There are nearly 4 million registered refugees in Turkey — of which around 3.6 million are Syrian — making it the world’s biggest host country for refugees. While the Turkish government has made efforts to enable refugees to obtain work permits, the vast majority still work in the informal sector in precarious and often exploitative conditions.
A partnership between the international NGOs SPARK and Qatar Charity, supported by the Qatar Fund for Development, aims to expand routes to formal employment for refugees in Turkey by providing education, training, and business development support.
Speaking to Devex from the United Nations’ Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, Quentin Tayfun Levet, SPARK’s regional program director for the Middle East, shared that the project has so far enabled more than 1,000 Syrian refugees to find a job, and supported more than 300 small and medium-sized enterprises. “That includes also some [businesses] that the refugees themselves have created alongside Turkish citizens,” Levet said.
The project intentionally focuses on improving prospects not just for refugees but also for the host community. “Having a project like this, where you have host beneficiaries and refugees at the same time working together in vocational trainings, in entrepreneurship, and so on, really … assists in bridging the gap between the host community and refugees,” said Ahmed Saad Al Rumaihi, director of external affairs at Qatar Charity.
At the forum, Qatar Charity also announced a pledge of $105 million for the next three years to fund the provision of water, sanitation, and hygiene, or WASH, services, economic opportunities, and shelter for refugees in the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia regions.
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