• In Sudan, PROSPECTS specifically focused on supporting female groundnut growers in areas hosting refugees. There was a higher proportion of women participating as growers in groundnut production. The most relevant pathway was to support refugees and host communities to organize into cooperatives to provide services for themselves. The intervention organized female groundnut growers into cooperatives to address their otherwise limited access to markets. It also supported them with regard to value-added production and finance matters. A long period of awareness-raising, training and learning-by-doing was required before female groundnut producers from the refugee and host communities felt comfortable shifting from individual production to a cooperative structure. The added value of collective production was particularly relevant for female growers from the refugee community, who generally had lower levels of social and financial capital compared with their counterparts in the host community. It was important in this case for the programme to accompany cooperatives to the point where they saw the added value.
• In Ethiopia, the interventions were targeted at the dairy sector, which was replete with dairy cooperatives and showed considerable productivity and job-creation potential. A partnership was established with Vétérinaires Sans Frontières Suisse to provide technical assistance and support entrepreneurship and cooperative development for women and young people in host and refugee communities. Read about a Somali refugee’s journey towards forming a women’s cooperative.
• In Jordan, the approved amendments to the cooperative law mandated that at least three of the six representatives from the cooperative movement on the Jordanian Cooperative Corporation (JCC) Board of Directors be women. Strengthening the cooperative movement in Jordan has also helped many women-led cooperatives in the area. Learn more about their stories. 

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on gender and disability inclusion. 

• In Iraq, a digital monitoring tool was introduced and used by young engineers to monitor and report on Employment-Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) sites. The tool was designed to ensure adherence to quality standards, alignment with environmental and social safeguards, and safety standards across project sites, while also introducing a technology that would allow young people to gain work experience using digital skills.

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on the digital and gig economies. 

• In Lebanon, young people within the refugee and host communities were quickly mobilized to help with rubble removal and street-clearing as part of the Employment-Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) following the Beirut blast.
• In Kenya, young people were engaged in the mechanical removal and value addition of Prosopis, receiving training in skills like chainsaw operation.
• EIIP can target young people when linked to TVET courses. In both Ethiopia and Kenya, EIIP was integrated with efforts to expand TVET in refugee-hosting areas. A cobblestone production training course offered through a public TVET centre at county level specifically targeted young people. Students on the course got to participate in EIIP and put their learning into practice. In Iraq, EIIP was used to improve the physical infrastructure of TVET centres poriving TVET students  with the opportunity to apply their skills in practice in solar panel installation, painting, plastering, gardening and masonry.
• In Iraq, EIIP work rehabilitated the Zaha Hadid Youth Centre in Ninawa. The physical reconstruction was linked with institutional capacity building (in collaboration with UNICEF) to enable the rollout of training programmes for youth.
• In Uganda the construction of multi-purpose communice centres centers helped link youth with labour markets and business opportunities. The facilities, including the TVET hall, computer room, and sports ground, hosted activities such as youth film projects, graduation ceremonies, and social innovation boot camps. 

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on youth engagement. 

• An Employment-Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) approach was used to ensure specific attention was paid to increasing the participation of women in areas traditionally dominated by men, such as construction work. In Iraq, the ILO collaborated with the Women Empowerment Unit at the Directorate of Youth and Sports in Nineveh to rehabilitate the Zaha Hadid Youth Centre. The design and facilities of the centre were developed in consultation with the Unit to help ensure  they met the needs of young women and persons with disabilities in the area.

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on gender and disability inclusion.

• In Egypt, PROSPECTS trained staff from the Ministry of Youth and Sport (MOYS) as FE trainers, who then supported the roll-out of FE in MOYS youth centres. Similarly, PROSPECTS Iraq worked with FSPs to develop a wider network of enterprise support, encompassing the Ministry of Youth and Sport (MOYS), the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MOLSA), business associations, chambers of commerce and chambers of industry. MOYS youth centres and MOLSA TVET centres were used as training spaces, and staff served as trainers for both SIYB and FE. This helped link financial services offered by the FSPs to other forms of BDS support. The programme also institutionalized the tool within a youth volunteer organization that was affiliated to the MOYS. Find out more in the Iraq case study.

