WFP Self Reliance 2021 After generations of statelessness and marginalization in Rakhine State in Myanmar, extreme violence has forcibly displaced almost 860,000 people across the border since August 2017. This sudden influx of the Rohingya has added to the already existing population of more than 200,000 Rohingya who have been seeking shelter for years in Cox’s Bazar (CXB). Despite being one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, Bangladesh has been very welcoming to the Displaced Rohingya Population (DRP). However, the speed and scale of the influx has exceeded the capacity of the host country to provide adequate assistance to them, while putting a heavy burden on the host community (HC), an already poor and vulnerable population. Based on our ongoing interventions and to address the growing economic DRP empowerment needs, ICCO Cooperation conducted a needs assessment on livelihood challenges and opportunities amongst DRP in April 2018. Based on this needs assessment and complementary secondary data, it has been observed that the absence of income generating opportunities for self-reliance have become a major concern. Even after months/ years from the influx, the DRP are forced to primarily rely on humanitarian assistance for their basic needs and survival, including access to food and income. This is largely because the current government (GoB) policy restricts them from earning any kind of income, and there is no formal source of livelihood among the camp population, making people fully dependent on external assistance. According to the 2019 and 2020 Joint Response Plan (JRP), all DRP rely on massive food assistance and over 90% of them can only access food through humanitarian actors. Despite the restrictive policy, our needs assessment found that Rohingya men frequently engage in informal income generating activities outside the camp settlements. Prime sources of income are casual labor and selling of humanitarian relief items. Rohingya women are hardly involved in income generating activities. In this context, WFP has been implementing self-reliance activities for the DRP since 2018. With the assistance from different partner agencies, WFP now intends to upscale these interventions into more areas covering more than 30,000 households so that Rohingya men and women, at risk youth, elderly and Persons with Disability (PWD) get the opportunity to be economically empowered. Considering the limitation of having full-fledged income earning opportunities inside the camps, WFP intends to utilize all avenues of current humanitarian support providing scenarios to assist the DRP in their path of self-reliance. One of such topics where WFP intends to scale up its effort in this regard, it’s the management of the waste created by WFP itself due to the packaging items used to distribute in kind food items (i.e. super cereals, RUSF, RUTF, high energy biscuits) to the DRP. Solid waste management is a crucial challenge for the refugee response, but at the same time a great opportunity for value creation in the camps. In order to reduce the amount of waste produced and better manage its environmental footprint, WFP intends to scale up its effort in the camps to engage both in recycling waste (mainly connecting with existing scrap dealers’ associations) and up-cycling specific materials (aluminum wrappers from different WFP food items). The up-cycling activity is one of the options where WFP intends to continue involving a larger number of Rohingya men and women, at risk youth, elderly and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) to extend them the opportunity to be economically empowered. In addition, skill training will be provided to PWDs and elderly to ensure they will be able to engage in different trades and eventually utilize the learned skills to create earning opportunities for themselves. The main objective of the project is to strengthen the resilience of Rohingya men, women, at-risk youth, elderly, and persons with disability. 

Specific objectives:  

1.Provide refugees additional income and skills through up-scaling/ recycling waste materials.  

2.Distribute up-cycled products to the community members  

3.Provide PWDs and elderly with different skills and trades to support their economic growth Project target groups would mostly comprise youth men and women. It is expected that they would be willing to expand their skill-sets by learning about new technologies and being engaged in income earning activities.  
1. A total of  1160 BNFs from Rohingya Community for the recycling project, out of them 500 male for waste or collecting, sorting, cleaning the waste gathered from the WFP distribution and learning centres/ door-to-door collection and operating the machines in the centres,500 (100 in each centre) female WFP tailoring graduates who have already received training from other WFP projects, (160) will be involved in providing awareness sessions in the communities on the relevance of recycling/ keeping separately the WFP packets and as guards/ cleaners.
2. A total of , 270 PWDs will be identified with the support of specialized organizations,  which will involve them in learning different trades.