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New strategic partnership to promote jobs and education for refugees and host communities

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The Netherlands has joined an innovative partnership with the ILO to support refugees and their host communities.

GENEVA (ILO news) - The Netherlands and the ILO have launched a new strategic partnership to create livelihoods for refugees and host communities in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

Moussa Oumarou, ILO Deputy Director- General for Field Operations and Partnerships praised, the leadership of the Netherlands in facilitating what he described as a ‘visionary’ partnership involving ILO, UNICEF, UNHCR, IFC and the World Bank. The new programme will assist the most vulnerable populations, including those forcibly displaced from their homes and countries. It also targets host communities, which face ever growing challenges following the influx of refugees.

It focuses on the creation of jobs and livelihoods so that refugees can contribute to their new communities and prepare for a possible return to their countries of origin once that becomes possible. The idea is also to strengthen the resilience of those countries and communities that continue to offer their support to refugees.

The new programme will help scale-up and transform the global response to large-scale displacement, linking humanitarian work with sustainable development support.

The ILO will contribute its expertise on jobs and livelihoods for refugees that has been developed through similar projects in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

The programme will operate in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, as well as other countries in the Middle East and Africa. Besides job creation, programme activities will focus on skills development, prevention of child labour, strengthening of public employment services and social protection, as well as partnerships with the private sector.