 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to day three. I guess it is. As some of you will have noticed the question of Migration and displacement at least to my mind is a little less high on the agenda than it might otherwise have been and from my perspective That is a mistake. We're hearing a lot about Ukraine. We're hearing a lot about The economy. We're not hearing so much about refugees. I'm the CEO of the new humanitarian It's a nonprofit newsroom that reports about humanitarian crises around the world. And of course that includes the impacts and displacement is one big part of that and What we're seeing is that if anything things are getting much worse vis-a-vis displacement due to the impacts of the invasion of the Ukraine the long-standing implications of Covid hunger etc And so actually millions of people are we don't talk about it anymore, but still leaving their homes Last year 100 million people were forcibly displaced and that is a huge huge increase as many of us know over previous years So this remains a dominant issue and we know that Employment can be a major way in which refugees can better integrate into their societies unfortunately That isn't always happening and we the new humanitarian publish every year a list of trends that drive humanitarian needs and Mismanaged migration is right up there on the list There is as we all know one shining Exception to that rule and that is the reception of Ukrainian refugees in Europe which received huge huge public and private support So our goal today is to learn some lessons from that and see how that can be extended to wider refugee crises around the world and last year The World Economic Forum launched an initiative Called the refugee employment and employability initiative to try to accelerate some of that momentum that was seen off the back of the Ukraine crisis So one year on from that what lessons can be learned from The experience of the private sector in trying to increase Employment and succeeding really in increasing employment opportunities for refugees So they learned four lessons in consulting with a community of chief HR officers and Participating companies and you see them up on the screen there the need for legal and timely access to local labor markets They need to reduce reliance on language fluency and to prioritize skills first They need to create visibility of vacancies and proactively support job matching and Finally to look more broadly than just the employment at at wider social Cohesion and integration so those are going to act as starting points for our conversation and I will just say that that as I mentioned earlier the Ukraine response has really been so unique that It has shown that it is possible to do better than the world has historically done when it comes to receiving and integrating refugees And so how do we scale those learnings and apply them elsewhere? so I want to start with Ahmed Ahmed Jude is a dancer and A Syrian refugee he was born as a stateless person in Syria and then fled again to the Netherlands and during the war in Syria and You are now part of the National Ballet. Yes, which is amazing. Congratulations. Thank you But I'm sure it wasn't a very easy road to get there So I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience as a refugee and some of these questions that we're talking about How did they apply in your case in terms of how easy that integration experience was? Thank you. Thank you everyone for being here and thank you for having me here First of all, like I always like to start with what is refugee, right? Like what does that mean what who are those people? Can we be these people next or what? So if we start like having conversations having this in mind first and how can a person be born as a refugee? Which is my case. I Did not ask for refugee asylum in Syria. I was born like that because my father is a stateless refugee his father was from Palestine Palestinian refugee in Damascus, Syria. I have a Syrian mother, but Women they cannot give nationalities to their kids. So we remained stateless It happened that I wanted to become a ballet dancer Which was like very very difficult and it's a very demanding career if you have any idea about it Especially if you learn the Vaganova style, which is the Russian style Ukrainian style. I mean Vaganova So it's very Dictatorship and dance and all of this stuff, you know, like with no less as an Arab man. I would think oh god. No anyway, so for me was always challenging like to find myself within Any community where I am and you know like I was invited by the Dutch national ballet To join the Dutch national ballet in the Netherlands where I also moved to the Netherlands and a student visa But I was called all the time as the refugee. I Have no obligation to ask for refugee asylum anywhere in the world But then of course as a stateless person After a three years living in the Netherlands you get you get the nationality And I tend to say stateless everyone asked me why because I lived in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus Knowing them that I am half Palestinian and half Syrian, but then when I moved to the Netherlands I got my permit and written their nationality stateless, and then I thought wow This need to be told to the world because we need to change this like the first human right is to be a nationality And belonging so tell me a bit more about the belonging how what was the process for you in finding belonging in the Netherlands? And to what extent did it go well in terms of Support in being able to to match your in particular in this case. You're very unique skills with a job opportunity well, I think finding there is a complexity of belonging for refugees in general like we are Push the way everywhere. They think like Them and us and whatever but now we are having like for example the crisis with the Ukrainian refugees Which which tells the world not only Middle Eastern's can be refugees or whatever other country which means? Would