Safe Pathways
What is the safe pathways project?
Since 2018, more people have been forced to take dangerous journeys to reach the UK, while options for safe routes have become increasingly limited. Safe pathways do exist, but they are often inaccessible and focused on specific countries, such as Afghanistan, Hong Kong, and Ukraine. Expanding safe routes to include people of all nationalities is therefore urgent and essential.
The Safe Pathways Project works to make safe routes more effective, inclusive, and community-driven. In collaboration with the Community Sponsorship Alliance and experts in the field, we developed a policy framework to guide policymakers and improve the UK’s response to forced migration.
Our approach
Through focus groups, policy workshops, and a conference, we gathered perspectives from civil society organisations, people with lived experience of forced migration, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in the Home Office and Ministry for Housing and Communities.
From these discussions, we determined that a safe pathways framework must be:
- Inclusive - open to people from all nationalities and based anywhere in the world with a connection to the UK.
- Community-led - develop existing community sponsorship and welcome initiatives that are proven to promote better integration outcomes; strengthen and empower UK communities.
- Scalable and sustainable - strengthen and expand infrastructure within government and local authorities; develop community capacity for a continued pathway to sanctuary into the future.
- Adaptable - rapid responses to global events without relying on new schemes each time. Open to various forms of sponsorship, including education and work pathways.
Our research found that there is significant potential for a safe pathways scheme that responds to all four principles, through expanding and developing existing community-led sponsorship.
Community sponsorship enables local groups to take direct responsibility for welcoming and supporting refugees in a host country. In the UK this includes resettling a family in their local community by securing suitable accommodation for at least two years, helping the family navigate UK culture and services, and providing ongoing support toward employment and meaningful participation in community life.
The policy framework
Our framework provides tools to develop a fairer, more inclusive UK approach to forced migration. It focuses on expanding community-led safe pathways and offers guidance in four key areas:
- Sanctuary Mechanism – outlines entitlements that will give sanctuary seekers that arrive through safe pathways a sense of safety and how these can complement existing resettlement and asylum programmes.
- Naming and Matching – introduces the possibility for community groups to name the individuals they want to sponsor and calls for greater involvement of community groups in making arrangements pre-arrival.
- Welcome and Inclusion – shows how UK communities can foster inclusion and improve outcomes for both sanctuary seekers and society, including through diverse sponsorship groups.
- Monitoring and Evaluation – emphasises a robust approach to recording learning from implementing safe pathways to inform better policy in the future, as well as the need to clearly define and assign roles and responsibilities to relevant stakeholders.
Watch the launch event
To mark the launch of the framework, the report's authors joined experts online to explore the framework’s key recommendations, potential challenges, and its relevance to both UK and international policy contexts.
More Information
For more information about safe routes and community sponsorship, visit the Community Sponsorship Alliance website.
For more information about welcome and integration, visit the Commission for the Integration for Refugees website.