Resettlement Diplomacy Network Senior Officials Meeting

Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Julieta Valls Noyes convened the first senior officials’ meeting of the Resettlement Diplomacy Network (RDN) under the inaugural chairmanship of the government of the United States. The meeting was held in Washington, D.C. from May 31 to June 1.

Government officials from Australia, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom, along with representatives of the European Commission, participated in the exchange.

The RDN meeting provided an opportunity for discussion on how states can collaborate to advance shared priorities on refugee resettlement and complementary pathways to protection. Participants discussed their continued commitment to Afghan resettlement and the key lessons learned from that evacuation and other emergency response efforts; opportunities to strengthen emergency transit infrastructure for refugees; the need to expand global identification and referral mechanisms for a growing number of pathways to protection; and opportunities for strategic cooperation on pathways across priority regions. On the second day of the meeting, participants were joined by key representatives from international organizations, civil society, and refugee led organizations to provide additional perspective on RDN priority issues.

The United States will convene a ministerial meeting of the RDN on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September 2023.

The RDN is a new multilateral initiative launched by the government of the United States in September 2022. Its goal is to drive high-level strategic and diplomatic engagement aimed at strengthening and expanding global resettlement and other pathways to protection. The RDN provides a trusted forum to identify opportunities for closer cooperation between its participants as well as to amplify, enhance, and elevate the importance of resettlement and complementary pathways as part of the global protection system.

The U.S. chairmanship of the RDN is supported by the Refugee Hub and the Migration Policy Institute, which serve as the co-hosts of the inaugural secretariat for the RDN.