75 years of lives changed
75 years of lives changed
For 75 years, the convention has helped save lives, protect rights and provide a framework through which millions of refugees have found safety, rebuilt their lives and contributed to the communities that welcomed them.
This anniversary is a moment not only to look back, but to look forward - and to strengthen the shared commitment, action and solidarity with and for refugees to uphold protection and expand solutions in the years ahead.
The Dialogues
Throughout 2026, a series of national, regional and global dialogues will ask a fundamental question: how can the international protection system respond more effectively to the realities of displacement today?
At a time of record displacement, shrinking protection space and mounting pressure on asylum systems, the 1951 Convention remains the most practical and comprehensive framework for refugee protection — but its promise is too often experienced as fragmented. Refugees find safety without legal certainty, recognition without effective access to rights, inclusion without a credible path forward.
These dialogues are designed to address that fragmentation - across the full continuum of protection, from access to asylum through to durable solutions.
A shared process
The dialogues are a shared process, not a single institutional exercise. They are designed to be co-owned at local and regional levels by the widest possible range of actors: States, refugees and stateless people, municipalities and local authorities, faith leaders and organizations, civil society and women's organizations, refugee-led organizations, NGOs and INGOs, UN partners, development actors, academia and the private sector.
Find out more:
The ten actions
Dialogues will build organically on existing events and platforms at local, national and regional levels. They are not starting from scratch - they are connecting, deepening and giving direction to conversations already under way.
Discussions are structured around ten actions that identify the core areas where stronger political commitment, practical cooperation and more consistent implementation of the Convention are needed:
1. Strengthening adherence and commitment to the international refugee protection framework
Strengthening adherence and commitment to the 1951 Convention and other refugee law instruments. This will include advocacy for accession, removal of reservations, normative guidance (the Handbook project), and evidence-based strategies and programmes (Refworld and RiMAP).
2. Strengthening fair, efficient and credible asylum systems
Enhancing the fairness, efficiency, adaptability and integrity of asylum procedures and institutions to ensure access to international protection and national service delivery systems, while maintaining public confidence in asylum systems.
3. Addressing mixed and onward movements of refugees through route-based approaches and lawful policy responses
Strengthening protection and durable solutions for refugees and asylum-seekers moving within mixed and onward movements through route-based approaches, coordinated action along routes, and lawful, predictable policy responses that reduce exposure to trafficking, violence, detention, loss of life and refoulement, while expanding access to protection and sustainable solutions.
4. Addressing security challenges in compliance with international protection standards
Ensuring that asylum systems remain accessible, credible and resilient in contexts of heightened security, public-order and geopolitical pressure, and that security challenges are managed in a manner that upholds international protection principles, safeguards access to asylum and non-refoulement and preserves the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum.
5. Strengthening partnerships for protection with States and affected populations
Strengthening partnerships for protection with States, forcibly displaced and stateless persons and the organizations they lead (including refugee-women-led organizations), civil society, parliamentarians, cities, the judiciary, academia, development actors, private sector partners and the UN, with a focus on key protection risks, including trafficking, refoulement, detention, and protection from violence and exploitation.
6. Expanding refugee access to labour, education, sponsorship and family reunification pathways, while preserving resettlement
Expanding refugee access to safe and lawful pathways to protection and solutions through labour mobility, education pathways, sponsorship and family reunification, while preserving and strengthening resettlement as a distinct, life-saving protection tool and a core mechanism for responsibility-sharing.
7. Strengthening inclusive national systems for refugees and fostering refugee self-reliance to advance durable solutions pathways
Strengthening national systems that are inclusive of refugees and removing barriers to refugee self-reliance and enjoyment of enabling rights, including the rights to work, freedom of movement, and trusted ID and travel credentials, to support all pathways to durable solutions.
8. Stepping up predictable and principled support for voluntary repatriation and reintegration
Stepping up predictable and principled support for voluntary repatriation and reintegration, while catalysing political, legal and socio-economic support to create conducive conditions in countries of origin.
9. Pursuing the full potential of local integration
Pursuing the full potential of local integration by proactively facilitating access to host-country nationality, mitigating risks of statelessness in long-term refugee situations—or other lawful permanent stay options, combined with access to proof of nationality from countries of origin, including by leveraging regional mobility frameworks.
10. Promoting the meaningful participation of displaced and stateless people
Promoting the meaningful participation of all displaced and stateless people, engaging them in the decisions that affect their lives and supporting their capacity to identify, mitigate and address protection risks, including through direct support to refugee-led organizations, and to seek their own solutions.
Where this leads
The dialogue process will culminate in the High Commissioner's Dialogue on Protection in early December 2026 in Geneva. It will consolidate key themes, priorities and recommendations from across the year.
These outcomes will directly shape the framework for Protection and Solutions, to be published in early 2027.
In turn, the process is designed to build momentum towards the Global Refugee Forum at the end of 2027 - ensuring that the 75th anniversary year is not a milestone but a springboard.
The Agenda for the Future of Protection and Solutions
The outcomes of all dialogues throughout 2026 will directly shape the Agenda for the Future of Protection and Solutions. The process is designed to build momentum towards the Global Refugee Forum at the end of 2027, ensuring that the 75th anniversary year is not a milestone but a springboard.
Keep an eye on this page – more updates will follow soon.