving assistance, including food, medicine, fuel, protection and essential services at scale. All land crossing-points must be reopened immediately and unconditionally, enabling the unrestricted passage of people and goods.

• The immediate release of arbitrarily detained Palestinians, including those held without charge or trial as administrative detainees.

• An end to the militarisation of assistance and the removal of barriers, including the denial of registration for INGOs on vague or spurious grounds and the requirements to provide staff lists.

• All States to fulfil their obligations including the duty to prevent further atrocity crimes, in line with international law, including the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Genocide Convention, international humanitarian law.

• The immediate halt of the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunition to Israel to prevent their use in violations of international law, in line with the Arms Trade Treaty provisions and as prescribed by the UN General Assembly resolution on the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.

• A collective and transparent vision and coordinated approach to support rebuilding Gaza, a vision which must be driven by Palestinian agency and self-determination The occupied Palestinian territory cannot be an exception to the law that binds us all.

Download the statement and full list of signatories on the link below (available in English, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, French):

76th UNHCR Executive Committee, Geneva, 6-10 October 2025.

Please see below the collective NGO statements delivered at the 76th Executive Committee meeting of the UNHCR.

With a special thanks to the following organisations for their role in leading the drafting process, and delivering the statements:

• RELON-Kenya
• The Norwegian Refugee Council
• INTERSOS
• International Refugee Assistance Project
• Refugees International
• RELON-Uganda
• Save the Children

And with thanks to the whole NGO community, in all your diversity, for engaging with this process.

In 2025, several Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) country-level humanitarian coordination structures are planning to fully or partially transition from international leadership. Past research shows that hurried transitions can generate challenges to inclusive planning and in creating sustainable coordination structures.

This research set out to learn from past transitions of internationally led humanitarian coordination. Using two contrasting contexts – Iraq and Indonesia – it identifies lessons-learned and recommendations relevant to NGOs navigating current and future transition planning. The report is accompanied by four case studies.

GAZA, 17 Sept 2025: The leaders of over 20 major aid agencies working in Gaza are calling on world leaders to urgently intervene after a UN commission concluded, for the first time, that genocide is being committed.

Download the statement on the link below

Please see below the oral and written versions of the collective NGO statement delivered at the 94th Standing Committee meeting on 8-9 September 2025, under the agenda item: UNHCRs Programme Budgets and Funding.

The collective NGO statement was delivered by Nasma Kavas, Programme Manager for Women Now for Development, a Syrian feminist, women-led organisation.

The collective NGO statement was co-drafted by representatives from RELON-Uganda, Refugee Protection Watch, and Force4Refugees – a coalition established in 2025, uniting the expertise and effort of Syrian, Turkish and European organisations undertaking research and advocacy on humanitarian and protection issues facing refugees in Türkiye. F4R particularly focuses on refugee leadership and meaningful participation in national and global refugee policy processes, which directly and profoundly impact their rights, needs, present lives and futures. The coalition consists of seven Syrian, Turkish and European organisations: Basmeh and Zeitooneh, Door Beyond War, IGAM, Olive Branch, Support to Life, Women Now for Development Türkiye, and 11.11.11.

In 2015, 2005 and 2000, ICVA issued a public call encouraging applicants for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to answer five key questions.

ICVA’s goal was to promote transparency in the selection process – not endorse any particular candidate.

The below are the published responses. Please note the following:

 The applicants are listed in alphabetical order.

 Their submissions were not edited by ICVA. They are presented exactly as submitted.

 Information on their professional backgrounds can be found on publicly available resources.

For more information on the current UNHCR High Commissioner recruitment:

https://www.icvanetwork.org/unhcr-high-commissioner-candidates-2025 

Download the previous responses here: