MIPP- Social policy
Curated by Claudia Di Gangi, Senior Policy Analyst
Hubdate - A New Report on Safe Pathways for Refugees
The OECD-UNCHR Joint Report
On July 3rd, the UNHCR and the OECD have jointly issued the third edition of the Safe Pathways for Refugees Report. The report aims at providing essential information on complementary paths to refugee resettlement, such as family reunification. The third issue works with data collected from 2010 to 2021, evaluating data from 37 OECD countries and Brasil and focusing specifically on seven nationalities (Afghans, Eritreans, Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Somalis, and Venezuelans).
The Findings
The report found that over a decade, more than 1.5 million people have arrived in OECD countries and Brasil thanks to complementary pathways. By complementary pathways for refugee resettlement one means pathways intended to offer a safe avenue in third countries for refugees or displaced people. For instance, permits can be granted for family, work or study purposes. The study revealed that family reunification makes up the greatest part of permits granted (almost 60%), followed by study permits and labour permits. On the overall, it has been found that the trend of admission is positive. Despite the decline due to the 2019 COVID pandemic, in 2020 the number of admission has bounced back. In 2021, more than double the permits of a decade before have been issued.
What Obstacles for Safe Pathways?
Regardless of the increasing admission trend observed in recent years, some obstacles to safe admission pathways still exist. Among those, the high administrative costs, the difficulty in obtaining travel documents or inflexible documentation requirements.
It is thus important to work toward the elimination of these barriers. The 2030 Third Country Solutions of Refugees Roadmap holds ambitious targets: to grant access to 2.1 million refugees to complementary pathways between 2019 and 2030.