Refugee Integration and Self-reliance in Ethiopia RISE Refugee Integration and Self-reliance in Ethiopia (RISE) is a Dutch Government funded project, that is designed in alignment with the Jobs Compact, which aims to expand the industrialisation agenda of the Ethiopian government while creating jobs for both Ethiopian citizens and refugees. To achieve the project objectives, interventions are designed uniquely to add value to the current initiation for refugee and host community self-reliance and integration, through engagement of Dutch private companies in a refugee inclusive business model. RISE (six month spanning pilot project) partners with Dutch affiliated private companies - who are willing and able to create wage employment opportunities to refugees and host communities residing in the capital. The lessons learned from this pilot contribute to intervention scale up thus creating more employment opportunities for refugee and host communities. The engagement of the private sector in the refugee labor market will provide more effective, innovative and sustainable assistance to empower these communities. Ethiopia is a host to the second largest refugee population in Africa, and is sheltering 928,663 (50.2% female) registered refugees from over nineteen countries (UNHCR, 2018). Ethiopia populates these refugees in six regions - Tigray, Afar, Ethiopia Somali, Benshangul-Gumuz and Gambela regions. Most of them are periphery locations with poor infrastructure and low development. About 60% of the refugees are children less than 17 years old and around 10% are unaccompanied minors. In total, there are 246,825 refugee households in which most are headed by women due to the violent conflict in their home country. While the conflict in neighboring South Sudan has resulted in a large recent influx of refugees of South Sudanese origin, many refugee groups have been living in Ethiopia for lengthy periods, in some cases for over 20 years. Currently, the refugee population consists of 48.1% South Sudanese, 27.7% Somalis, 18.6% Eritreans, 4.8% Sudanese, 0.2% Yemenis and 0.6% other nationalities (UNHCR, 2018). Most of the refugees fled their country as a result of insecurity, conflict, political instability and famine in their countries of origin.

Context of urban refugees : Most of the urban refugees reside in Addis Ababa. According to UNHCR report (July 2018), there are 22,802 registered refugees in Addis Ababa, mainly from Eritrea (79%), Yemen (8.3%), Somalia (4.9%), South Sudan (2.4%) and the rest are from other nationalities. It is also estimated that (anecdotally) there are about 70,000 Eritrean refugees settled in urban areas who are living out of camp. The majority are residing in Addis Ababa and few are based in other towns in Ethiopia. Although some refugees head to third countries, by far the majority of refugees stay within the country. Ethiopia continued its’ open-door policy towards the increasing number of refugees despite political and economic challenges of its own, including recurrent droughts, ethnic tensions, and unrest in some part of the country.

SNV’s experience in employment creation : In the Opportunities for Youth Employment (OYE) program in Tanzania, Rwanda and Mozambique, SNV has successfully engaged with numerous private sector companies to provide internships and opportunities for (self-) employment for rural out of school youth. While this is a category of people that is usually unattractive for the private sector, OYE’s approach is two-fold: preparing youth in a manner that they are considered to qualify for engagement with private sector companies, while banking on the business interest of the latter. In Ethiopia, SNV has been addressing women empowerment and youth employment creation as a priority cross-cutting issue in all its projects. Currently, Livelihoods Improvement for Women and Youth in Addis Ababa (LI-WAY) project, a market development programme in Addis Ababa has just successfully completed its inception phase, and may offer strategic linkages and opportunities for RISE. LI-WAY, initiated by Sida, is being implemented by SNV Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) as the lead along with development partners. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of at least 200,000 people, of which at least 50% are women and 75% youth, by increasing their income and access to economic opportunities. The project is facilitating systemic market changes so that these markets function effectively and sustainably; and also benefit the poor through key market players and (digital) systems that provide the basis for matching job seekers with markets/the private sector. The focus of the project is on labour and skills market in the growing manufacturing and microenterprise sectors.
In parallel, SNV is also investing in the successful implementation of a Challenge Fund, IAP that incentivizes small and medium sized businesses to invest in inclusive business innovations that generate employment opportunities for the low income market segment. The implementation of challenge fund like that of IAP has further strengthened SNV Ethiopia’s private sector networks both locally and internationally, and the skill and experience of productive private sector engagement for inclusive businesses.
Accordingly, the RISE project aims to enhance access to job opportunities, self-reliance and access to services for refugees and host communities in order to reduce risky secondary movements and to contribute to more stable social and economic livelihoods of refugees. This pilot project will mainly work with urban refugees, as they are in better position to easily integrate with host communities living in Addis Ababa . SNV will work on the main objective of integrating female and male refugees in the host community and enhance their self-reliance while building their employability skills and creating opportunities for increased income. To attain this there will be three pillars of intervention: work on the skills and capacity of refugees, work with private actors to provide more refugees and host community with decent jobs. At the same time the project will engage with government and public institutes for legal status and overall social integration to the system and host community. The approach will focus on enhanced soft and technical skills of refugees and host community. Skilled manpower will be in demand at all times which is one of the problems in the service and manufacturing sectors. The capacity building will enable the program participants to be competitive in the labour market. The private companies will be carefully identified based on their capacity, profitability and social corporate responsibility. The training and placement is made after thorough assessment of supply (refugees with aspirations, skills and interest) and demand (profitable and socially responsible companies). Coaching and on site supervisions on performance and relationship will ensure long term engagement between the companies and the employees/target groups. Employment, consistent income and job securities are important factors for the self-reliant refugee community. For refugees to integrate well, government should provide necessary legal support and the general enabling environment. The project will facilitate platforms to engage all concerned from the legitimacy aspect and for social integration, to discuss and provide solutions on issues that hinder integration like legal status, fear of loss of resources and, jobs to the host community. All are legitimate concerns but will need discussion and a fair and balanced understanding for fair solution and therefore smooth integration. The project approach and development will be shared with stakeholders at the platforms. The method of selection of refugees, trainings and capacity building and trainers who do their training including the curriculum is public property. This includes the way the businesses are selected and coached for decent refugee and host community jobs. Awareness creation tools to the host community will also be shared. The overall lessons learned of the project will be documented and shared by the project including the government to influence policy more specifically on the development and implementation of refuge responsive and inclusive business. Knowledge management, i.e. capturing and disseminating lessons learned, experiences and methodologies will make stakeholders, with government, private sector and service providers, will create awareness about the successes and other critical factors, motivating them to scale up the interventions and replicate them in other areas. This model of comprehensive and conscious development and integration of self-reliant refugees in host communities is the first of its kind. Lessons learned will be documented and shared as evidence to inform policy to stimulate change, and to create alterations and adaptations within the enabling environment and with the private sector for replication. The overall goal of pilot phased RISE project is to contribute to the self reliance and integration of 60 refugees and 70 host communities with 50% women through enhanced employ-ability, inclusive Dutch affiliated private company  engagement and access to necessary documents and services.  The project envisages three interrelated outcomes: 
-Improved performance of inclusive Dutch affiliated business companies
-Increased employment of refugee and host community
-Enhanced work-place protection and socioeconomic integration of refugee Urban Refugees residing in Addis Ababa  - 130