PAGE 2 2020 YEAR IN REVIEW 2020 will forever be known as the year the world was turned upside down by Covid-19. It was also the first year that the global legal community came together to deliver on the Global Refugee Forum Legal Community Pledge (‘the Pledge’), a joint pledge made in solidarity by a diverse range of legal stakeholders at the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) in December 2019. The pandemic disproportionately negatively affected the lives of refugees, asylum-seekers, and others forcibly displaced, worsening the already precarious situation that these communities face in many countries. It also severely disrupted local legal assistance programs, including the ability of local legal aid providers to reach the displaced communities with which they normally work. Despite these challenges, in 2020, the global legal community mobilized itself effectively to deliver on a broad range of activities to improve access to justice for refugees and others forcibly displaced around the world. © PILnet What is the Global Refugee Forum Legal Community Pledge? At the inaugural Global Refugee Forum in 2019, more than 80 legal and community empowerment organizations, law firms, bar associations, refugee law clinics and corporations came together to collectively pledge to address the unmet legal needs of refugees and others forcibly displaced. Those that joined the “Mobilizing the Global Legal Community to Protect and Find Solutions for Refugees and Others Forcibly Displaced” pledge - also known as the Global Refugee Forum Legal Community Pledge - expressly committed to support efforts to protect and find solutions for refugees, asylum-seekers, stateless persons, and other forcibly displaced persons(1) and to increase the number of those displaced around the world who have equal access to justice in line with Sustainable Development Goal 16 "Equal Access to Justice for All." The wording of the Pledge and up-to-date information about its implementation can be found on PILnet’s forced displacement page.