you please treat everyone the same because? Hopefully not, but maybe you are next so would we please treat each other as we would like to be treated and I found home in the Netherlands because I was appreciated as an artist as a person and as a citizen I lived 26 years of my life in Arab countries and I was not recognized as a citizen The first nationality and the first passport ever I have is the Dutch which is two years ago only So it feels good to be a citizen somewhere and how important was the ballet part in other words your professional career In that sense of being seen and valued Ballet is a as I said is a very demanding career which based on the body Your instrument is your body. No one can take it from you If you are a refugee or a citizen or whatever nationality you have no one can take your body from you They can take your home. They bombed my house Five people of my family were killed. They took all of this. They took my childhood, but they couldn't take my body Which I kept working on and I kept Like appreciating and taking care of this instrument that gave me a life So I'm investing in my own body Well, I'm glad the Dutch government is also recognizing that and investing in it as well So congratulations on that. Thank you I want to turn next to Zina to Ken is to my left minister of planning and international cooperation of Jordan Zina we saw certainly in the case of Ukraine the way the European Union opened up its labor market completely and how Transformative that was in terms of allowing Ukrainian refugees to access jobs tell us a bit about Jordan's experience with Syrian refugees and how You changed your policies as a government to open up some space Thank you. Thank you Hiba and thank you for having me and for the introduction Let me start by putting just putting few figures and just to put things into context 30% of Jordanian population is a refugee has a refugee status either registered with the UNHCR or the order with the UNRWA And 11% are Syrian refugees and it has been We've been basically living this refugee crisis for almost a decade now and We started changing our policies with time we started, you know, it started as a humanitarian That you needed to provide refugees with with the basic needs Mainly food and shelter we transitioned into a more of a resilience-based approach and we started developing What is known as the series of what is known as the Jordan response plan? and in the sense that It's no longer a humanitarian crisis, but it's it's becoming more of a development crisis And there are host communities that are being impacted Daily Moving forward 2016. We developed a more of a holistic approach trying to look at refugees as An economic Resource and trying to use them more in a productive to be to provide them the means to be able To provide, you know, to for them to work And skill them in this regard and what we adopted then what is known as the Jordan compact We focused mainly in the Jordan compact expanded on In addition to basic services we expanded on two main key components livelihood education and skilling education and skilling we opened up, you know, the refugees have Access free access to schools opened up vocational training, which was only limited to Jordanians and Expanded on catch up programs. So just to ensure that you're not leaving a lost generation behind and you bridging gaps The years that they have missed or the number of months that they have missed in terms of education We reintroduced Double shift schools Built over 62 university 62 schools in in camps provided scholarships to the universities and skilling Making them digitally enabled vocational training apprenticeship programs internship With tons of programs that came online And I have said that it was a government policy But there was no donor support as well that helped us to move forward on that front on the livelihood And following minister can I just jump in because sorry like you've talked a lot about the the Preparation for the job market and what you do to get them into a space where they can actually Be ready for it and yet most Syrian refugees in Jordan do cannot access work permits. They are limited to Certain fields of work that are open to non Jordanians And that is a minority of the overall refugee population. So so tell us a little bit about the constraints for you as a government whether they are Economic or frankly political and being able to really open up the labor market an opening up the labor market even With the limitations that we have it wasn't easy. It wasn't an easy policy decision Because of the economic challenges that Jordan is facing because of the crisis in the region the tall You know the series of crisis that are mostly exogenous shocks from the financial financial crisis to the Arab Spring to the Syrian To the Syrian crisis And now into the pandemic and they were most recent to the Russia Ukraine crisis Well, all of this had an impact on the Jordanian economy yet We started opening up a number of economic sectors providing Free of charge work permits Flexible employments that means that they can move from one job to another and this happened progressed over the over a few years This year for instance, we we we waived the fees of work permits for the seventh year in a row You know, we developed we had these employment centers to help on the matchmaking as the platforms for matchmaking We reached a deal with the European Union on relaxing the rules of origin under the EU Jordan Association agreement where private sector if they employ Syrians and make use of the of the skills that you know, there are unique skills that the Syrians also continue to to hold They'll be able to access the EU market Any more relaxed approach So we we tried to look into the various areas to be able to integrate them Cautiously within the economy even with limitation and I would tell you bluntly it's we have a very high unemployment rate That has increased with the Syrian crisis from around 13 percent. Now