Livelihoods Innovation through Food Entrepreneurship (LIFE) project. This initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, focuses on creating and expanding enterprise opportunities in the food sector for both refugees and host communities. It includes entrepreneur incubation programs, mentorship, and support services, leveraging food as a medium for cross-cultural exchange and understanding. This food business incubator programme for refugees and host communities in Istanbul and Mersin has graduated 162 food entrepreneurs to date. Participants in this program have shown increased income and business success, with many establishing registered businesses or becoming self-employed entrepreneurship as a powerful tool for unleashing their economic potential and talents1
Entrepreneurship Programme for Refugees implemented by the African Entrepreneur Collective, focusing on business development and grants/lending for refugees. AEC has made 6,452 investments in refugee businesses: 52% of these women. Their model of social incubation and local innovation, focused on solving problems identified by the community itself, emphasises local ownership and participation. AEC made a significant commitment at the Global Refugee Forum in 2019 to support 35,000 refugee and host community entrepreneurs in five countries by 2024.
Kiva Refugee Investment Fund (KRIF) is a lending facility set up by Kiva, an international nonprofit, with the mission to expand financial access to underserved communities. The KRIF focuses on scaling microfinance around the world to support refugee entrepreneurs. To date, Kiva has mobilized philanthropic lenders through its crowdfunding platform to provide over $13 million to more than 15,000 refugee entrepreneurs.
[1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/05/06/entrepreneurship-as-a-way-of-economic-empowerment-for-syrian-youth-in-turkey

These entrepreneurship programmes have adopted several innovative approaches:

Digital platforms and matchmaking: Programs like RIMP use digital platforms for B2B opportunities, matching local and global businesses.
Capacity building and training: AEC provides training and mentorship.

Access to finance: Initiatives provide affordable capital and financial linkages (e.g. AEC), with RIMP facilitating investments and sales resulting in job creation.

Business development services: Tailored services like those offered by RIMP and AEC help businesses scale and access new markets.
Policy linkages and institutional development: Programs work with local authorities for sustainable entrepreneurship efforts and policy influence.
Gender-specific support: Some initiatives incorporate a gender lens in support efforts, focusing on female entrepreneurs.
Advocacy and Outreach: Global advocacy and knowledge dissemination mobilise further support and investment (e.g. WB through RIMP).
Critical for CSJ will be to learn from these approaches, what has worked and what hasn’t and determine what learnings could be leveraged for hosts and refugees for CSJ.

Understanding the key factors that lead to successful growth of refugee and host businesses, both for on and off-farm is critical to overcome the barriers that entrepreneurs in these situations frequently face, such as limited access to capital, markets, and networks. Furthermore, it is also important to understand innovative ways to deliver BDS, or other entrepreneurship services in the refugee hosting context.

Objective of this assignment

The objective of this research is to analyze and synthesize entrepreneurship models and growth strategies to inform the strategic development of private sector development initiatives by CSJ within refugee hosting areas. Scope of work

The research will explore the following: Overview of existing business and entrepreneurship models. We want to understand what has worked in entrepreneurship growth in other contexts, not only for refugee and hosting areas, so that we can design interventions that will help to develop the local private sector in these hosting areas. Determine what has worked in other programming.

Assess existing entrepreneurship programmes in refugee hosting areas globally (e.g. RIMP, Prospects, Kiva Refugee Fund, AEF/Inkomoto, CIPE, etc). This will be through a literature review plus interviews. eCz5JtB veIMj
Look at other successful programmes that grow local private sector focusing on vulnerable populations, to extract relevant elements that could be adapted for CSJ's targeted settlement areas. Determine the elements that are valuable for CSJ to focus on.
Identify key success factors, challenges, and innovative approaches employed by these programmes.