The World Bank has approved 180 million dollars in financing for the expansion of a welfare programme designed to bring refugees back to the workforce while in host countries. The "development response to displacement impacts" programme was launched five years ago with 100 million dollars in loans secured from the Bretton Woods institution. The federal government requested additional financing a year before the project's first phase was scheduled to come to a close last December. Officials said the extension was necessary to complete unfinished works in two weredas of the Somali Regional State, which had been interrupted due to security concerns. The additional funding may enable project managers to continue work in Tigray Regional State, which hosted five large refugee camps and where the programme was frozen following the outbreak of armed conflict in November 2020. They are part of the 27 camps hosting 845,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Ethiopia. Officials hope to see the second phase, which will run for five years beginning this month, reaching 2.5 million people, and around a quarter will come from refugees.
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