Challenge: Pakistan has provided refuge to millions of Afghans for more than 40 years and currently hosts more than 1.4 million registered refugees and asylum seekers. Several countries have created safe complementary pathways (CPWs) for Afghans (e.g., education or employment-based resettlement options), but accessing these can be challenging, particularly for women.  

Solution: Develop a user-friendly, multilingual digital platform for Afghans to more easily navigate and access CPW schemes. It will provide comprehensive information, leverage AI, and rely on partnerships with legal entities to deliver personalized guidance, with a particular focus on empowering women by addressing cultural and systemic barriers.  

Expected results: Built using strategic partnerships and community involvement, this accessible digital tool will empower users, particularly women, to navigate CPW processes effectively, increasing their access to education, employment, family reunification and other CPW opportunities.

Challenge: Despite efforts to prioritize science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, Malawi lags behind its peers in sub-Saharan Africa. Challenges are even greater for refugee learners, who are not integrated into government efforts, limiting their ability to access educational and job opportunities. 

Solution: Establish Innovation Garages – creative, hands-on learning hubs – in Dzaleka to foster STEM education via after-school clubs, leveraging a refugee-led digital centre and following Ministry of Education guidelines. These venues will also serve as an advocacy platform to integrate refugees into the plans and programmes of government and development actors. 

Expected results: Boosted creativity among refugee and host community learners through digital skills and access to advanced technologies. Enhanced competitiveness and inclusion, with students connected to universities. 

Challenge: In Kenya, refugees can request services and appointments with UNHCR through an automated system – Kiosk Automated Services and Information (KASI) – but innovative approaches are needed to mitigate opportunities for fraud and corruption.  

Solution: Leveraging Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) – a mobile protocol usable without internet access – to develop an alternative avenue for scheduling service requests that relies on familiar, reliable, and accessible technology. The solution accounts for language, literacy, and internet access differentials, offering flexibility and coverage while preserving confidentiality. 

Expected results: Refugees will enjoy easier access to the system for making in-person appointments with UNHCR on critical areas of service, including biodata changes, refugee status determination counselling, and complaint and feedback mechanisms. 

Challenge: Existing digital solutions for cash-based interventions (CBI) do not address the specific needs of Syria’s diverse population or keep pace with changing financial regulations, resulting in many issues with accessing cash assistance. Information on entitlements, eligibility, and troubleshooting is scattered, requiring people to contact multiple offices, hotlines, and websites just to get basic information.  

Solution: A tailored cash-assistance mobile app for refugees and internally displaced people, integrated with existing databases and management systems for seamless authentication. It provides multilingual access to personal CBI details, support, information on services, self-service tasks, and remote verification.  

Expected results: Refugees and internally displaced people benefit from easy, safe access to accurate information about CBI in Syria, enabling them to more easily access services. The app allows for direct feedback, promoting transparency, and reduces the need for costly visits to physical UNHCR locations from remote areas. 

Challenge: Over the past nine years, Yemen’s Marib Governorate has hosted 1.8 million internally displaced people – amounting to 90% of its population. Marib’s business growth remains the slowest in the country, and those who have experienced displacement often struggle to find livelihoods opportunities. 

Solution: Empower entrepreneurs in Marib through a comprehensive programme that aims to enhance their business management skills and increase their confidence with digital tools, via structured support and financial grants. 

Expected results: Strengthened self-reliance for internally displaced entrepreneurs. The project will equip 200 individuals with essential digital and entrepreneurial skills, while more than 60 will receive structured mentorship to develop and refine their business ideas. Around 20 will be supported with financial grants or start-up kits, and more than 60 will be connected to funding opportunities. 

Challenge: Refugee-led organizations (RLOs) play a vital role in community support and protection, yet they remain severely underfunded – receiving less than 1% of global humanitarian aid. Many lack digital visibility, making it difficult to attract donors and partners. 

Solution: Supporting RLOs in Rwanda – many of whom have no website or social media – to enhance their online presence and showcase their stories, boosting their credibility to donors and the public.   

Expected result: Participating RLOs will have a professional online presence and staff trained to maintain it and generate content, enabling them to more effectively showcase their work. This enhanced online presence will attract more partnership and funding opportunities, helping to ensure the sustainability of their activities. 

Challenge: Refugees have limited access to digital devices due to cost barriers, while e-waste is a growing environmental concern. In addition, displaced communities face challenges gaining the skills they need to access technology-related livelihoods.

Solution: With the support of civil society initiative Doniraj Kompjuter, UN sister agencies, the private sector and local universities, UNHCR is training refugees and host communities to refurbish digital devices, which can then be provided free of charge to refugee and stateless communities, as well as other vulnerable people.

Expected results: Improved livelihood opportunities for community members, easier access to digital devices, enhanced connectivity and social inclusion, and reduced electronic waste. More than 20 individuals benefit directly from the programme, while more than 200 indirectly benefit.

Challenge: Forcibly displaced people face social and economic inclusion challenges, with few opportunities to build large-scale communities or develop skills that could help them access work in creative digital industries.

Solution: UNHCR is exploring ways to organise a game jam (an event/digital space where developers build a game from scratch) co-designed with refugees, to elevate the voices of the displaced, build community, and provide opportunities for skill and livelihood development in the gaming space.

