The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 76 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and provides assistance within education; information, counselling and legal assistance; livelihoods and food security; protection from violence; shelter and settlements; and water, sanitation and hygiene. We work in crises across 40 countries, where we help save lives and rebuild futures. In 2022 we assisted more than 9.8 million people.
LGBTIQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex) individuals encounter distinct and heightened risks of discrimination, violence, and exclusion throughout the phases of displacement: before, during, and after. Humanitarian contexts often exacerbate the challenges of discrimination, violence, and exclusion, compounding the vulnerability, stigmatisation, and risks faced by LGBTIQ+ individuals.
Presently, NRC lacks specific experience or expertise in working with LGBTIQ+ individuals. Our efforts in Safe and Inclusive Programming concentrate on the fundamentals of gender mainstreaming, but we currently lack guidance and capacity in this specific area. Safe and Inclusive Programming (SIP) is the terminology that NRC uses to describe the mainstreaming of protection, age, gender and diversity in programmes. NRC has worked on the roll-out of Safe and Inclusive Programming Minimum Standards, which includes a specific standard on inclusion (age, gender, and diversity mainstreaming).
As part of our commitment to aiding those in need, we are keen to learn more about the safe inclusion of LGBTIQ+ individuals in our services and strive to reduce barriers in a manner that is secure and avoids additional risks. This consultancy is intended to focus on collaborating with NRC country offices that have requested technical guidance and support and where it is deemed safe to undertake such efforts, with the view of ascertaining where else we can further implement this work safely within our organisation (incl. under what conditions/with what capacity).
In parallel, NRC, with support from the Swedish Humanitarian Unit, has launched a project on “Gender and inclusion mainstreaming for programme quality’’. NRC acknowledges that gender and inclusion mainstreaming in humanitarian organisations requires a multi-pronged approach to be successful and sustainable. The organisation is therefore implementing mutually reinforcing actions in 2024-2025, at three different levels: 1) development of a new policy that covers gender and inclusion, 2) investing in capacity-sharing to ensure that gender is integrated into our programming, and 3) address gender and inclusion in our organisational culture. This project is supervised and coordinated by the Safe and Inclusive Programming team, with support from NRC’s Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Lead.
This consultancy will also feed into this gender and inclusion project and will be managed jointly by the teams working on Safe and Inclusive Programming and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, ensuring combined efforts on programmatic and organisational aspects related to gender and diversity.
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