Verification Reoriented: Refugees Take the Lead in Gorom

Gorom, South Sudan, July 2026 – In the shade of a shelter in the Gorom refugee settlement, just outside Juba, refugees gathered around two ruggedized kiosks unlike any previously deployed in Eastern and Southern Africa. Running UNHCR’s Localized Identification and Self-Service Access (LISA) solution, the kiosks enabled refugees to verify their presence biometrically independently, without the need for a staff member to guide the process.

For many, curiosity quickly turned into confidence. Refugees queued to try the kiosks, eager to experience a new way to interact with services that put them at the center of the process. Since becoming operational, the two kiosks have verified more than 530 individuals per day, demonstrating both strong acceptance by the refugee community and the potential of self-service technologies to transform how verification is conducted. The deployment marks a significant shift in how verification can be undertaken. For decades, verifying the presence of refugees has relied on large-scale exercises: teams deployed to the field, long queues, and staff confirming one person at a time that each individual remains present in the country of asylum. While effective and essential for maintaining accurate records and ensuring assistance reaches those who need it, these exercises require considerable time, staffing, and financial resources.

LISA offers a different approach. Through self-service biometric verification, refugees can confirm their presence on their own schedule, reducing the need to wait for periodic verification exercises and minimizing disruption to daily life, work, education, and family responsibilities. Instead of being passive participants in a process organized around institutional schedules, refugees gain greater agency over how and when they engage with registration and identity management services. Innovation is part of a broader effort to modernize humanitarian service delivery by bringing trusted digital identity systems directly to the people they serve. Beyond verification, it reflects a growing recognition that refugees should have greater control over their interactions with humanitarian systems and greater visibility into the information needed to access protection and assistance. Technology becomes an enabler of dignity and agency, allowing people to access services in ways that are more convenient, predictable, and responsive to their needs.

At the same time, inclusivity remains at the heart of the design. The solution recognizes that self-service may not be suitable for everyone. Individuals who are unable to complete the process independently due to age, disability, biometric challenges, or other circumstances are not left behind. Instead, the kiosk prints an appointment slip that can be presented to South Sudan’s Commission for Refugee Affairs (CRA) for assisted enrolment or manual verification, ensuring that technology expands access rather than creating new barriers.

This was a key message shared with the Commission’s Director General for Protection and refugee community leaders during demonstrations in Gorom. The concept was well received because it addressed a practical challenge faced by both refugees and registration authorities: maintaining accurate population data while making services more accessible, efficient, and user-friendly. The timing is particularly significant. Across the humanitarian sector, needs continue to grow while available resources face increasing pressure. In this environment, innovation is no longer simply about introducing new technology. It is about finding sustainable ways to deliver protection at scale. Every day that registration staff spend conducting routine verification activities is time that cannot be devoted to protection counseling, identifying individuals at heightened risk, resolving complex cases, or supporting durable solutions.

By automating routine processes, LISA allows staff to focus on the work that requires human judgment, empathy, and expertise. Refugees, meanwhile, gain greater flexibility in managing their engagement with UNHCR services and greater ownership over when they choose to complete verification. The result is a model that benefits both refugees and humanitarian operations.

The successful deployment in Gorom demonstrates what is possible when innovation is designed around the needs and dignity of displaced people. Yet realizing the full potential of self-service digital identity solutions will require continued investment. Technologies such as LISA must be developed, tested, secured, maintained, and scaled before they can deliver their benefits across refugee-hosting regions.

With sustained donor support and strong partnerships between governments, refugee communities, and humanitarian actors, solutions like LISA could help redefine how humanitarian services are delivered in the coming years. By strengthening the refugee agency, increasing operational efficiency, and directing scarce resources where human intervention has the greatest impact, innovation can help ensure that protection remains effective and accessible in an increasingly constrained funding environment.