The deadline to deadline to apply for the Refugee-led Innovation Fund has been extended to 31 August.
This Fund is not about aid – it’s about shifting power and backing refugees as innovators and leaders. Hovig Etyemezian, Head of Innovation Service, UNHCR
First introduced in 2022 by the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) the fund offers a “comprehensive support package, including funding, capacity-building, and networking” to refugee-led-organisations (RLOs) transforming the lives of stateless people and the communities they improve.
In 2023, we spoke to Cécile Pango, founder and manager of the female-run RLO working out of Malawi’s Dzaleka refugee camp, Women for Action. Pango told us about the organisation’s aquaponics project, partnering with the Fund to train 100 women, the goal of providing food to at least 1000 people and giving females the tools to work in management and marketing positions.
She said: “They are flexible, the Fund, they do not put pressure on us so we are not stressed. Instead it stresses what you have done well and does not blame your faults. Therefore, we can take time to reflect and make minimum errors.”
The Fund is open to “any and all organizations led by forcibly displaced or stateless people” with leadership structures where “at least 50% of the individuals have lived experience of forced displacement or statelessness”.
Posting news of the latest funding round on Linkedin, UNHCR said: “This Fund is a unique opportunity for organizations led by forcibly displaced and stateless people who are delivering new solutions to tough challenges facing their communities, We’re looking for: ideas that push boundaries and that have the potential to drive lasting positive change for refugees and host communities.”
Apply by 31 August.
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