Ethiopia to improve education, training and employment for refugees

Photo credit: REUTERS. Young Eritreans in the Mai-Aini refugee camp, in northern Ethiopia.

TMP – 12/12/2017

Ethiopia recently launched its Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework which aims to improve the socio-economic life of refugees in the country.

According to the document, enabling the refugees to work, support themselves and reduce dependency on the government or aid agencies, is one of the key aims of the framework.
Ethiopia plans to increase access to education, and to provide skills and vocational trainings to refugees.

The Commissioner of Ethiopian Investment Commission, Fitsum Arega said that the Ethiopian government is working to create jobs for refugees in industrial parks.

He added that 30,000 jobs would be available to refugees in three industrial parks that will be constructed in the towns of Alage, Dire Dawa and Mekelle. Ethiopia will also table a draft proclamation to the House of People’s Representatives for approval enabling refugees to live outside of camps.

The Ethiopian government currently hosts over 850,000 refugees mainly from South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Yemen.

The east African country also recently started civil registration for refugees and established registration offices in all 26 refugee camps and seven other locations with high refugee concentrations, according to UNHCR.