we we hit 23 percent unemployment rate with youth unemployment is at 45 percent That high so that's exactly it's very difficult to you know, while you're you're trying to provide equal access on various Basic services on the employment it it was very difficult yet We tried to look at them as a as a productive resource trying to replace foreign labors with Syrians yet They're competing they've been competing with Jordanians Over the past few years we've with we've issued around 350,000 work permits Yet studies by Fafo and others were and World Bank it showed that for every one formal Syrians formal worker there are two that are working informally So how do you What lessons have you learned in terms of how to overcome? What I see is really political disincentives to open up the labor market to refugees because then your own people say we want those Jobs, how do you overcome that as a government? listen so far the The Jordanian community have been basically Embraced the Syrians there were no frictions But it was very difficult, you know at the policy level to make these decisions, you know We started opening up certain sectors then move to the Flexible employment that means that they can roam around to give them the flexibility to make the livelihood and the skilling We started with education, but the skilling was not part of that. So skilling came at an advanced stage We completely understand, you know, we opened up our borders for Syrians So we try to to to to set a regional and global model for dealing with Syrians but and but there is a and been carrying a global public good since then, but there's also a Limitation when it comes to carrying capacity and then we've seen the owner support, you know attention has been shifted elsewhere With the pandemic with Ukraine which we cannot carry without sustained support moving forward and your point about The the role of the the private sector also is important We'll turn to that now because often the legal barriers to employment are used as the reason why you know That's the obstacle the the law doesn't allow us But there are actually many instances in which the legal framework is Open enough to refugees and yet you still don't see refugees getting jobs and that then comes to the private sector for you Yeah, probably move forward we Form it regulated and formalized home-based businesses for Syrians just to be able for them to be able to do their own businesses provided access to finance through my Mfis and others. So we tried, you know To look at it from its entirety to help on that demand story. No, no good transition for me So I'm going to turn to Hassan al-Hurri who is the chairman of Menzies aviation Hassan one of the lessons that we see up there on the screen from the West's Initiative was that employers need to be more proactive in a identifying Job matches and then be creating visibility for vacancies. So Menzies as I understand it contacted Ukrainian airports and ground Handling companies and said here are the offers that we've got within our network And then the the Ukrainian refugees that you did hire about 20 You ultimately funded local language courses for them. So walk us through a little bit. What was that difficult to do? Did that take a real kind of rethink and and what lessons you learned from that that others can draw? So how about I'd like to start with a personal Note because this subject is near and dear to my heart I'm of Lebanese and Palestinian origin and As we know there are six million Palestinian refugees around the world largely in Jordan, Syria Lebanon and Egypt and Lebanon is the one country with the highest per capita number of refugees around the world and Lebanon is already a a small and poor and poorly governed country. So Lebanon is struggling The second thing is in 1990. I was living in Kuwait and when Iraq invaded Kuwait, we were forcibly displaced So while we did not have the legal term Refugee we were displaced and we had to drive for for days through the desert and we ultimately ended up in Cyprus for two years and then moved back to Kuwait And I understand what Ahmed said nobody wants to be a refugee nobody chooses to be a refugee It's imposed on people And businesses need to take a proactive approach to assimilate These refugees into the workforce because these refugees today. They will be our colleagues They will be classmates to our children. They'll be our neighbors and hopefully they become productive members of society and They become entrepreneurs and investors and we assimilate them what the refugee ultimately wants is dignity and belonging Right, they want to be productive in society and that's what we should give them In regards to what we we've done. Yes, we took a proactive approach. We contacted Ukrainian airports We asked for the names of Employees in Ukrainian airports who had left Ukraine. We tried to track them down Wherever we could largely in London and Prague. We were able to find them jobs in our operations We started with English language courses to make sure that we were able to communicate effectively But fortunately airport operations are largely not not entirely but largely similar and Transferable from one airport to the other so we were able to assimilate them within our own workforce and they've been been very productive It's been it's been great But how did you make that case? I mean you're the boss, so I guess you don't have to make the case to anyone But for other businesses that might get a bit of resistance, you know, how do you? How easy was it and and is it really that that far off for others to be able to do the same? So we have we have a specific we have specific needs and challenges as we all know airports around the world after COVID are struggling with labor and So the case was easy to make we need people Right in Europe in the UK in the US We need people so that was an easy case to make the challenge that we have is that airports are a very sensitive part of the infrastructure and Anybody who wants