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Building on a workshop held in 2019 at the University of Edinburgh, we have now published a full draft report on the challenges and opportunities in current approaches to facilitate digital work and education among refugees. For a write-up of the vibrant discussions and presentations from the workshop, please have a look at the report here.

Some of the major insights we gained from this workshop built on years of experience in building digital refugee livelihoods from the ground up, ranging from cases in Africa and the Middle East to Europe and the UK. The next step will be to strengthen the network of development practitioners, researchers, and social entrepreneurs that took part in the workshop in order to work towards the three main goals of Refugeework.net: fairness, access, and evidence.

Overview of contents

Introductions 

• Digital work and migration: unpacking a complex relationship (Andreas Hackl)
• Digital platforms and decent work for refugees (Meredith Byrne)
• Information enabled community engagement and refugee empowerment in the digital world (Irene Omondi)

Defining major challenges for practice

• Challenges of digital skills and remote education
• Challenges of digital work and livelihoods

Part 2: From learning to earning: skills training and remote education     

• Digital skills training against marginalization? Insights and lessons from Lebanon (Sarah Kouzi)
• Coding New Lives & Careers for Refugees (Havva Arslan and Robert Gelb)
• From remote learning to remote work? The experience of Kiron and Jusoor, in supporting refugees to success in the digital era (Grace Atkinson)
• Defining major lessons for practice 

Part 3: Digital refugee livelihoods in comparison

• Towards Decent Digital Work? Syrian Refugees in Jordan and The Online Gig Economy (Jyotsna Khara)
• Gendered freedoms – How Syrian refugee women in Jordan navigate the digital world (Ann-Christin Wagner)
• Digital work and remittances: Discussing access and payment in comparison, with Kenya as a case study (Benjamin Hounsell)
• Livelihoods, innovation, and access to information among Rohingya refugees (Faheem Hussein)
• Defining major lessons for practice: What is needed to improve access and create decent livelihoods and sustainable solutions?
  • Digital livelihoods in urban settings
  • Digital livelihoods in refugee camps

Part 4: Social enterprise, microwork, and the role of the private sector 

• Social enterprise beyond boundaries? Building remote work opportunities for Syrians, Palestinians, and Lebanese in a restrictive context (Karina Grosheva)
• Perceptions of the private sector on remote work for refugees (Lorraine Charles)
• Platform Protocol: Adapting platforms for low-income migrant populations (Kirstin Lardy)
• Natakallam: Building digital work through remote language training with a start-up mindset (Nisreen Fansa and Ghaith Alhallak)
• The role of microwork in forced displacement: lessons from Iraq and Palestine (Giselle Gonzales)
• Bridge, Outsource, Transform (BOT): Building a remote work platform for marginalized communities in Lebanon (Charbel Trad)
• Identifying key lessons: connecting refugees to microwork platforms and the private sector