Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework

The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) is set out in Annex I of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 19 September 2016 (resolution A/RES/71/1). It commits UN member states to a more predictable and equitable approach to large-scale refugee situations, moving beyond purely humanitarian responses toward whole-of-society engagement that includes host governments, development actors, the private sector, civil society, and refugees themselves.

The CRRF rests on four core objectives:

• Ease pressures on host countries that receive and accommodate refugees.
• Enhance refugee self-reliance through access to education, livelihoods, and services.
• Expand third-country solutions, including resettlement and complementary pathways such as labour mobility and family reunification.
• Support conditions in countries of origin for safe and dignified voluntary return.

UNHCR was tasked with leading the application of the framework in specific operations. Early rollout countries included Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Chad, Honduras, Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, and Panama, with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) adopting the Nairobi Declaration in March 2017 to apply CRRF principles regionally in the Horn of Africa.

The CRRF directly informed the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), affirmed by the General Assembly on 17 December 2018 (A/RES/73/151). The Compact operationalises the framework through four mechanisms: the Global Refugee Forum (first convened in Geneva in December 2019), support platforms, a comprehensive approach to specific situations, and arrangements for burden- and responsibility-sharing.

For MUN delegates and researchers, the CRRF is best understood as the bridge between the political commitments of 2016 and the more detailed architecture of the 2018 Global Compact. It is non-binding but has reshaped donor practice, particularly through World Bank instruments such as the IDA Window for Host Communities and Refugees.