Tech Tools Offer Digital Lifeline to Refugees

May 4 , 2024


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  A digital platform that aims to connect skilled refugees and potential employers within the host communities was launched in a partnership between the UNHCR and Gebeya Inc. The project has onboarded 300 refugees into the system since its inception five months ago and hopes to reach 2,000 individuals across Gebeya's system soon. Ethiopia is currently the third largest refugee and asylum seeker hosting country in Africa, with close to one million individuals. The country also has an additional mass of nearly four million internally displaced individuals. The surge of conflict in neighbouring Sudan over the past year, along with the lingering impacts of the two-year conflict in the North, have tested the limits of Ethiopia's economic limits. Margaret Atieno, deputy representative of UNHCR, said matching skilled refugees with dignified work increases their role in the country's economy.


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