Women's Refugee Commission
Research. Rethink. Resolve.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Around the world, migrant, stateless, and refugee women and children are disproportionately subject to exploitation, including legal and human rights violations. As lines between poverty, fragility, and crisis blur and displacement become increasingly protracted, WRC recognizes that global initiatives must build resilience and definitively address structural inequalities. Gender inequality sits at the root of poor health, social, and economic indicators and intersects with multiple identities and social markers that can further marginalize certain populations. WRC focuses on achieving gender equality and leveling the playing field for everyone, centering on the range of diverse voices of women, men, and youth. WRC’s advocacy and research in the humanitarian and development nexus strengthens community and government resilience, bolsters localization efforts, and creates the tools that promote gender equality, economic and social justice, and gender-transformative change.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Rights and Justice
Migrant, stateless, and refugee women and children worldwide routinely face legal and human rights violations. From the U.S. border with Mexico, where people seeking asylum are refused entry, to countries where women are denied the same nationality rights as men, WRC holds governments accountable to their obligation to respect women and children’s rights, so they can find safety, access justice, and rebuild their lives. WRC’s Rights and Justice focus is two-pronged: broad work on migrants’ rights and justice and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR), housed at WRC, which promotes reform of nationality laws that discriminate on the basis of gender. WRC advocates directly to the administration and Congress to ensure fair access to asylum; the use of community-based alternatives to detention; the end to family and other punitive immigration detention; reunification of separated and unaccompanied children; and protection-centered U.S. leadership in migration policy.
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
All displaced people are at risk of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and exploitation. The risk is particularly high for women and girls, but also exists for men and boys. WRC works to prevent and respond to SGBV by helping to ensure access to critical services for refugees, such as education, work opportunities, and sexual and reproductive health care. We partner and collaborate with local organizations and the international humanitarian community to improve safety and services. Our GBV focus addresses sexual violence against refugees of all gender identities, and how to better understand the impact conflict and crises have on child marriage and female genital mutilation. Working with Denmark, WRC plays a critical role in the support of the 2021-2025 Road Map for The Call to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies. WRC is working to fundamentally transform the way GBV is addressed in humanitarian settings.
Sexual and Reproductive Health
Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is an essential need and right for refugees. For refugee women and girls, access to SRH care and services is often limited, increasing the risk of unintended pregnancy, complications of pregnancy, disease, disability, and death. WRC is committed to protecting all refugees’ reproductive rights and to ensuring lifesaving health services are available from the onset of an emergency through recovery. Our sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) work addresses global gaps in SRH services, supply chains, and building community and national resilience and disaster emergency preparedness for SRHR; and hosting and leading the Inter-Agency Working Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health in Crises. WRC plans to commence work on how cash and voucher assistance can be used to improve access to and uptake of family planning among Ukrainian refugees.
Economic Empowerment and Self-Reliance
Most refugees deeply want to provide for themselves and their families—to work, to use their skills, and to make their own decisions about their finances, their lives, and their futures. WRC works to ensure that humanitarian programs provide refugee women and youth access to cash assistance opportunities and to help them safely earn a living. WRC conducts research and develops technical resources on appropriate livelihoods and cash-based interventions for displaced women and youth that recognize their skills, experiences, and capacities. This work involves supporting refugees’ access to safe livelihoods and providing cash assistance that promotes choice and dignity and strengthens local economies, and co-leading and building the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI), with its 35 partners using the self-reliance index to measure the impact of their livelihood programs in 25 countries. We have reached some 50,000 refugee households (200,000 refugees) and aim to reach 5 million in 5 yrs
Gender and Social Inclusion
Ensuring equal access and opportunity for all requires recognizing that some groups face additional obstacles and barriers. Gender, when coupled with intersecting identities, often further marginalizes individuals and populations. WRC promotes the full inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups, such as refugee women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQI+ community, refugee youth, and adolescent girls, in identifying solutions and designing programs that meet their unique needs and build upon their capacities. One initiative is the Global Refugee Youth Network, which brings the voices of refugee youth to global fora, creates networking and mentorship linkages and peer-to-peer support around the world. Another initiative builds the protective capacities of adolescent girls by engaging them, male siblings, and caregivers. WRC’s gender and social inclusion framework challenges current power imbalances and facilitates equal opportunity, and access to and control over resources.
