ILO Office for Turkey kicked off the project “ILO’s Response to the Influx of Syrian Refugees in Turkey” on 1 June 2015. The project aims to mitigate the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis by enhancing decent work opportunities for both refugees and host communities in Turkey.

The project will focus on three interlinked components: capacity building, improving the knowledge base and local economic development.

The ILO will contribute to local and national capacity building through information sharing, training, and other investments in human and institutional capacities. Establishing a basis for tackling the social, economic and financial impact of refugees on communities through a “resilience development-based approach” will be of key importance to this end.

The project will also address the issue of lack of reliable data on the impact of the Syrian influx on the Turkish labour market by helping improve the knowledge base through local and national level assessments and research, including an assessment of the impact of refugee influx on child labour.

Aiming to increase the income of refugees and host communities, the project likewise covers the promotion of employment and training opportunities based on fundamental labour principles and rights at work.

Facilitating tripartite consultations both at local and national levels to create a platform for discussion towards employment-focused measures, and a communication campaign targeting both Syrian workers and host communities will be other activities of the project.

Being part of a broader plan called “the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP)” coordinated by the UN, the project will strengthen the ILO’s key role in response to the Syrian crisis in Turkey.

The project will be implemented mostly in the South East of Turkey, in particular in the provinces of Gaziantep, Kilis and Şanlıurfa, for a duration of 12 months.