Entrepreneurship in Refugee Camps

As of 2019, the global total of displaced individuals is 70.8 million. This vast displacement has serious economic consequences. Entrepreneurship can in many cases offer better economic prospects to refugees. Using ICT tools can enable refugees to expand their business, however, one of the main obstacles is a low level of digital literacy. 

Our previous work in that camp shows that entrepreneurs rely on smartphones for regular communication with customers and suppliers but do not fully take advantage of the broad functionality of their devices. Advanced use of internet tools for data collection was extremely uncommon.

We plan to scale up to other camps where our partner Global Education Movement (GEM) operates; eventually, offering our digital literacy training to all refugee entrepreneurs.

Promoting entrepreneurship is increasingly viewed as an effective approach to overcoming some of the challenges of economic and social inclusion for migrants and refugees. The United Nations developed a guide on the role of entrepreneurship for refugees. This guide discusses technology exchange and innovative start-ups and it recommends the promotion of social innovation for refugees. One of the policy recommendations is to support initiatives that develop digital literacy. We propose a pilot project that would promote this initiative.

The proposed location for our pilot project is Dzakela refugee camp in Malawi with a population of 45,095 people (2019 data). The camp currently has approximately 50 active entrepreneurs. The next step will be an expansion to a camp in Kakuma, Kenya, with a population of 196,050 registered refugees (2020 data), where our partner GEM operates. Further expansion would be in all GEM locations (total of 5 locations, 4 in Africa and 1 in Lebanon). Eventually, active and potential entrepreneurs among 70.8 million displaced people could benefit from our solution. 

We propose a pilot study in Dzakela refugee camp in Malawi to enhance the digital literacy of entrepreneurs, in particular, how to collect data relevant for their business. Our previous work in that camp shows that entrepreneurs rely on smartphones for regular communication with customers and suppliers but do not fully take advantage of the broad functionality of their devices. Advanced use of internet tools for data collection was extremely uncommon.

Our training would include short audio/visual lessons about data collection and how to leverage the Internet and digital tools for business expansion. The educational material will be translated to Swahili and then recorded by our local partner (GEM) in Malawi.  GEM is an initiative by the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) that provides access to online degrees to refugee learners. Their network of graduates will be implementing the program locally in each refugee camp. They would translate our lessons and record short audio/visual modules in the local languages. The ultimate goal is to enable GEM graduates to become social entrepreneurs, carrying forward the proposed solution.

The target population for the pilot is the entrepreneurs in Dzakela refugee camp in Malawi. There are approximately 50 local businesses in operation and our team interviewed 25 of them. The overall aim of the interviews was to investigate the role of ICT technology, enabling or otherwise, on the prospect of self-reliance for refugees in Dzaleka camp.  Most respondents wanted to know from their customers how their services can be improved and how satisfactory their current services are according to their customer base. Some entrepreneurs were also interested in demographic information about their customers such as their purchasing power and personal preferences regarding the variety of products offered. The main obstacle in the way of realizing the benefits of ICT technology for many respondents was mainly a low level of digital literacy. Respondents felt that although they do rely on smartphones for regular communication with customers and suppliers they are not fully taking advantage of the broad functionality of their smartphone devices. 

We also plan to explore how to facilitate refugee access to e-commerce platforms to support the growth of their businesses, and how to leverage these technologies to create solutions to specific challenges such as financing limitations.

Our solution relates to the challenge of "Good jobs and inclusive entrepreneurship". It will support the marginalized populations, such as refugees, to create a sustainable business and expand their entrepreneurial opportunities. It aligns with the UN policy recommendations for initiatives to develop digital literacy in the light of self-reliance enabling refugees and host countries to find durable solutions.

Digital Literacy is about being able to make sense of digital media. Our target population is not low literate users which mostly make voice calls. They use more advanced tools, however, they are only on the first level of digital literacy, simple comprehension.

Our training will address the principle of interdependence–how one media form connects with another; and curation, the ability to understand the value of information and make it accessible and useful in the long-term.

There are courses in digital literacy but to our knowledge, none is aimed at the needs of refugee entrepreneurs. 

UNHCR partners with governments and international organizations to ensure quality education for refugee children and young people. However, there is no digital literacy education for entrepreneurs and the population at large. 

The current content on YouTube, an application our target population uses frequently, about data analytics and data collection on customers is designed for the developed environment where customers use credit cards and businesses keep digital records. There is no content that targets refugee entrepreneurs who are interested in collecting and analyzing data on their customers.

