Palladium Launches 2024 edition of Challenge Fund for refugees

Palladium – a global development advisory, management, and implementation firm – has launched the 2024 edition of its Challenge Fund for refugees, which lends supports to people that have fled conflict.

The firm is known for committing 1.5% of its entire profit to a global platform it created, called Let’s Make it Possible. This platform helps to finance the Challenge Fund, among other humanitarian efforts and community projects.

The aftermath of serious conflicts can leave devastating destruction that can take generations to fix. But it is not just funding that is needed – redevelopment also requires people with the passion and drive to rebuild. Many of these people will inevitably be ‘returnees’, who return to their countries after fleeing as refugees.

This year’s Challenge Fund focuses on these returnees, with $100,000 earmarked for projects that help organize refugees as a workforce with the post-conflict needs of their home countries. The theme of this initiative is “When it’s Time to Rebuild: Jobs for Refugee Returnees.”

“From Ukraine to Gaza to South Sudan, recovery will take decades,” said Palladium co-CEO Sinéad Magill. “These and more will embark on a long and complex road, key to which is the recovery of the labor market to ensure meaningful livelihoods for people in the process.”

Magill believes that it is time to reinvent some of the approaches to redevelopment that governments and the private sector have taken during and after conflicts. “In conflict-affected countries, we need to be ready when the task of rebuilding begins. The answer is in new ideas, new players, and new technology, blended with the development sector as we know it now.”

Rebuilding after conflict is slow and painful if there is a lack of empowered workers with the right skills. That can in turn make it harder for people to eventually return, drawing out the pain and suffering of refugees.

“The task at hand needs people. But just as much, people need to be connected to the tasks at hand. This is particularly true for youth who may see more opportunity to build their lives elsewhere, when the right approach to skills development and matching could help them build a life and future at home,” said Magill.

The consulting firm has some big ideas when it comes to transforming this kind of workforce. Market-led training can help to fill gaps in the workforce and new tech can help to boost educational initiatives and upskilling, for example. Improvements to services like childcare and transportation can help to make it easier for people to hold jobs.

This is not the first time Palladium has spearheaded a project with a humanitarian outlook. For example, the firm has previous collaborated in projects like an agricultural initiative in Colombia, a startup incubator program in Peru, and a female employment initiative in India, among others.