Refugee entrepreneurship and self-reliance: the UNHCR and sustainability in post-conflict Sierra Leone

Entrepreneurship has been advocated as a path to self-reliance for refugees, but little scholarship has been produced about refugee entrepreneurs operating in their country of origin during reintegration. In 2003–04, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) implemented a group of ‘entrepreneurial ventures’ in urban and peri-urban locations in Kambia, Sierra Leone. Fifteen years later, 20 per cent of these ventures were still operating—a figure comparable with the success of start-ups in the United States. This paper examines the reasons for the sustainability of some ventures and the limited lifespan of others, using five interrelated metrics: ownership, management, mission and activities, financing and physical capital. It will be argued that, in the start-up phase, the UNHCR had a positive impact on the formation of entrepreneurial ventures by negotiating rules about property rights and credit, and by adopting a bottom-up approach to promote innovation among returnees. In the transition phase, however, the UNHCR’s planned handover to other UN agencies as part of the 4 R’s process largely failed because of inadequate attention to transition funding. In the mature phase, refugee enterprises survived if they could secure property rights to their facilities and adapt their management structures, activities and financing, while still preserving their social missions.