Climate Change Impact on Refugees and Displaced Persons
The majority of refugees originate from, and live in, climate hotspots — areas exposed to severe flooding, heat waves, and drought. Climate change is not gender neutral. Women and girls and other marginalized populations are disproportionately impacted. The vulnerability of minorities, indigenous peoples, and other excluded groups, including women, children, LGBTQI+, and people with disabilities, to climate change is a product of a wider backdrop of discrimination, encompassing land, housing, livelihoods, and migration. Not only do marginalized communities more often live in areas specifically exposed to the impacts of climate change, they are also the least able to adapt and flee. WRC plans to address information gaps and build the evidence base on how climate change is affecting women and men, and the most marginalized individuals, households, and communities differently and to identify responses that build on their capacities to prevent, mitigate, adapt, recover, or relocate.
Localization
WRC has been supporting the localization agenda for more than twenty years—supporting the establishment of the refugee-led Mae Tao clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand. The Mae Tao clinic, founded by Dr. Cynthia Maung, was the first refugee-led health provider and early support resulted in a now multidisciplinary hospital and clinic that serves over 100,000 refugees and migrants annually. Over the years, WRC has continued to push for and support local responses to humanitarian crises – implementing a village health worker program in Borno State, Nigeria designed and led by local Nigerian health officials; and supporting the establishment of the Global Refugee Youth Network—led for and by refugee youth and which is funding, through resources raised by WRC, dozens of refugee youth-led organizations’ projects. WRC continues to engage local actors and local researchers in all our program activities and to advocate for localized responses with the broader humanitarian community.
Where we work
Awards
Green Star Award 2015
United Nations and Green Cross International
Disability Inclusion Award 2011
InterAction
Affiliations & memberships
International Council of Voluntary Agencies 2014
Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) 2016
Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises 1993
Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR) 2016
Welcome with Dignity Campaign 2018
Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative 2016
Global Refugee Youth Network 2019
Call to Action to Address Gender-based Violence in Emergencies 2012
Coalition to End Violence Against Women and Girls Globally 2014
Coalition for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality 2014
U.S. Policy Advocates for Afghan Women and Girls 2006
Women, Peace and Humanitarian Fund 2014
Global Protection Cluster’s Task Team on Cash for Protection 2016
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of media citations of advocate research or products
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Immigrants and migrants
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of demonstration project or pilot sites
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Internally displaced people, Refugees and displaced people
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of assessment guides developed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Internally displaced people, Refugees and displaced people
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram followers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Immigrants and migrants
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
2022 Twitter 23,467 Facebook 50,142 Instagram 3,273 2021 Twitter 23,700, Facebook 48,200, Instagram 3,082
Number of individuals attending briefings and presentations
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Immigrants and migrants
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of policy guidelines or proposals developed
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Immigrants and migrants
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of research or policy analysis products developed, e.g., reports, briefs
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Immigrants and migrants
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of Facebook followers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Women and girls, LGBTQ people, Men and boys, Immigrants and migrants
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
For more than thirty years, since its founding in 1989, the Women’s Refugee Commission has worked to ensure that the needs and priorities of women, children, and youth displaced by conflict and crisis are firmly on the humanitarian agenda. Our goal is to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian response everywhere and ensure that it engages and builds on the capacity of affected populations. In addition, that humanitarian efforts ensure that those fleeing persecution and violence have their human rights respected and are able to seek safety and access legal protections and asylum wherever they are fleeing to, including in the United States. We work to change and improve the humanitarian system by developing guidance and tools to shape and strengthen practice on the ground as well as inform policy and funding priorities to secure tangible improvements in the lives of the most marginalized among the displaced persons
Strategic Priority 1:
WRC informs and influences the integration and promotion of gender equality in humanitarian contexts to improve outcomes for displaced women, children, and youth. We do so by advocating for a humanitarian response that reflects a rights-based, progressive concept of gender that respects gender diversity, and recognizes and addresses the impact of power relations on access to and control over resources.
