The London Declaration for Refugee Entrepreneurs is a shared statement of ambition to expand business support services to 50% of London’s refugee entrepreneurs by 2025.

The Declaration been created by Londoners: like-minded entrepreneurs, organisations & companies who believe that through collective action, London can renew and strengthen its true nature – a city where newcomers are welcome, where their ideas are heard, and their entrepreneurialism celebrated.

Sign the Declaration
Read the Declaration

Declaration partners

"As a refugee founder, I know how important this campaign is. It recognises and celebrates refugees contributions to wider society, and the key role refugee-led businesses play in enriching London."
Yeukai
Yeukai Founder, Active Horizon
"Refugees business potential is innate and enormous, but opportunity and support structures are non-existent. The case for investing in entrepreneurialism amongst refugees is irresistible."
Stephen
StephenOperating Partner, Notion Capital
"This declaration is a perfect example of a win, win, win situation. Refugee entrepreneurship benefits the city of London, London's consumers and the refugee founders themselves."
Amr
Amr Founder, NittGritt
"We support refugee entrepreneurs so they can overcome barriers and uncover their resilience, their inherent ability to problem solve, and their desire to contribute to new communities."
Tyesha
TyeshaCommunications Associate, Square
"Refugees are some of the most overlooked people in the world, which is both a travesty and an opportunity. There is so much latent entrepreneurial talent just waiting to flourish – all it takes is support to light the fire!"
Matt
MattFounding Partner, Ada Ventures

The Commitment

Renewing London’s true nature

  • proactively recruit & welcome refugees into London's mainstream business ecosystem
  • invest more and faster in refugee-led businesses
  • increase funding & in-kind support to grow existing support for refugee founders
  • promote refugee-led businesses to London communities

Progress to date

Our commitment is to expand business support to 50% of the 1000 refugees with entrepreneurial potential living in Greater London by 2025. As of July 2021 our progress is:

Total Entrepreneurs reached

18%

Progress towards 2025 target

36%

Business Launch rate

30%

Declaration Partners
0
Entrepreneurs supported
0
Established Programmes
0
Businesses Launched
0

FAQs – About the Declaration

The declaration is being introduced by TERN, London’s leading refugee business support organisation. It is a shared statement of ambition to support the expansion of business support services to 50% of London’s 1000 aspiring refugee entrepreneurs.

The declaration is for public and private organisation and individuals willing to support or expand services to include refugee entrepreneurs. The aim is to bring together the 20+ organisations that are already supporting refugee entrepreneurs in London, as well as inspiring new commitments from organisations not already involved in supporting this community.

The declaration is being led by a number of London based organisations in recognition of the significant strides made in the city over the last 4 years to build a more inclusive business environment for refugee founders. We know that London’s refugee population is comparatively small, both in the UK context & most certainly within the global one.

However, our hope is that if we are able to achieve our target, London can become a beacon for innovative refugee inclusion and empowerment. We will actively look to work in collaboration with other organisations across the UK & beyond to expand business support services for refugees and strengthen the global community of organisations enabling this community.

The declarations commitment to expand business support to 50% of London’s refugee entrepreneurs by 2025 is not intended as a bidding contract but a signal of intent. Efforts to expand support to meet this target will be led by TERN, and no organisation will be held accountable if the target is missed.

Anyone in your organisation is welcome to sign but we will be publicising organisation names alongside individual signatories so make sure you have permission!

No 🙂 As you sign the declaration, we will ask you to tell us about current or planned commitments. If you do not know yet how to contribute, we will prompt you to book in a call to brainstorm how your organisation can contribute to meeting the stated ambition of the declaration.

If your organisation is interested in supporting refugee entrepreneurs, we encourage you to book a call with the TERN team here to explore other potential opportunities for collaboration.