Migrant Acceleration for Growth Network

There is a growing body of evidence that (aspiring) migrant entrepreneurs require a different set of core competences to successfully set up and run their businesses in a changing society in dynamic economic and labour market circumstances. To address this challenge MFC, along with 7 European partners, kicks off a new project aimed at linking and training organisations supporting migrant entrepreneurship. The MAGNET project (Migrant Acceleration for Growth Network for Entrepreneurship Training) focuses on networking and bringing together various stakeholders capable of providing holistic support for migrant entrepreneurs in Europe: this includes humanitarian aid organisations, migrants’ training providers, financial institutions and policymakers.

Project regional focus: European Union countries

Project duration: 2018-2021

Project status: running

The project covers the following activities:

• Facilitating broad and holistic networking activities in the migrant entrepreneurship support field, both on regional and transnational levels;
• Developing and pilot-testing peer-learning programme for people, organisations and other parties active in the field of migrant entrepreneurship support;
• Developing an Open Toolkit for Migrant Entrepreneurship Support on the basis of good-practice analysis.

The role of Microfinance Centre in the project is to introduce the perspective for access to finance for migrants, such as facilitating the interest and involvement of financial institutions that wish to learn more or offer services to this niche-yet-growing segment of the market.

The consortium consists of the following members, apart MFC:

1. Austria fuer Weiterbildung/Danube University Krems (DUK) (coordinator)
2. Germany Singa Deutschland Gemeinnutzige UG (SINGA)
3. United Kingdom The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network CIC  (TERN)
4. Netherlands Stichting Delitelabs (DL)
5. Greece Technology and Human Resources Institute (IATAP)
6. Bulgaria Higher Institute of Insurance and Finance  (VUZF)
7. Belgium European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN)

Other resources on microfinance & refugees in Europe

SPTF Financial inclusion of refugees webinar series: 3 webinars featuring case studies on MFIs working with refugees are available within the six-part webinar series funded by UNHCR.

Project news

• A First in Europe: The Migrant Entrepreneurship Academy Is Now Accepting Applications
• Migrant Entrepreneurship Support: Access to Finance Conference Outputs
• Save the Date: Migrant Entrepreneurship Support in Practice Conference
• Join “Migrant Entrepreneurship Support in Practice” Conference
• MAGNET: Join Networking and Sharing on Migrant Entrepreneurship
• 1st Forum on Migrant Entrepreneurship Support starts tomorrow

Newsletter

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This publication is part of the project MAGNET which has received funding from the European Union’s COSME Programme (2014-2020).

Co-funded by the COSME
programme of the European Union

Disclaimer: The content of this publication represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.