In March 2018, the Centre for Entrepreneurs – the UK’s entrepreneurship think tank – published ‘Starting afresh: How entrepreneurship is transforming the lives of resettled refugees’. The report makes a compelling case about why refugees possess many entrepreneurial traits, how they can contribute to the UK as business founders, and how providing tailored business support can increase business survival, ease public spending and strengthen social integration.
The report profiles refugee entrepreneurship programs operating in London, Copenhagen, Berlin and Sydney. Over 130 such initiatives have launched around the world in recent years to help refugees and those at risk of displacement achieve economic independence.
The Global Refugee Entrepreneurship Summit will create a platform where these emerging programmes can build an international peer-to-peer community to share good practice, align their monitoring and evaluation, and conduct joint advocacy campaigns.
By convening practitioners alongside investors, philanthropists and international organisations, the gathering will catalyse the actions needed to take the sector forward.
Main photo: Courtesy of the Centre for Entrepreneurs.