We aim to fill that gap by offering short audio/visual modules on multiple platforms that refugee entrepreneurs use in a language they understand and presented by people they trust. Members of our team are refugees themselves who live in the Malawi camp.

Since we will be providing tutorials about ICT technology and digital literacy we will use already existing technology such as applications refugee entrepreneurs primarily use. Our preliminary data shows that WhatsApp is widely used in the Malawi refugee camp and we plan to leverage that application. Also, refugee entrepreneurs frequently use YouTube to learn about products and services. However, language and lack of appropriate content is an obstacle which we will address. 

For the dissemination of the tutorial, we will use audio-visual media recorded in the local language. Most middle-range smartphones have excellent audio-visual recording capabilities. The modules have to be small in size to accommodate limited Internet bandwidth and speed. They will be distributed via WhatsApp or YouTube.

Members of our team have been working in the space of refugee entrepreneurship for several years publishing multiple academic papers on the topic. 

Existing publication by our team members: Brown, S., Hussain, F., & Masoumifar, A. M. (2019, May). Refugees and ICTs: Identifying the Key Trends and Gaps in Peer-Reviewed Scholarship. In International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (pp. 687-697). Springer, Cham.

Forthcoming publications by our team:

1. What Enables and Restrains Business Entrepreneurship in Refugee Camps in Malawi? A Search for Technology-related Causal Mechanisms. By Suzana Brown, P.J. Wall, Patience Desire, Dave Lewis, Lucy Hederman, Chrystina Russell, presented at the 2020 IFIP WG9.4 European Conference on the Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Manchester, June 10 and 11, 2020.

2. Connectivity and Entrepreneurship: Case Study of Refugee Camp in Malawi. By S. Brown, Patience Desire, Ali Masoumifar, Chrystina Russell. Submitted to the Joint Working Conference of IFIP Working Groups 8.2, 9.1 and 9.4, Hyderabad, India, December 10. – 11. 2020.

Our intended long-term impact is improving the lives of refugees. Our solution will support refugees to create sustainable businesses and expand their entrepreneurial opportunities, in the light of increased importance of the self-reliance  of refugees. To achieve that goal we will improve the digital literacy of existing entrepreneurs so that they can collect data about their customers. 

The immediate goal is to conduct a pilot project in one small camp in Malawi, Dzakela refugee camp. The outcomes from the pilot project will be comparing data from interviews with our target population before and after the training. 

To achieve our outcomes, entrepreneurs will need to:

• have better understanding and knowledge of data collection and analytics  
• use appropriate tools and understand their interconnection
• increased knowledge about their customers
• improve their business operation

The first level outputs will be an improvement in the digital literacy of refugee entrepreneurs. The second level outputs will be a positive impact on the business activity of refugee entrepreneurs. Finally, the third level output would be greater self-reliance and even possible expansion of enterprise operation outside the refugee camps with the integration of the refugees within host communities. 

We already identified the need to increase digital literacy in our previous research conducted in that particular camp. In the longer term, we plan to include other locations where our partner (GEM) operates.

Timeline: 

• first 9 months pilot project in Dzaleka, followed by expansion (within 6 months) to Kakuma refugee camp; 
• in the second year, scaling up by reaching 2 other GEM camps (Kiziba in Rwanda and South African urban migrants facility); 
• and eventually to all refugee entrepreneurs. 

In our first step, we will implement a pilot project in Dzaleka refugee camp, where we will reach around 50 entrepreneurs.

In the next step, scaling up to Kakuma camp in Kenya, where there are at least 730 entrepreneurs who operate in the food business (as cited by the World Food Programme) and numerous more in technical, farming, and transport businesses. In general, Kakuma refugee camp is regarded as a business hub for Turkana West sub-county and has over 1000 businesses in operation. 

Finally, because the project is done in cooperation with GEM, an international initiative of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), we will have expedited access to 2 other camps where GEM operates: 

1. Kiziba Refugee Camp in Rwanda (refugees)
2. Cape Town in South Africa (urban refugees and migrant workers)

Our pilot program can have a direct effect, within 1 year, on the entrepreneurs (around 50) and indirectly on their families and customers. In five years we expect to reach over 1000 entrepreneurs.

In the first year, in Dzakela camp, we will train two trainers and in Kakuma camp five trainers. 