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on youth engagement.

• Female banking agents were hired in Ethiopia by Shabelle Bank to support outreach to female clients in more conservative areas. Find out more in the case study.
• Women in the Mina region of Iraq face significant socio-economic challenges, including systemic barriers to entering the labour market, with only one in ten participating – one of the lowest rates globally. To address this, the ILO partnered with the Lutheran World Federation in northern Iraq, providing more than 1,200 young women with skills in finance, business management and social cohesion to support enterprise development in more inclusive communities. In addition, the ILO, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Iraq, introduced a tailored financial product used by more than 300 female entrepreneurs, addressing challenges such as training, Sharia compliance and seasonal repayment. These efforts have enabled women to become role models in their communities, with some of them training and employing younger women, creating opportunities and driving long-term social change. Find out more in the case study. 

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on gender & disability inclusion. 

• PROSPECTS built on the approach developed through the ILO-UNHCR Memorandum of Understanding and Joint Action Plan rolled out over the decade preceding PROSPECTS. Initially, it focused on refugee inclusion in social health protection schemes, around which political will regarding inclusion was generally higher (for public health reasons, as well as perceived need), but then also turned its attention to additional types of benefits throughout PROSPECTS. The case of the National Disability Allowance (NDA) in Lebanon is a good example of how a universal approach can provide an entry point for the extension of the NDA to refugee people with disabilities (PWDs).
• In the case of Kenya, the Kenyan National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) approached the ILO to develop and cost a universal maternity benefit for the country. PROSPECTS joined forces with an EU-financed social protection and public financial management project to design and cost a maternity income benefit for women in the informal economy, which would mean female refugees enrolled in the NHIF would also receive a new maternity cash benefit. Several workshops were conducted with key stakeholders to agree on the design.
• In Jordan, a two-way chatbot was developed and piloted with Jordan’s Social Security Corporation (SSC), and the analysis of the data revealed higher attrition rates among women and self-employed workers. This highlighted structural barriers that these particular groups faced, such as short-term contracts in the female-dominated education sector and irregular monthly incomes of self-employed individuals. This prompted a refinement of the subsidy design and introduction of a child benefit. By November 2024, 92 per cent of those who had registered for social security through the Estidama++ programme had transitioned into regular social security and continued to make contributions independently of the programme’s subsidy.

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on gender & disability inclusion.

• In Jordan, JSCs were first piloted in partnership with the Ministry of Youth centres, later the methodology was adapted to focus on green jobs. The team in Jordan also started to train JSC alumni as facilitators, engaging youth as part of the delivery of the services rather than simply as recipients.
• In Iraq, JSC was also introduced into the Ministry of Youth and Sport youth centres, in partnership with UNICEF.
• In both Kenya and Iraq, Work-based learning (WBL) was introduced in TVET centres and higher-education institutions to help graduates transition into relevant jobs, therefore engaging with youth via educational settings.

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on youth engagement. 

• In Kenya, JSC is integrated into Offices of Career Services in TVET centres and higher education institutions to help graduates transition into jobs targeting the digital sector. The JSC methodology was tailored to the job-search process in digital sectors and included modules on looking for work on online employment platforms, and awareness of risks and opportunities associated with digital work. This tailored form of support provided by the JSC saw high rates of employment among its participants (67 per cent).
• The project team in Egypt developed a digital skills training programme for refugee and Egyptian youth, focusing on skills in web-based, cloud-computing services. This was particularly advantageous for young refugees, as it gave them skills to access a wider selection of jobs that were web-based and thus not covered by sector-specific restrictions that applied to non-national workers in Egypt.

Find out more about the PROSPECTS programme’s wider learning on digital & gig economy.