Community-based protection
Community-based protection
A UNHCR Community-Based Protection Officer speaks with Elsy, a community member, during a “Afternoon Coffee” session in El Salvador. The workshop, primarily attended by older persons, offers a safe space to express creativity, share experiences, and build trust over coffee. Through these sessions, UNHCR engages with the community in a safe and innovative way to better understand protection risks and listen to their perspectives.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, applies a community-based protection approach rooted in the principle of “people protecting people”, recognizing that community members are often best placed to identify and address protection risks, support and safeguard each other. We work alongside affected communities to prevent, identify, and respond to protection risks, and to co-develop solutions that reflect their leadership and priorities.
Refugees, other forcibly displaced and stateless people bring vital knowledge, skills and lived experience. During emergencies and displacement situations, these communities are often the first to respond, supporting one another before formal systems are in place. Communities themselves often have the best understanding of the risks they face and how to protect one another.
UNHCR’s community-based protection approach is rooted in sustained presence, trust-building, and ongoing engagement. It requires UNHCR staff and partners to be consistently present, to listen, maintain meaningful relationships, and accompany communities over time. Recognizing that this approach is a process— not a project —built through dialogue and collaboration, we see affected communities as active agents of their own protection. Rather than imposing top-down solutions, we work alongside them to understand their diverse perspectives, strengthen community structures, and co-design responses grounded in their capacities. This long-term, people-centred approach ensures that protection efforts are inclusive, context-specific, culturally appropriate, and ultimately, more sustainable.
What is community-based protection?
Community-based protection (CBP) is a systematic and continuous process that promotes the right of affected communities, including host communities, to actively participate in their own protection.
In humanitarian emergencies and displacement situations, CBP engages affected communities working alongside authorities and humanitarian actors in identifying and analyzing protection risks, while leveraging the agency and capacities of communities to prevent, mitigate and respond to those risks, and to identify solutions. By engaging with communities as analysts, implementers and evaluators in their protection, CBP seeks to strengthen community-based responses and protection outcomes contributing to reduce risks, enhance safety, and improve access to services. CBP also complements formal protection systems, contributing to more effective, inclusive and sustainable protection outcomes.
Key resources
Explore reports, policies, tools and guidance for humanitarian professionals.
How does UNHCR support community-based protection?
UNHCR supports a community-based protection approach across protection programming. We strengthen existing community structures, work with community-based organizations, and make sure forcibly displaced, stateless, and host communities are at the centre of protection and solutions strategies.
Filipo Grandi, High Commissioner for Refugees, met with members of MOMUCLAA, a woman-led organization working with women who have been forcibly displaced and who have suffered gender-based violence.
CASE STUDY
Supporting a woman-led organization in Honduras
Laura* fled her neighbourhood in Honduras after being shot in the arm as a result of gang violence.
MOMUCLAA, a frontline woman-led organization, supported her with emergency mental health services and seed money to start a business. The group helps women escaping gang violence and displacement, with technical and financial support from UNHCR.
Laura has now become a pillar of MOMUCLAA, offering support to other women in gang-controlled neighborhood caught in cycle of violence and displacement.
"I love being able to attend to women and help them," says Laura. "I give back what I received from MOMUCLAA because they made me the woman I am now."
*Name changed for protection reasons.
Nur Kalam conducts a counselling session with a Rohingya refugee at a community health centre in Cox's Bazar.
CASE STUDY
Rohingya refugee volunteers provide mental health support in Bangladesh
Nur Kalam, 21, a Rohingya refugee, sits cross-legged on the floor of a community health centre in Kutupalong camp, listening carefully to a mother. One of 100 community counsellors trained by UNHCR and partners, he provides mental health support to other refugees.
With limited mental healthcare capacity in Bangladesh, these volunteers form the backbone of UNHCR’s community-based mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS).
By supporting their community, the Rohingya volunteers also find meaning and purpose. For many, like Nur Kalam, who dreamt of becoming a doctor when he was a child in Myanmar, the ongoing training provided by UNHCR offers opportunities to develop their potential and pursue knowledge and skills.
Fatima leads a meeting of the women’s association she started in her shelter in Aboutengue refugee settlement.
CASE STUDY
Sudanese refugee women in Chad are creating business opportunities and peer support
Fatima's life changed forever when her hometown in Sudan was attacked. The university graduate was building a promising future, working at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
She fled with her family towards Chad until they were stopped by armed men. "My father, my husband, and three siblings were killed, and I was shot in the leg," she said. Other fleeing families helped her cross into Chad, saving her life.
Fatima formed an association in that runs thriving income-generating activities such as handicraft and traditional incense. Their gatherings also serve as a safe space where any woman in the settlement is welcome to share ideas and experiences, discuss challenges and receive emotional support.
“That is why I support [fellow refugee women], so that we can grow together, and no one is left behind… It is important to stand with our brothers and sisters, to help them heal” says Fatima.
CASE STUDY
Community-based organizations support war-affected people in Ukraine
In Ukraine, the local NGO United by Love supports social adaptation and inclusion of local and internally displaced people living with disabilities.
Members can participate in creative workshops, physical rehabilitation sessions and social entrepreneurship activities that help them generate income by selling handmade goods.
With UNHCR support, the NGO upgraded its facilities, including accessible bathrooms, safety rails, creative workshop equipment and improved heating systems.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, UNHCR has supported more than 500 community-based organizations across Ukraine that address the needs of war-affected people and empower communities.
UNHCR core guidance
Examples from country programmes
Additional documents and resources
For further guidance on implementing CBP programmes, visit the Emergency Handbook, a publicly available toolkit for humanitarians.
Visit Emergency Handbook
For further case studies, documents and resources on UNHCR’s work on CBP, visit Refworld, UNHCR's law and policy library.
Visit Refworld
