Relief International teams with communities to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and restore dignity. Creating stable jobs, improving household returns from agriculture, finding value for communities who protect the environment — these are the tools we use to help communities achieve these goals.
Natural disasters, conflict, shaky market forces, all can create economic insecurity. We partner with vulnerable communities to develop valuable products and services, and access to the markets that want them. Our programs:
- Create enterprises and jobs by offering business development services
- Connect workers to markets through training, technology and marketing support
- Increase the value families achieve from their farm products
- Train women and widows in marketable skills
- Protect livelihoods after emergencies with cash infusions, feed for livestock and crop redevelopment
- Link environmental protection to financial gain through items such as fuel-efficient cookstoves or eco-tourism projects
Contact RI’s Economic Opportunity sector lead at economicopportunity@ri.org.
Learn more about our Economic Opportunity projects below.
Iran currently hosts 3 million Afghan refugees, more than a third of them undocumented. While registered refugees fleeing violence in Afghanistan have access to the Iranian health care system, shelter , subsidized education and other services, undocumented refugees are essentially on their own....
In the rural Lebanese village of Sawfar, Salim Abi el Mouna struggled to support his family doing odd jobs and any other work he could get. Today, the 54-year-old Lebanese father of three can pay his rent and buy food, and has even sent his daughter to university.
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Afghanistan has 15 million laborers, nearly 80 percent of them agriculture workers who grow fruit, nuts and seeds. A four-year effort by Relief International, with support from the EU, aims to create greater opportunity for these workers by repairing gaps in the farming system and expanding...
Decades of isolation and underinvestment have damaged Myanmar’s infrastructure, hampering access to services for civilians living in hard-to-reach areas. Without access to basic services, rural communities are deprived of social and economic well-being.
In 2014, Relief International began...
In the regions that ring the Bay of Bengal, men and especially women have little choice but to work as landless, low-wage laborers. More than 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and like most places in the world, women are paid even less than men.
Some of these...
Rice is the center of many lives in Myanmar, where the grain is both a food staple and a vital part of the economy.
But natural disasters can wreak havoc on rice crops — and lives — especially in the coastal communities along the Bay of Bengal. Relief International is working with these...
Civil unrest displaced more than 100,000 people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2012, landing them in camps or isolated communities where they are cutoff from the fields, rivers, sea and markets that once provided their livelihoods.
In 2016, Relief International launched a comprehensive...
Afghanistan is frequently devastated by natural disasters — earthquakes, flooding and drought are common and they often trigger landslides and avalanches. Combined with endemic poverty and an unstable socio-political environment, the precarious landscape creates a high risk of displacement for...
Galkayo is home to tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs), families who have fled conflict in other parts of the country. Over the past five years, several temporary camps have become established settlements. But the creation of long-lasting job opportunities has not kept up....
A culture of silence surrounds the survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Hiran province. Stigma and the fear of reprisal by the perpetrator keeps many survivors from reporting their cases, depriving the women and children primarily affected from getting the medical care and...
Violence and unrest in Iraq has affected everything from medical services to agriculture. Internally displaced people (IDPs) seek to sustain themselves in new communities, where they are limited by the scarcity of local resources. In August 2015, Relief International teamed with the United...
From 2008 to 2011, Relief International worked with USAID to strengthen local governments by stimulating small businesses in their community. After the 2006 war, Lebanon was left fragmented but with a lot of economic potential. This program’s aim was to tap into this potential for self-sustained...
Lebanon is a country of 4 million people strained by the influx of more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees. More than six years into the Syrian crisis, Lebanon’s employment policies and regulations against formal refugee settlements have meant that many families are forced to take drastic measures...
Yemen, a country already fragmented and suffering from high rates of malnutrition, weak infrastructure, poor supply networks and broken water distribution systems is now under further pressure from waves of people displaced by violent conflict. More than 12 million Yemenis have been displaced,...
This European Commission-funded program aimed to reduce poverty and preserve biodiversity on the Mindanao and Palawan islands of the Philippines. By improving natural resource management and environmental service delivery, RI worked to increase opportunities for sustainable small-business...
Raising livestock is a principal source of income and livelihood for many Somalis. Livestock is Somalia’s main export, and contributes heavily to the country’s gross domestic product. Hides and skins are Somalia’s second largest export. This source of national income was threatened by zoonotic...
The Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, tucked among rivers that spill into the Bay of Bengal, is one of the world’s largest mangrove forests. Honored as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its ecological importance and cultural value to South Asia, the Sundarbans represent the vivid tapestry of...
Bangladesh is both a source and transit country for men, women and children who fall prey to human trafficking. These individuals face forced labor, abuse and sexual exploitation. A significant percentage of this group is comprised of male migrant workers who were offered false job opportunities...
This program distributed shelter kits and assisted with livestock management for internally displaced people (IDPs) from North Waziristan. Initiatives focused on the most vulnerable households: those headed by women, families with disabled members, and families with pregnant and lactating women...
Relief International teamed with the community to reconstruct livelihoods for the flood-affected population of Layya, Punjab. This involved promoting sustainable agricultural practices and working with local government stakeholders to promote economic growth.
The Economic Growth Project was part of an initiative implemented by various local and international organizations in Senegal, to support economic growth, strengthen agricultural value chains and increase Senegal’s competiveness in trade.
Relief International provided technical expertise...
Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, work on issues such as refugee welfare, education and community health. Relief International has teamed with 20 NGOs in Tehran and Khorasan Razavi to help them deliver effective, cost-efficient services. The training program evaluates each NGO's internal...
The Multi-Sectoral Interventions to Advance Democratic Governance in Guinea project, also known as Faisons Ensemble (FE), addressed the pervasive issue of poor governance and corruption in Guinea. RI teamed with Guinean partners to train community members in advocacy and lobbying. The program...
Relief International has been working for more than a decade to create safer, more efficient cooking methods in Ghana. In partnership with ClimateCare, RI has introduced the Gyapa cookstove as an alternative to traditional cookstoves or open fires.
Traditional cooking methods and the...
Funded by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Relief International began a livelihood and food security program in April 2014. RI provided seeds, agricultural tools and fishing equipment to foster development of livelihoods and sustainable production. Providing refugee and host communities with...
The first component of this program focused on strengthening local assistance initiatives for widows in Iraq. Relief International partnered with three social enterprise organizations — Synergos, Echoing Green, and Beyond Reform and Development — to help develop innovative programming and train...
Relief International began providing small loans to disadvantaged men and women in Iraq in 2006. It now serves more than 2,600 Iraqis through its five-branch network. Relief International has developed a portfolio to meet the needs of Iraq’s small business community, women and other individual...
The National Solidarity Program, which began in 2003, aims to boost the ability of Afghan communities to create and implement their own development projects. The goal of the program is to empower local governments to improve social cohesion. This process is facilitated by transparent and...