Strategic Priority 2:
WRC informs and influences the development and implementation of resilience-based approaches in humanitarian settings, to improve outcomes for displaced women, children, and youth. We do this by (i) promoting the inclusion of women, children, and youth, in resilience-based approaches and frameworks, and (ii) advocating for humanitarian response that strengthens the capacities of women, children, and youth in all their diversity.
Strategic Priority 3:
WRC has an organization-wide, cross-departmental planning, measurement and learning framework that clearly integrates the theory of change and allows the organization to monitor progress, identify gaps, learn from its experiences, and make decisions.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
WRC’s theory of change begins and ends with the communities that we serve. WRC’s three-pronged approach consists of researching the needs of women, children, and youth, collaboratively identifying community-driven solutions, and advocating for change through targeted policies and programming. That is the expertise WRC brings to bear—expertise grounded in what we learn by listening to crisis-affected people themselves.
In the first months of 2022, more than 100 million individuals were displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations. Climate change and the resultant displacement will be the defining problem of the 21st Century, expected to cause 150 million people to be displaced by 2050. The changing nature of conflict and displacement necessitates rethinking the traditional humanitarian response. To improve sustainability and efficiency, the response must be driven by those closest to the crisis – the affected populations themselves, local NGOs, and host governments – and it must build on the strengths, capacities, and coping strategies of refugees and the internally displaced. This will necessitate moving from a needs-based approach to a resilience-based response.
Further, as current responses have not advanced the needs, protection, and participation of displaced women and girls far enough or fast enough, re-emphasizing the promotion of gender equality is vital to improving the effectiveness of humanitarian response. Gender equality refers to the equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of women, men, girls, and boys. Gender equality implies that the interests, needs, and priorities of both women and men are taken into consideration, recognizing the diversity of groups of women and men. Gender equality is not only a women’s issue and should concern and fully engage men as well as women. Equality between women and men is both a human rights issue and a precondition for sustainable human development.
WRC advocates for equal rights, equal access, and equal opportunity for women, men, girls, and boys. We work to ensure that humanitarian policy and practice are both gender-sensitive and gender-transformative – availing of the opportunities conflict and displacement provide for the expansion of women’s rights and for challenging existing inequalities and practices that can affect all groups, such as gender-based violence. WRC understands that gender equality in its broadest sense is essential to the achievement of freedom, human dignity, and self-reliance, and to the provision of meaningful and durable solutions to pressing humanitarian challenges. Domestically, advancing gender equality necessitates ensuring that women with protection needs can fully exercise their right to asylum: that they are informed about their rights, have access to legal counsel, are appropriately interviewed, do not face separation from their children, and are not placed in detention facilities.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
WRC has been working for over 30 years to center gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment in global responses to some of the world’s darkest challenges. Underlying each program area is our focus on bolstering gender equality and women’s agency and leadership, building self-reliance, and fostering inclusion of marginalized groups in decision-making.
With dramatic increases in the number of people impacted by instability, poverty, and displacement, WRC’s advocacy and research in the humanitarian and development nexus has strengthened community and government resilience, bolstered localization efforts, and created the tools that promote gender equality, economic and social justice for women and girls, and gender-transformative change.
WRC pilots innovative approaches with field-based partners; conducts assessments and evaluations of crisis response efforts; provides technical assistance to partners to assist them in improving their services; produces guidance, tools, and resources to inform practitioners; advocates with donors and policymakers on priorities and needs; and maximizes reach and impact through robust communications mediums. This work has fostered gender-transformative improvements at household, community, and systemic levels. We seek to transform how the global community works and achieve impact through gender-transformative approaches built on synergistic advocacy, communications, and programming.
Sustained advocacy around funding priorities, policy developments, and programmatic approaches are required to push donors, policymakers, and practitioners forward. WRC is well placed to contribute to and lead these efforts. As an organization that works with and through networks, coalitions, and partners and participates in and leads relevant working groups and task teams, WRC sits squarely between humanitarian and development organizations; between humanitarian and human rights agencies; and between academia and applied practice. WRC is both a catalyst for change and the connective tissue that brings coalitions and networks together to promote catalytic improvements in the protection, health, and well-being of people, particularly the most marginalized, in crisis-affected and fragile states. WRC’s broad array of individual, governmental, foundation, corporate, and multilateral agency donors support the organization’s work.
