Refugees Empowerment through Markets Initiative (REMI)

Summary

Given current trends in global migration and displacement, as well as an increasing amount of fragile settings impacted by such movements, ITC should have a responsive and innovative programme offering for migration or displacement affected communities to support them to build economic resilience through trade-led, market-based solutions. The agency should become the “go-to” UN organization for trade and business-related programming in these contexts and increase its footprint to reach people in need over the next four years.  

In 2022, the work to expand the Vulnerable Migration and Forced Displacement portfolio will focus on building a pipeline of window 2 opportunities through research, analysis, project design and stakeholder engagement. Further, the process to customize existing ITC tools to VMFD contexts will begin, focusing on one tool such as integration into the Ye! community, as well as efforts undertaken to enhance internal coordination of work in such settings. 

In 2023, ITC will build on the results of the W1 work and W2 pipeline of projects created in 2022, to strengthen the foundation for market-oriented migration and displacement programming. The work is implemented under the REMI Roadmap 2023-2025, which establishes a dedicated ITC programme to support refugees, IDPs, returnees and MSMEs in the host communities.

The core activities supported by W1, which serve to support the functioning of the Roadmap, are:

1. Conducting research, analysis and design of tools and methodologies to increase trade- and market-based economic opportunities in displacement contexts 

2. Building knowledge management and results monitoring mechanism to inform the improved versions of services and expand ITC's results 

3. Strengthening different partnerships to create opportunities for interventions, transformational impact, and sustainability 

4. Synergizing migration and displacement work with other ITC programmes through integration and collaboration.