to work at an airport needs to have a very thorough background check for refugees That's a lot harder because you don't have you know five years of police records and tax records and so on and so forth but thankfully I think Local and regional governments were supportive and airport authorities were also supportive So we were able to to expedite the process But that is a challenge that we have but that's specific to the airport industry Yeah, but I think that this question of credentials as as Also came up in in the West's initiatives lessons learned is is an obstacle often that there isn't And although again in the case of Ukraine there was a solution to that Whereby the EU was able to give guidance to those who check credentials on what you Ukrainian credentials look like and thus Speed up that process as well, but I would suspect that's a common challenge for others Becky I wanted to turn to you and Becky Becky Frank it pronounce your lesson for us Frankowitz Frankowitz Thank you chief commercial officer at the men power group and president for North America a recurring Kind of theme to the Ukrainian response was this this creation of visibility for vacancies You've done that in many other contexts as well for Afghans in the US For Syrians in Germany walk us through some of your lessons learned from your experiences and trying to connect refugees with jobs Yes So first I would say our experience tells us that employment is a passport to integration It's a way to join a community to make friends to truly become part of something new and and we've seen that play Out we did a lot of work in Syria into Germany Helping people find centers similar to the employment centers. You mentioned we set up employment centers We did a lot for Ukraine into Poland in the surrounding communities and probably the most developed example that we have is Afghan refugees Into the US in partnership with welcome us Accenture and manpower group Opened an exchange like the welcome exchange platform They gave real-time access to refugees and brought them job opportunities with skills that they would self-define And so they could come in at any point match their skills and get a job That involved us convening employers who were also passionate like you are about this topics We went in the marketplace. We have over 500 employers now 90,000 jobs on this platform in the US for refugees now some lessons learned because we talked about that before So of course we had language capability on the website. We had thought of all that the interesting problem became in the workplace What if no one spoke English and we did offer language training? But they couldn't learn fast enough for the means to need to make a living And so we negotiated with clients and said okay one person out of ten can speak English Can they represent the other nine and so that was a lesson learned we'd solve that everywhere else until we got to the workplace and so that was one of the I think biggest breakthroughs we had so that we could put groups of people to work But it really has been you know real-time access convening and then you talked about skills You talked about skills skill adjacency became very important So in Syria if you're a welder that may not translate into Germany with your credentials So we had to be able to say okay What are your actual skills and how does that translate into the new country where you're seeking employment? Well, how do you do that in a way that isn't super labor-intensive because that's gonna off put I would think many employers if they have to invest that much in a kind such a manual way We made it quite easy for them by building this exchange I mean it's literally a website that you go in it's in multiple languages and you say here are my skills What are the job openings that match my skills? So really it's it's a light touch on the employer One other question for you in in kind of looking at the way job markets are changing and skills The skills that are needed are changing How are you thinking about upscaling and rescaling refugees in particular to prepare them for the future of work? So one again is we really focus on skill adjacency. So we know what a skill is We know where the demand is how do we up skill and train on that? Just like we would do with a pot in any population to be honest refugees included Secondly, we try to find large pockets of opportunities so we can put these pods of groups together So language doesn't become a barrier, but we all have to be upskilled I mean the the WEF data said that 50% of the global population has to upskill in the next two years Not ten years two years and so this concept of upskilling isn't just a refugee need. It's a humanity need But I would imagine that the sometimes the gap so hasn't you talked about, you know It's easy when you're talking about airports because you know It's a similarly transferable skill set for the knowledge economy that might be a bit more complicated Well, it really depends so we found you know pockets of skill I mean that the good or bad in our global labor economy today as we hit a 16 year high in terms of skill gap and so skill gap is a universally accepted problem that we have now and so it's great that we can upskill There's various upskilling programs that can meet people where they are and match them to opportunity a Question for all of you though, perhaps most of you has and you know, we can talk about re-skilling we can talk about How do you get vacancy platforms, etc? But if states and companies don't have the willingness to act with others the way they did with Ukrainians because they had a geopolitical interest because they were white blue-eyed refugees that looked like us Does any of this matter if you can't get how do you overcome that that barrier? I Don't think there's a one-size-fits-all and I say you're an exception because you're clearly in land and have a refugee background yourself Which not all employers will I Don't think there's a one-size-that-fits-all of