WRC is recognized internationally for cutting-edge work on a wide range of issues—the U.S. State Department, donor governments, and UN agencies turn to WRC to inform their program and policy work on displaced and asylum-seeking women, children and youth. WRC is frequently invited to meet with officials, conduct high-level trainings, join coalitions, and provide input on legislation and policy. WRC fosters an environment for organizational learning through a robust monitoring and evaluation system.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
WRC has made landmark contributions to humanitarian response on integrating gender considerations.
WRC is recognized as a leader in defending the human rights of migrants, empowering migrant and refugee women, children, and families to seek protection and safety, including asylum at international borders, and holding the U.S. government and other policymakers accountable when they violate those rights. WRC continues to monitor conditions of detention and access to asylum, attorneys, and due process.
WRC’s 1994 ground-breaking study “Refugee Women and Reproductive Health: Reassessing Priorities” resulted in lifesaving sexual and reproductive health care that is now a global standard and part of humanitarian response from the very onset of an emergency. Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) policy advocacy contributed to increased support for UNFPA, more than doubling U.S. contributions to UNFPA for its critical SRHR and gender-based violence (GBV) functions. WRC serves as the secretariat for the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises.
WRC put GBV on the humanitarian agenda in 2001 and worked to ensure that the prevention of and response to it were integrated in health, livelihood, disability, and protection programming for women and girls. WRC leads the multi-agency Call to Action to Address GBV in Emergencies effort and continues to lead work on how GBV risks affect different population groups, and promotes tailored risk mitigation strategies. WRC led humanitarian response efforts to protect and empower adolescent girls and put sexual violence against displaced men and boys on the humanitarian radar.
In 2009, WRC published the first comprehensive manual on livelihoods programs for displaced people: “Building Livelihoods: A Field Manual for Practitioners in Humanitarian Settings.” This groundbreaking manual has been used by the UN Development Program, UNHCR, and NGOs to train their own staff.
WRC’s Refugee Self Reliance Initiative has engaged 35 partners using the Self-Reliance Index to measure the impact of their livelihood programs in 25 countries. We reached some 50,000 refugee households (200,000 refugees) and aim to reach 5 million in 5 years.
WRC’s seminal 2008 report “Disabilities Among Refugees and Conflict-Affected Populations” provided innovative recommendations to improve support for refugees with disabilities across humanitarian program sectors. WRC is one of two humanitarian NGOs leading on the special protection needs and programmatic responses for LGBTQI+ displaced people.
WRC will continue to advance women’s economic empowerment, prevent and respond to gender-based violence, protect and empower adolescent girls, mitigate child marriage and female genital mutilation, and improve access and quality of SRH services and rights, focusing on bolstering gender equality and women’s agency, leadership, and self-reliance, and fostering inclusion of marginalized groups in decision-making.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Women's Refugee Commission
Board of directorsas of 02/07/2023
Ambassador (Ret.) C. STEVEN MCGANN
Founder of The Stevenson Group
Term: 2020 - 2023
MARIA ALEXANDRA ARRIAGA
Managing Partner at Strategy for Humanity LLC
Term: 2022 - 2025
MADELYN BUCKSBAUM ADAMSON
Board and Executive Committee of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York and the Board of the Hadassah Foundation
Analisa Allen
managing director and Chief Information Officer for the Chase Consumer and Community Banking Data and Analytics Platforms at JPMorgan Chase
Liz Appel
author
Heather Beckman
Catherine LaCour
Chief Marketing Officer for Blackbaud
LEILA RASSEKH MILANI
Program Director for Global Policy and Advocacy for Futures Without Violence
Joanna Pozen
Co-Executive Director of Restore Health and Curriculum Development Specialist at the Algorithmic Transparency Institute
Diana Sinti
co-leads Deloitte’s Financial Services Human Capital and M&A and Restructuring practice
Carrie Welch
Chief External Relations Officer The New York Public Library
SUHAS YERRA
Technology Head for General Insurance, AIG
Nandana Dev Sen
writer, child-rights activist, and an award-winning actor
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 10/28/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.