Rohingya Refugee Response in Bangladesh: Livelihoods Factsheet

Bangladesh + 1 more

KEY ACTIVITIES

Agricultural Support for Refugees

Agricultural support is a part of UNHCR's multi-year initiative supporting refugee self-reliance in the camps. Through innovative approaches like vertical gardening, refugees are able to use limited camp space to produce vegetables and sell surplus produce to support their families. Nearly 9,000 refugee households receive continued agricultural support to grow vegetables in their gardens. More than 80 percent of refugees involved in UNHCR's agricultural activities are women who previously did not participate due to cultural and social constrains.

Skills Development for Women

Some 907 refugee women especially youth are engaged in jute bag, female hygiene materials and crafts production. The productive engagement in the camps is creating self-reliance opportunities, portable skills and promotes Bangladeshi products. Additionally, diversified jute products help in reducing plastic and pollution in the camps as jute is biodegradable, non-toxic, eco-friendly and easily disposable.Jute bags are being produced for non-governmental organisations and partners working in the camps with the aim to reduce plastic and protect the environment. UNHCR is further developing the skills of refugee women in sewing tailoring and the production of reusable sanitary napkins, underwear, and some clothes items. In parallel with skills development in the camps, around 380 women from the host community are being taught hand embroidery, block printing, screen printing, sewing and clothes production skills.

Agricultural support for host community

Over 3,500 host community households across five unions of Ukhiya and Teknaf sub-districts received training in vegetable gardening, poultry rearing and vermicompost production; followed by delivery of product assets to diversify their livelihoods options, scale up their current businesses and generate more sustainable incomes. The poorest households in the host community have been receiving support through UNHCR's multi-year livelihood projects since 2019 as a commitment to tackle the households’ daily and ensure peaceful coexistence vulnerabilities.

Ultra-Poor Graduation Programme

The Graduation Programme has been supporting 2,000 of the poorest host community households across five unions of Ukhiya and Teknaf sub-districts since early 2020 by providing in livestock and agricultural assets such as seeds, fertilizer, saplings, as well as encouraging households to invest the income into savings and/or further business development. In 2022, UNHCR and partner linked Bangladeshi participants to markets, through scaling up their businesses and entrepreneurship capacities.

Joint Programme Skills Development

A joint Initiative by BRAC ILO and UNHCR with financial support from Global Affairs Canada resulted in a multi-year joint skills development project for refugees and host communities. The project targets refugees with limited basic skills, including literacy and numeracy skills, who have some level of knowledge and skill capacity within a certain job category which enables them to work in the future as low skilled or semi-skilled laborers. It also supports refugees who have achieved secondary level or higher learning opportunities. The project aims to encourage more refugee women towards training and education, especially in occupations generally considered "non-traditional" for women. In the Cox's Bazar camps, the project will provide technical skills to 8,000 refugee youth (ages 18-24), and on Bhasan Char the project aims to reach 11,460 refugees. In December, the project started accredited vocational training with 500 youth participants.

Peaceful Coexistence

Since 2019, UNHCR has been engaging with the refugee and host communities to increase awareness and enhance peaceful coexistence. Over 7,800 individuals have attended diverse learning, sports and music events, peaceful dialogues between both communities, and participated in capacity building of local community structures such as youth clubs and community leaders.