the situation so the US was very welcoming to Afghans that were supporting the US in Their operations in Afghanistan and we actually work with some of those Afghan refugees in the US We've we've trained them at least in you know within the airport operations, and they've been integrated. I Don't think there was a similar response from most of the Arab world not all of the Arab world with regards to the Palestinians You know in Lebanon, for example, there's more than a hundred professions that that Palestinian refugees cannot take up So if you are a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon You can't choose any profession that you want even if you are educated and experienced in that particular field So yes a global or at least a regional concerted effort around Accepting the refugees needs to be there with the Ukrainians I think Ukraine was fortunate in that sense and Europe was very open and the rest of the world was too But it wasn't for everyone else most of the refugees around the world come from six countries Palestine Afghanistan Syria South Sudan And a couple others That's not the case for for the rest of the countries. It is a specific case for Ukraine I just want to add to that. I think the other Benefit if we can call it that in the current situation is we need workers And we is everywhere everywhere needs workers And so I think you know the the commentary you made on how people look I think diversity is in the front seat now and that includes refugees and it includes people who look think and act differently But we say that and yet, you know, we're still seeing a massive obstacle for most refugees So where's the gap between the the facts as you see them Which is that there is a need and then the reality which is that these guys aren't getting hired? I think again We need more Platform programs where people can find the match for their skill with employment I mean that's because it's not the shortage of demand, right? Like their jobs open around the world and we have a shortage of supply And so we have to figure out how we convene companies like we have done bring companies together bring supply together and do the match One more question for you minister and then I'm going to turn to the audience for your questions the general Sentiment around the response to Ukrainian refugees was that this would float all boats, right? This would show the world what was possible and that a more enlightened and Kind of forward-looking approach to integrating refugees would become the new norm in your experience being home to as many Syrian refugees As you are have you seen that that has helped float the boat for Syrian refugees? No unfortunately, no attention Diverted elsewhere when it comes to Syrian refugees Especially and we have seen that with with the diminishing diminishing donor support Our response plan is as I told you is 30% funded of the actual required needs And this has taken a lot of toll on on the economy on the on the government budget to be able to maintain Quality services not only to refugees, but also to Jordanians And I again we are we We remain open But it cannot be opened Without, you know certain restrictions because of the high unemployment and we're struggling to find jobs for our for for Jordanian youth And this is where you need Different actors coming together including the private sector to be able to help on that domain private sector CSO's International community not only the government alone cannot cannot do it Questions from the audience if there are any I see one in the front and then one in the back Hello, my name is Yasmina a filali. I'm from Morocco. I operate with my foundation for refugees and migrants in Italy and Morocco in both countries I Would say that on the holistic integration there is a very important topic, which is to change the narrative About the migration and refugees in order to comfort the private sector and I think that today you're the best ambassador to Make it happen because it's all about storytelling in terms of changing the narratives and and for example, there is a All in Europe tourism is asking for for workers and now we can see that in tourism a lot of refugees Are coming into which is a very important thing? But on the other side private sector and companies ask us to prepare the team To receive them because this is something very important to integrate refugees. It's a Beautiful thing, but what about hand the companies that have thousands of people and that they've they see them arrive How do they accept that? Thank you Can I just comment on that? I think it's such an insightful Second comment that you made around how do you prepare the team to receive both sides of the equation are essential? So I appreciate that comment. Do you have an answer to it? Yeah, it's the same thing. We're doing the exact same You prepare the teams you do training to actually welcome the refugees into the workplace It's it's essential, but if you only do one side one side is critical get placement second is how do you get welcome? Welcoming bodies. We've done the same thing With you know minor offenses in terms of people who are coming out of prison in the United States We help them find jobs, but then prepare the team to welcome them into the team And I had maybe just to get your thoughts on this. What was your experience? Well, first of all, thank you very much I think like refugees coming to Europe. We always forget about the culture shock like when you go to Europe and have this big culture shock and Holding all the PTSD traumas with you with what with whatever you Experienced during the war. You are not aware of that. And how could you? Know about the platforms where to find job while you are already struggling with your mental health I think that's take like with me. It took three years and a half Luckily, I have the dance to express this and take it out of my body I went to therapy during Corona for like a year and I fixed my PTSD But I noticed that and I was very lucky