In the next five years, we plan to enable refugees themselves to be trainers who will train others to improve digital literacy and empower them to expand this social enterprise to be refugee-led. 

Currently, there are legal restrictions on international travel. However, our approach is to leverage local on the ground partners, so within the first year, we would not need to visit in person any of the camps.

Another major legal barrier is the reluctance of host countries to allow refugees to seek employment in the host country. That barrier will require providing empirical evidence that such solutions would benefit host countries. 

Language and translation are other challenges but our local partners are fluent in English, Swahili and French, and after we provide them with adequate equipment will be able to record and offer the tutorials. 

There are also cultural and financial barriers. All our team members are aware of culture difference and were have a long-standing relationship with GEM and the local partners. Financial barriers will be difficult to overcome and we are developing a plan how to enable refugee entrepreneurs to get access to crowd-funding platforms.

The main long-term legal barrier is the reluctance of host countries to allow refugees to seek employment in the host country. If refugees become skilled entrepreneurs, they will have better opportunities in partnering with host country partners to expand their business activities. The ultimate goal of this project is to provide evidence that refugees can be a valuable part of many host countries, in particular, developing countries.  

The current team for the pilot project will include two university professors from SUNY Korea and two university graduates from GEM in Dzakela refugee camp in Malawi. Within the first year, we plan to expand the team with 5 more university graduates from GEM in Kakuma refugee camp. For example, we are currently recruiting an IT coordinator from the Jesuit Worldwide Learning/Students Of Loyola (JWL/SOL) in Kakuma.

The pilot project team will consist of the following members:

• Full-time will be two team members in Dzakela refugee camp. 
• Part-time will be two professors from SUNY Korea.
• The contractor will be an IT coordinator in Kakuma refugee camp.

Dr. Pravin Pawar is a research associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at SUNY Korea. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Professor Pawar teaches classes on data science and programming; and has been doing research on data collection and analysis in low and middle-income countries for the past 10 years. 

Dr. Suzana Brown has been an assistant professor at SUNY Korea for the past 5 years; previously working for 3 years a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Mellon University in Rwanda. She holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Telecommunications from the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. She teaches classes on How to build a startup, Starting a business venture, Interdisciplinary research methods, and Computer Networks. Her interdisciplinary research explores how modern telecommunications influence business models and contribute to sustainable development.

Desire Patience has a BA in Management from the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), and is fluent in English, French, Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda, and Kirundi. For the past year, he has been working as Dr. Brown's research assistant collecting data on entrepreneurs in Dzakela refugee camp.

Prince Lokendo has a BA in Management from SNHU and has been working in the mHub-Technology and Entrepreneurship hub in Dzakela camp where he provides mentorship and coaching to the business development team through capacity building engagements.

We are collaborating with Global Education Movement (GEM), an organization that provides access to online degrees to refugee learners by working with effective local on-the-ground partners. GEM is an international initiative of SNHU. 

Our primary goal is to train the trainers, and in this pilot project, we will train two refugee camp residents and graduates from GEM how to offer the audio-visual tutorials. Since this is a social entrepreneurship idea with a goal to achieve a balance of profit and positive change, we plan to adopt a mixture of entrepreneur support and market intermediary model. We will first offer our support services to the entrepreneurs in the camp. Second, if the service improves the earnings of the entrepreneurs in the camp, we expect that our trainers will able to start charging a fee for their service. 

The entrepreneur support will provide tech support and training to refugee entrepreneurs. The market intermediary model will connect refugee entrepreneurs to financial markets.

Initially, we will require donations and grants to get this project off the ground.  In the first phase, while providing digital literacy training we do not expect substantial internal revenue. In the second phase, when we develop ways to empower refugee entrepreneurs access the financial markets, we plan to develop a brokerage model selling our services. 

We need partners that will help the idea get more exposure in the media so we can raise additional funding. 

Another partnership that would allow us to better monitor our success and adjust our methodology.

The revenue model in the proposed solution is a challenging part and partners that can help us identify sources of alternative revenues will be critical. 

Finally, legal obstacles regarding the host country providing refugee entrepreneurs with opportunities to expand their potential market is imperative for scaling up of the proposed solution.  

Our solution promotes refugee resilience, self-reliance and integration.

Our solution advances inclusive economic growth through improving skills and greater digital literacy of refugee entrepreneurs.