Highlights

Context

Local Economic Development (LED) strategies are essential in forced displacement contexts. In the presence of a rapid population growth following a displacement crisis, Local Economic Development (LED) strategies with a focus on attracting the private sector and enabling refugee-led businesses could help cities benefit from the presence of displaced communities, support welfare generation and lead to job creation for displaced and locals alike. Strengthening the capacities to mobilize the private sector for job creation and business development is therefore a key focus for host municipalities.

There is a strong interest among members of the CMI-managed Host Municipalities Learning Network (HMLN) to engage with the private sector and build capacities in enabling refugee-owned businesses and employment. In response, and building on presentations and discussions held during the 2nd edition of the Capacity Building Workshop on Strategic Planning for LED in host communities (Amman, Jordan, June 30 – July 4, 2019), this webinar will focus on refugee-led businesses and their role in the local host economies. It will discuss the benefits of refugee-led private sector activities, barriers to entrepreneurship faced by displaced populations and solutions to overcome those barriers. The Webinar is organized by CMI with support from Building Markets, a nonprofit organization that works on connecting local entrepreneurs to domestic, regional and global supply chains and supporting the growth of refugee-led businesses.

Since June 2016 the Mediterranean Host Municipalities Learning Network supports host local governments with evidence-based knowledge and Capacity Building to improve their response capacity to forced displacement. The Network have benefitted from face-to-face workshops and webinars on priority themes, as well as online discussions in the ad-hoc Collaboration4Development (C4D) online collaborative platform.

Objectives and expected outcome

This Webinar will present main findings of Building Market’s research in Jordan and Turkey on obstacles to refugee entrepreneurship, the role of local authorities and providing examples of best practices and solutions. It will specifically aim to:

• Offer a technical presentation on status of refugee employability and private sector engagement;
• Initiate a discussion on practical ways to strengthen and sustain refugee entrepreneurship and refugee-owned businesses development at the local level;
• Reconnect HMLN members and answer their learning requests in follow up to the 2^nd Capacity Building Workshop (Amman, Jordan, June 30 – July 4)

Participation in the Webinar

This webinar targets HMLN members, CMI partners and experts. It will consist of a virtual exchange allowing participants to interact by connecting directly from their computer or smartphone with internet connection. Arabic-English simultaneous interpretation will be provided.

Resources

Concept note, agenda and local starting times

Minutes of the webinar [EN/AR]