to notice this in me, but some people they need to be told You need help before starting anything else. You need to be educated about your mental health about your Skills and how to improve this after you fix your problems and When you have the culture shock or or the PTSD you are not aware about that and if you are aware about it You are going to deny it So I think it should be also implemented in the programs that supports refugees To integrate is to keep this in mind and in your experience when You might be a unique case and that the you know, they kind of came to you I suppose But for others that you know in your community, how easy was it for them to find these platforms that for instance manpower group? It's not easy because first of all the language barrier That's one second of all we come from countries that doesn't have that big of access for internet And especially in Syria even now we don't have like I talk to my mother every day She's like we're cold. We don't have water. We don't have got like Electricity we have nothing and you're meeting the leaders of the world tell them this So this is not accessible So we come from these kind of countries where we don't know the platforms like the websites or online platforms for work So also, I think this should be told to these people when they are received in the refugee camp And I think all these programs has to start there because the moment you just arrive and you do nothing Stay there and wait for your permit You're not going to be motivated But it really speaks to the need for the linkages between all the pieces of the puzzle right that that the Employers are working with the civil society organizations that are working in these more holistic Integration methods and ensuring that they are directing them to the services that you're setting up in an environment that you have set up That is enabling all of this so it really highlights the need for Less silence and from our experience we did provide these legal services whether on the legal side, but also on psychosocial side and also when receiving, you know refugees telling them about You know addressing their needs So these were programs that have been ongoing for a decade now in the Jordan case I Know there's a question in the back and then one in the front and then in the middle. Yes Thank you very much. My name is Dan from Kakuma refugee camp. I'm a global shipper and They are still this topic accelerating refugees employment is of much interest to me since I'm also a refugee and in your discussion So there's few things that are tried to highlight and One thing is about reskilling The other thing is about who is to employ refugees and this is where my question is going to be best so like if There's this program for a skill in refugees and connects them to jobs You see when I'm leaving from the country that I'm leaving from if I'm a carpenter The same skill can still be there See So the only different might be the cultural chop that my colleague has said So if you are giving out these skills to the refugees that are coming in what kind of skills are you giving them? Because from where I'm coming from People are they can you can be taken for six month training and given that certificate You go home with it, but you will not get unemployment with it So it matters how relevant is the skills that you are giving to the refugees here and how sustainable is it to them? Have you tried? mostly the digital skills because now the world is moving out of traditional work and Going for the digital skills whereby when this refugee has been settled if I'm settled in this room must I go out for me to work? Thank you very much, and it's so great to have such a rich refugee presence here to challenge I think some of the narratives that we might tell ourselves. Let's take the two other questions and then come back to the panel Hi. Yeah, my name is Nelly and I'm working in the Netherlands for the refugee companies So I'm very happy to hear that you are in a good place and I wanted to say two things about your story I think the start is very important when I started for the refugee company a few years ago and I found a job as a volunteer for one of my clients and she was not allowed to do the volunteers work because it was an They have to do a lot of administration She still have to do a course to learn Dutch, but the company where she could work as a volunteer They were very happy if she could come there because they told her you can learn here the Dutch language We are very happy with your skills, but she was not allowed to do that work as a volunteer now Fortunately, the rules are a little bit changed But that is one of the things in the second head that you tell Your story about the culture shock. I want to tell an example I was coaching a client and she came from Pakistan and she had the job but She was not used to ask questions because that was not allowed in Pakistan You have to do your job and you can't ask questions because then maybe they say oh, you are not good and so Now her contract wasn't Wasn't make longer, but of Fortunately, she got The possibility to get the coach so I was coaching her and told her about the labor market in the Netherlands and That it is better to ask questions Then not to ask questions and then she was happy and now she found another job and she's asking questions So thank you very much. No, thank you for an example and one final question Before I ask my question I'll just say that I just watched in the Netflix the swimmer That's where it was about the Modini system for people like me it that never had this personal experience It helps you feel what it is speaks to the storytelling aspect. Exactly. So I highly recommend I work for 23 years in Africa, but I actually live in Cyprus and I have a specific question on that today panel We've heard about economies that needs to balance But what we see in Cyprus is that there's a lot of refugee coming But the economy cannot absorb it. It's a tiny economy. It's not