Partnerships in the protection of refugees and other people at risk: emerging issues and work in progress

This paper was originally prepared for a UNHCR conference on ‘Strengthening collaboration
with humanitarian and human rights NGOs in support of the international refugee protection
system’, held at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on March 11-12 1999. The
conference was designed to promote a ‘protection partnership’ between UNHCR and NGOs,
with an emphasis on identifying the steps needed to put such a partnership into place. The
paper analyzes emerging issues and recent developments as they bear on the three major
issues on the conference agenda: cooperation between UNHCR and NGOs on advocacy and
the promotion of protection principles; cooperation in specific field settings; and greater
sensitivity to protection needs on the part of NGO field operations.