Expected results: The feasibility study will suggest ways to deliver an impactful, refugee-driven game jam, to empower the displaced to tell their stories, link game designers with creative industries, and foster empathy and understanding. The study will advance UNHCR’s knowledge of digital leisure and livelihoods and identify opportunities for engagement with the video-game and related industries.

Challenge: Indigenous people from the Warao, Taurepang, E’ñepá and Kamarakoto communities displaced from Venezuela produce handcrafted items to generate income, but these refugee artisans – mostly women – have difficulty selling their products due to the limited market and cost barriers to acquiring a physical space.

Solution: UNHCR together with Serviço Jesuíta a Migrantes e Refugiados will engage 20 existing and early-stage businesses led by displaced Indigenous people, providing training on using online marketplaces and managing digital risks.

Expected results: Increased livelihood opportunities in digital marketplaces with the scale-up of existing businesses of displaced Indigenous people, as well as the development of handbooks and methodologies to guide similar projects in other UNHCR operations. The initiative will indirectly benefit around 150 people.

Challenge: In Guayaquil, limited connectivity and livelihood opportunities – in a context of increasing insecurity and violence – drives communities to negative coping mechanisms and prevents them accessing digital education, livelihood, and protection opportunities.

Solution: Using blockchain technology, UNHCR will facilitate a decentralised, innovative, low-cost, community-based internet service that can be managed by community members to facilitate access to digital livelihood opportunities. Nonprofit Girls in Tech has trained 30 young community members to strengthen their digital skills and familiarize themselves with this service.

Expected results: 150 people benefit from affordable, community-managed connectivity services, enhanced digital inclusion, skill-acquisition, and sustainable livelihoods, with a business model that could potentially be scaled up. A further 10,000 people indirectly benefit.

Challenge: Lack of familiarity with documentation for displaced Venezuelans in Peru, combined with inability to apply past work experience and technical training to Peru’s job market, prevents highly qualified individuals from accessing decent livelihood opportunities, resulting in low wages and often exploitative conditions.

Solution: In close collaboration with Union Venezolana and Talent Beyond Boundaries, UNHCR will create an online national registry to facilitate links with opportunities in the labour market for refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants. The registry will allow profile-matching with labour needs identified by employers.

Expected results: Increased opportunities for Venezuelans to access formal employment according to their profiles, skills, experience, and interests while easing the recruitment process for employers. More than 1,000 people benefit directly, and a further 4,500 benefit indirectly.

Challenge: Encampment policies for refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi limit access to socioeconomic opportunities and exacerbate poverty. These issues are compounded in the Dzaleka settlement by the shortage of skilled workers in the community.

Solution: UNHCR is providing 50 community members with digital skills mentorship and onboarding onto digital labour platforms, as well as connectivity and laptops to facilitate freelance work online.

Expected results: Enhanced self-reliance and improved online livelihood opportunities, as well as economic and social inclusion (with project participants assisted to open bank accounts and secure identity cards). The project will indirectly impact 400 individuals.

Challenge: Limited access to computers, internet connectivity, digital skills, and information about existing opportunities prevents refugees, especially young people, from accessing online scholarships and jobs.

Solution: An online job and scholarship help desk run by digital careers counsellors, to help refugees navigate job boards and scholarship websites, and to develop and submit applications. 32 forcibly displaced people will be trained to serve as counsellors.

Expected results: Livelihoods opportunities for 32 community members trained as counsellors, as well as increased opportunities for other refugees with technical skills and/or academic backgrounds to secure jobs and scholarships. More than 6,000 people indirectly benefit.

Challenge: Low levels of digital literacy prevent refugees and asylum-seekers from accessing services, receiving relevant information, and using digital tools, particularly following the COVID-related shift to remote service provision.

Solution: UNHCR will co-create a digital literacy curriculum with refugee groups and explore ways to deliver digital literacy training through a community-based, refugee-led approach. The initiative will identify priority digital literacy needs to inform the design of the curriculum. A specific module has been developed on security and safety concerns, such as theft, fraud and cyber-bullying.

Expected results: Development of training materials, upskilling of a diverse group of 80 trainers, improved ability to access digital services, curriculum adopted by refugee-led learning centres for cascading impact. Up to 1,500 people indirectly benefit.

Challenge: Numerous online groups and social media channels have been created to offer support to Ukrainian refugees, but limited safeguards coupled with widespread use has increased refugees’ exposure to risks when looking for support or work online.

Solution: UNHCR will strengthen or establish a community-based vetting system for suspicious or malicious posts and develop refugee and social media administrator’s skills to identify and report such posts.

Expected results: Refugees’ exposure to online risks reduced, increased community engagement around this issue. 50 people will directly benefit from the programme, with up to 50,000 indirectly affected.

Challenge: Refugees in Tunisia face many barriers to accessing livelihood opportunities, due to a lack of documentation and marketable skills.

Solution: UNHCR will provide training on high-demand digital skills – such as web development and full stack development – to facilitate livelihood opportunities and increase prospects for complementary pathways in the tech sector.

Expected results: Refugees and their families will benefit from skills development and enhanced livelihood opportunities and self-reliance in Tunisia’s growing information and communications technology sector.