that Which jobs will the economy give to the refugee cannot actually cannot absorb it So what I wanted to ask is this do you have any example? Have you seen any example that a Refugee community or a refugee base can create Anything which is I don't know commercial self-sustaining Within an economy that cannot absorb it. Have you seen any successful example? I think in the Netherlands I might take this one in the Netherlands We have a program that you can just go to the municipality and say I want to work And then they can help you in finding coaching or finding courses that you need and then you can get in there But as if you have a passport, but as a stateless refugee, you're not allowed to visa You're not even in the system. You you don't have a country to talk to you about on your behalf And that is very big problem that I faced in my career as a ballet dancer traveling the world. I would not Be given a visa unless I am invited by the king or the president or these kind of stuff so I Also would like to say let's also think of the stateless refugees who don't have a passport To prove where they are from we have two Words in the Netherlands, which is stateless or nationality on on the Kent which is stateless or nationality unknown And that's also given to the Palestinian origin refugees in Syria or in Lebanon when they come and That's a very big barrier in the in in like the labor market for them I'll add a point to the question that you raised earlier Companies and I think society generally needs to view refugees not as a burden The question is how do we transition them from refugees to productive members of society and When you do that transition You're changing the size of the economy the size of the consumer base from this big to this big so The question is and I don't want to you know single out Cyprus or any one particular country, but You know you have these refugees coming the economy is this big Well, your consumer base is growing now by 5% or 10% if you keep the refugees on the fringes of society Well, yes, they are a burden they're burden on the health care the education, you know everything else But if they become productive members of society, you're growing the size of the economy and that's good for everybody Becky do you want to take the question on how relevant the skilling is in the digital economy? Yeah, so I think Very incredibly relevant You know what again what we have focused on is helping people become productive in their own definition immediately And so we tried to match Current skills adjacent skills to demand so that people can become integrated very quickly Then you can think about you know, what kind of re-skillings you want to invest in and digital Obviously is a critical place to have ongoing employment, you know, we call it future proofing digital skills and I would say some some possibly more accessible skills around health care Childcare things like that teaching even, you know, there's a global shortage of teachers teachers run strike around the world So there's opportunities to plug in I think it's it's probably narrow to say everyone needs to do digital For sure people we want people to do digital, but we have to have many on ramps into various areas that match the skills They're starting with Minister, I think there are two questions that I'd love to throw at you one was the you know the legal Restrictions around volunteer work for those who might not have the right documentation and then basically Ahmed's point around Stateless and how are you handling those kinds of profiles? Now the the status that we have in Jordan that you have to have to be a registered refugee So we don't have the stateless So what happens to them? I That they're they're part they're I don't think we have I don't think we we have much in this categorization because most of them. They're basically they're registered and they're registered refugees Although we have few nationalities that you know, Yamanis Sudanese that came in but They're open to go register with the UNHCR Uh, to get the refugee to direct get the refugee status Uh, sorry, what was the other the point around, you know, even for refugees to try to volunteer. They're not allowed to do that legally Um Listen, it's very difficult in Jordan. It's very difficult. I I see Hassan's point I see the rest of the points, but again, I I agree with the gentleman It's it's a very small economy and the challenges are enormous On the contrary, you know, they can volunteer. I don't think there are restrictions Yet in probably in certain and specific professions, it's not open to every profession On the contrary, there are no restrictions when it comes to volunteerism You can see the clock. We're out of time. So I'm going to ask each of you in one line I promise I will cut you off if it's not one line If there is one takeaway or learning for you that others can learn from in terms of how to scale This approach that you're all trying in one way or another to support. What would it be? Hassan There is hope we're getting better That's at the abstract level. Okay Thank you can be an employers and make demand or supply accessible Before giving a job give a nationality for people who needs it Um, I'm gonna go talk about hope. Hopefully again echo what Hassan just said There is hopeful for you there's hope Well, thank you all very much. Hopefully you've gotten a few Bits and pieces from that in terms of practical tips. I will say that the wef is looking for more members From the corporate sector for its refugee employment initiatives So if you aren't interested find someone in the room and they will sign you up and For those who are more broadly interested in How refugees are being treated around the world You can also sign up to our reporting the new humanitarian org slash subscribe to follow What I hope is often a reality check about what's really going on on the ground in many of these contexts Thank you very much for your attention for being here and thank you to all of you