Assessing and improving social health protection for refugees The number of forcibly displaced persons currently around the world is higher than ever before. In 2015, more than 65 million people were either refugees or seeking asylum abroad, or displaced within their own countries. Fleeing conflict or persecution, many make harrowing journeys in attempts to escape violence and persecution at home. Once in their country of refuge, however, refugees and asylum seekers face new increased protection risks and hardship. Increasingly, many refugees live in cities together with local populations. Today, over 60 per cent of the world's 19.5 million refugees live in urban environments. This makes it possible for refugees to seek and receive care at public health centres or visit facilities participating in public social health insurance schemes. UNHCR may contribute financially, including through payment of premiums and, in some cases, by covering insurance co-payments of services for primarily vulnerable refugees. The integration of refugees into national systems is generally regarded a win-win, as it fosters peaceful coexistence, self-reliance and resilience. Through its Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), UNHCR strives to reach from the New York Declaration in 2016 to the establishment of a Global Compact on Refugees, thereby bringing together State and non-state stakeholders to deliver an integrated response to refugees and host communities, driving forward the agenda of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) in an equitable and predictable way. The International Labour Organization (ILO) also works to promote the development of public social health protection systems and universal access to health care for all through the creation and improvement of countries’ national social protection floors as defined in ILO Recommendation concerning national floors of social protection, 2012 (No. 202). The ILO strategy addresses the gaps in health care coverage and financial barriers to access through the development of efficient and effective public social health protection systems. This is directly relevant to achieving SDG 3.8 on universal health coverage. On 1 July 2016, UNHCR and the ILO signed a new Memorandum of Understanding, designed to engender a new and deeper phase of collaboration between the two organizations. The agreement focuses on long-term solutions for refugees and others displaced by conflict and persecution. The objective of this partnership is to bring together the social protection expertise of ILO with the refugee protection mandate of UNHCR to further seek opportunities and implement integration schemes for refugees into existing national social protection systems, specifically health insurance schemes with the aim to allow refugees to access health services at the same level as nationals, through shared risk mechanisms. UNHCR together with the ILO will commission: 1) Six country assessment studies (five financed by UNHCR and one by ILO) in select countries to explore options for the social health protection of certain refugee populations. 2) One workshop (financed by ILO) at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva with operational bureaus to provide debriefings on previous country assessments completed in a previous phase of the ILO-UNHCR partnership on the social health protection of refugees 3) An update of UNHCR’s operational guidance for refugee health provision (financed by UNHCR) based upon recent practice and evidence.