Where We Work
Migration Impact Collective is a young Canadian non-profit working alongside refugee-led organisations to close the gap between refugee rights and refugee self-reliance. We engage refugee policy where it is made and where it is lived, through field research operations anchored in Kenya and through secondary research and policy analysis that extends across the regions where displacement is most consequential.
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This dual structure is deliberate. Larger refugee and humanitarian organisations maintain operational presence across dozens of countries simultaneously, supported by infrastructure built over decades. We are at an earlier stage.
Our field operations are concentrated in one country, where we can do depth-driven, partner-led research on the structural barriers refugees face.
Our secondary research and policy work extends our reach further, into the contexts where displacement governance is being made and contested.
As the organisation grows, and with the support of those who believe in the work, our field operations will follow.
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"Field operations in Kenya. Research and policy work across more than twenty countries." - Rai Friedman, Founder & Executive Director
The Work to Date
Field Operations in Kenya
Our field research operates at Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kalobeyei Settlement, Dadaab, and Nairobi, in partnership with the Voices Rising Consortium, the Strathmore University Forced Migration and Displacement Research Hub, and the Government of Kenya through its Shirika Plan. Our flagship research, conducted with Strathmore, examines the East African Community permit as an alternative to durable solutions for refugees in the region.
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Kenya hosts more than 800,000 registered refugees and asylum-seekers, of whom approximately forty percent originate from East African Community partner states. The country sits at the intersection of multiple protracted displacement crises in the East and Horn of Africa region, and its evolving refugee governance, including the 2021 Refugees Act and the Shirika Plan, makes it one of the most consequential policy environments in which our field research can be conducted. The evidence we generate here grounds our broader analytical and policy work in the lived realities of displaced people.
Research & Policy Reach: More than 20 Countries
Our secondary research and policy analysis spans more than twenty countries across East and the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and the Pacific. We track legislative developments and conduct comparative migration governance and human rights analysis across major countries of origin, transit, and asylum: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Canada, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Israel, Libya, Myanmar, Nauru, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, and Yemen.​ In Geneva, we contribute written submissions and policy framework documents to the UN Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on refugee protection and on economic, social, and cultural rights.
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This work is grounded in the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol, the Global Compact for Refugees, the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Team and partner expertise
Our analysis is informed by the lived and professional experience of our team and partner network across East Africa, Europe, North America, and South Asia, with members and partners established in Belgium, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, India, Italy, Kenya, Switzerland, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Regions
The Road Ahead
Beyond Durable Solutions, to what comes next.
The architecture of refugee response was constructed in a different era, for a different scale and a different politics. Conventional durable solutions are failing at scale. Asylum protections are regressing across powerful host states. Funding has reached its weakest position on record.
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Migration Impact Collective is built around the recognition that this is structural, not temporary. We are a younger, smaller, and more adaptable organisation that works at proximity to refugee populations and refugee-led partners, with the analytical agility to address the displacement crisis as it actually exists rather than as the legacy framework anticipated.
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The next era of refugee response requires regional integration mechanisms, complementary pathways, and self-reliance frameworks that the existing architecture was not designed to deliver. Our 2026 to 2030 strategy commits the organisation to producing the field evidence, the partnerships, and the reform proposals that those new mechanisms will require.
How we work - Three cross-cutting commitments shape every output: refugee-led partnership with shared authorship, integrated gender analysis, and grounding in international refugee law.
Where we are going - By 2030, the strategy targets a global field research portfolio distributed across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, South Asia, and North America.
AFRICA
Hosts a substantial share of the world's refugees, many of whom remain in protracted situations without durable pathways.
Africa is the region where the 2026 to 2030 strategy goes deepest. We will extend field research beyond Kenya into additional East and Horn of Africa contexts where protracted displacement is most entrenched and conventional durable solutions are reaching the fewest people. We will build comparative policy analysis on regional integration mechanisms, including the East African Community permit. We will strengthen refugee-led civil society across the continent and engage African regional bodies on migration governance reform and climate-induced displacement.
THE MIDDLE EAST
Hosts large refugee populations across multiple states.
The Middle East hosts some of the world's largest and longest-running refugee populations. We will extend research and policy analysis across the region's host-state frameworks, where asylum protection, the right to work, and freedom of movement are systematically constrained. We will build comparative analysis on the failure of conventional durable solutions in protracted Middle Eastern contexts. We will deepen partnerships with refugee-led civil society and engage host governments and regional bodies on migration governance reform and refugee self-reliance.
EUROPE
Both a destination for migratory populations and the policy environment in which much of the contemporary asylum framework is made.
Europe is both a destination for migratory populations and the policy environment in which much of the contemporary asylum framework is made. We will extend comparative policy analysis across the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Spain, tracking the regression in asylum governance and the externalisation of refugee management. We will build research on reform pathways for European protection systems. We will engage European institutions and refugee-led civil society on migration governance reform and asylum protection.
Migration Impact Collective is built for this moment.
Our Seven Strategic Objectives
04 · CONSULTING AND ADVISORY
Analytical reach across the migration governance sector.
Research design, policy analysis, programme design and management, monitoring and evaluation, and training services. Engagements with foundations, multilateral bodies, government agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, and impact investors operating across global contexts. Revenue reinvested into the core mission.
01 · FIELD RESEARCH
A global research portfolio on the structural barriers to refugee self-reliance.
Multi-year mixed-methods studies covering documentation, the right to work, freedom of movement, and access to education. Active in East Africa, with studies advancing across South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America by 2030. Findings published in peer-reviewed research, policy briefs, and submissions to multilateral processes.
02 · MIGRATION GOVERNANCE
Comparative analysis and reform advocacy across jurisdictions.
Tracking and analysis of legislative and policy developments across powerful host states and refugee-hosting states. Reform proposals on regional integration mechanisms, freedom of movement, the right to work, documentation, and durable solutions. Submissions to the Global Refugee Forum and the Universal Periodic Review co-authored with refugee-led partners.
05 · PARTNERSHIPS
Strategic partnerships across the migration governance sector.
Working relationships with refugee-led organisations, NGOs, academic institutions, governments, and civil society. Structured around shared authorship, collaborative research, and policy alignment with national, regional, and multilateral frameworks. Partnerships extend the organisation's reach across the contexts in which displaced people live and the institutions that shape their futures.
03 · CAPACITY STRENGTHENING
Institutional & Programmatic support for refugee-led civil society globally.
Programmes covering the institutional support such as registration, board training, leadership and continuity as well as full project management cycle, monitoring and evaluation, leadership, financial management, and resource mobilisation. Co-authored research and policy outputs with refugee-led partners. Support for refugee-led organisations transitioning to direct funding relationships with donors.
06 · EMERGING FRONTIERS
Thought leadership on the displacement issues of the next decade.
Climate-induced displacement that international refugee law was not designed to address. Gender equity across research, policy, and the institutions that govern displacement. Youth leadership in the policy spaces that shape young refugees' futures. Analytical briefings, podcasts on migration governance, and convening across government, multilateral, academic, and refugee-led partners.
The work is evidence-led, refugee-shaped, and reform-bound.
07 · INSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATION
A platform built for global scale.
A diversified funding base across foundations, government funders, multilateral commissioning, and individual donors. An expanded team across multiple regions, including refugee researchers and policy analysts in substantive leadership roles. Formalised governance, monitoring and evaluation systems, and a publications infrastructure built for global scale.
