Community-based Protection in Malaysia

UNHCR/ Nur Eldzariah Idma

What is CBP approach with objectives?

Displaced and stateless communities are usually the first to respond to crises, as they are most aware of the threats they face, the underlying causes, and their impacts, and can support to address them. It is essential for humanitarian actors to listen to and understand these communities, to ensure that their programmes do not undermine the role of the community as agents of protection or inadvertently leave people and communities worse off.

Community-based protection (CBP) centers on the capacities, agency, rights, and dignity of forcibly displaced and stateless individuals within its programming. By enhancing local resources and capacity and identifying protection gaps through ongoing consultation, it fosters more effective and sustainable protection outcomes.

Community-based protection (CBP) Unit

The current refugee situation in Malaysia is protracted, with minimal advancements made towards their treatment and acceptance into society. The protection of refugees and asylum seeker is fragile and unpredictable due to lack of legal framework to manage refugee in Malaysia. In addition, they face significant risks from misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech (MDH) due to lack of legal protection, cultural differences, economic competition, and widespread misinformation.

To foster the CBP approach, Community-based Protection Unit in Malaysia promotes its engagement with refugee communities and diverse stakeholder to achieve key objectives such as strengthening Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), enhancing community protection and self-reliance, strengthening Partnership and linkages and fostering peaceful co-existence.

The CBP strategic directions of 2022- 2025 for the Malaysian operation aims to address these gaps, recognizing the centrality of communities’ role in supporting themselves and in connecting communities to strengthened stakeholder networks to assist with preventing and responding to protection concerns.

Accountability to Affected Populations strengthened	Strengthening Communication with Community (CWC) to improve dissemination of accurate and relevant information and establishing structured feedback and response mechanisms. Encouraging meaningful participation of refugee communities in planning implementation and monitoring of protection activities, and incorporating their feedback to adapt programming
Enhanced community protection and self-reliance	Capacity building and empowerment of existing community structures with application of Age, Gender and Diversity approach Establish network of outreach volunteers to improve information dissemination, support access to services and identification of persons with specific needs. Increasing women participation in leadership position and establishment of youth groups and enhancing their participation in community development activities
Strengthened partnerships and linkages	Strategic engagement with NGOs, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, refugee learning centres, local government, private sector, academia, to enhance network of support for protection of refugee communities
Foster peaceful co-existence	Strategic partnerships with relevant stakeholders including members of parliament, state assembly persons, local councillors, and host communities to support the peaceful co-existence initiatives.

Information on services and support for refugee or asylum seekers can be found here

More information for Accountability to Affected People (AAP) and initiatives for refugee participation can be found here

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