Refuge to Return: Operational Lessons for Serving Mobile Populations in Conflict-Affected Environments (microPAPER)

Providing financial services to conflict-displaced populations presents numerous challenges. Refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and returnees lack the basic assets, social bonds, or predictable future that traditional microfinance methodologies rely on to mitigate risk, conduct client assessment and structure incentives. Nevertheless, by adapting sound microfinance practices to the displaced context, practitioners have begun to demonstrate that these populations can also be served effectively. In West Africa, American Refugee Committee (ARC) has successfully provided loans to Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and Liberia, and built the leading microfinance institution (MFI) in Sierra Leone to serve refugees upon their return. This Refuge to Return (R2R) approach provides specific lessons for serving mobile populations, while underlining the importance of applying and adapting sound microfinance practices in post-conflict environments.