Tent Partnership For Refugees, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Jones Day launch new research on refugee entrepreneurship

On Tuesday, September 22, the Tent Partnership for Refugees, TrustLaw, and Jones Day, co-hosted a virtual event to preview a new report: “Refugee Entrepreneurship, Business Ownership, and the Right to Work in Host Communities: A Legal Comparative Analysis”.

The study analyzes the laws that regulate whether refugees can own and operate businesses and access business financing in some of the major refugee-hosting countries, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, and Uganda.

Speaking to the importance of the research during the event, Gideon Maltz, Tent’s Executive Director said, “We know that refugee entrepreneurship is important and worth supporting – but it’s often extremely opaque as to what’s legally permitted in many key host countries. That obviously creates a tremendous challenge for companies, and other organizations, looking to work with refugee entrepreneurs. And that’s the gap that the report fills… It also creates a blueprint for identifying needed areas for reform, so we can work together to create the conditions for refugees to contribute and stand on their own feet.”

To learn more about the report’s findings, download the executive summary at the link below, and stay tuned for the full analysis which will be published next month.