Recap of the IDRC Forced Displacement Policy Dialogue, Rabat 2026

World Refugee Day on 20 June offered an opportunity to reflect on the future of refugee protection at a moment of growing uncertainty for the international refugee regime. Established by the United Nations in 2001 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the day serves both to recognise the resilience of displaced populations and to draw attention to persistent challenges in refugee protection and governance. These questions remain particularly relevant as international protection norms face increasing political and financial pressures.

Against this backdrop, on 2–3 June, students Anna Mendez and Malek Khoudi, representing the course Ending or Mending the 1951 Refugee Convention?, taught by Professor Dr. Luisa Feline Freier at the Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, participated in a policy dialogue in Rabat. The event was hosted by Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the IDRC Research Chairs Network on Forced Displacement, and brought together participants from international and regional organisations, including IOM Morocco, UNHCR, Moroccan governmental institutions, and R-SEAT, a refugee-led organisation advocating for the inclusion of refugees in decision-making processes.

The dialogue focused on contemporary challenges to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the reimagining of displacement paradigms across regions in the Global South, including Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. From a Global South perspective, discussions addressed funding constraints, the normative foundations of the refugee regime, and emerging approaches to innovation and leadership in displacement governance. Anna and Malek returned to Berlin with key insights to share.

Defending core norms of refugee protection

Across the dialogue, several common patterns became visible. In particular, the students noted that amending the 1951 Refugee Convention appears politically unfeasible at present, given increasing international contestation of the refugee regime and its normative foundations. Against this backdrop, discussions instead emphasised the importance of defending the core norms underpinning the refugee protection system, while rethinking the broader architecture surrounding it rather than the Convention itself.

Regionalisation of reform efforts

Moreover, the students explained that the dialogue strongly highlighted the regionalisation of reform efforts, in order to develop context-sensitive approaches that better reflect the needs of specific regions and affected communities. They interpreted this as pointing to a broader critique of one-size-fits-all approaches within the current refugee protection regime, which are often insufficient for addressing the most pressing challenges of forced migration and displacement in practice.

Coordination and cooperation in displacement governance

In addition, the panelists emphasised the need for strong regional partnerships to address ongoing funding constraints in international development beyond the Global South alone. Improved coordination among relevant actors, alongside the meaningful participation of affected populations, was identified as essential. This was seen as not only strengthening legitimacy, but also enhancing the sustainability of effortsaimed at supporting the protection and integration of refugees and internally displaced persons within host communities.

Beyond the Policy Debate: Reflections from Rabat

Overall, the two days in Rabat offered far more than an academic programme. As Anna Mendez and Malek Khoudi reflect: 

“We entered a room of senior researchers who have spent decades on these questions, and we left it convinced that we had witnessed something rare: a community of scholars choosing to face a moment of crisis together rather than retreat into their separate contexts.”

“What remained particularly striking was not only the substance of the discussions, but also their spirit. Across very different regions, from Latin America to East Africa and Southeast Asia, researchers were shown to be building knowledge that is at once deeply local and genuinely shared, and using it to keep a fragile protection system standing at a time when its foundations are under increasing pressure. This work is carried out with limited resources and against real political headwinds; yet the atmosphere in the room was not one of resignation, but of construction.” 

The purpose of the students’ participation was to foster collaborative exchange between students and scholars on contemporary migration challenges and to ensure that, upon their return to Berlin, they could share key insights from the discussions. The seminar Ending or Mending the 1951 Refugee Convention? reframed both what scholarship in migration governance can be and how teaching at Freie Universität Berlin can be conceived. In this context, Prof. Dr. Luisa Feline Freier’s approach explicitly responds to the challenges that artificial intelligence poses to traditional models of learning and academic writing, reconceptualising the seminar as a space in which writing is understood as a collaborative, iterative, and process-oriented form of inquiry grounded in listening, interpretation, deliberation, and critical political judgement. This approach enabled the class to become “alive in terms of policy work” and made visible how the future of refugee and displacement governance is increasingly being shaped in the Global South, by those closest to the realities it seeks to address.

The students are grateful to Prof. Dr. Luisa Feline Freier for giving them the opportunity to represent the seminar in this setting, to the IDRC Research Chairs Network for so generously embracing a collaborative and less hierarchical approach, and to the organisers at UM6P and AIRESS for making the event possible.

Looking back on World Refugee Day 2026, the discussions in Rabat highlighted both the fragility and the resilience of contemporary refugee protection frameworks.

The students conclude:

“We return to Berlin with sharper questions, a broader understanding of the field, and the conviction that some of the most important answers in this area will emerge not from any single capital, but from the connections between many”.

For more information, see the conference website: https://airess.fgses-um6p.ma/IDRC2026