Background

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) have brought together their technical expertise and practical knowledge to collaboratively developed a Policy Guide on Entrepreneurship for Migrants and Refugees, published in 2018. In order to complement this endeavour, UNCTAD, UNCHR and OIM have joined efforts with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to develop the e-learning course Entrepreneurship for Migrants and Refugees.

Objectives

UNITAR developed this tool by adapting the information to an interactive version, by reorganizing its content for learning purposes. The course is based on UNITAR’s sound pedagogical principles for adult learning. Each module includes additional reading and evaluation activities. These are distributed to ensure that the learning objectives are achieved in a flexible manner.

It aims at strengthening the skills of different stakeholders, especially policymakers and practitioners, to overcome some of the challenges for economic and social inclusion of migrants and refugees. It provides the necessary guidance for the formulation of effective, proportionate, and constructive management on the complex challenges that have existed worldwide for several years. It also envisions to promote a better understanding on the benefits of promoting entrepreneurship activities of migrants and refugees for sustainable development, given their needs and capacities as key actors in shaping their own destinies.

Our efforts are focused on catalysing the contributions of this group for the economic realities of both, origin, and destination countries; for example, their work has a positive impact on economic growth by increasing human capital and innovation in the labour market, as well as increasing the dissemination of knowledge and technological exchange.

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Structure

The five modules and the concluding remarks of this tool are based on the benefits of promoting entrepreneurship to achieve more inclusive and cohesive societies, linked to sustainable development and economic growth, with the following objectives:

• Including objectives and policy options aimed at identifying different means to support entrepreneurship among
• migrants and refugees.
• Identifying 35 case studies and good practices of policies, programs, and initiatives in developed and developing
• countries.
• Raising awareness through capacity building to increase opportunities to move towards more inclusive societies.

Since March 2020, over 700 participants trained and certified in various languages including English, Spanish and Arabic.