Refugees in East Africa: Boosting Urban Innovations for Livelihoods Development (Re:BUiLD) program, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) collaborated with researchers to evaluate how to improve economic outcomes and social cohesion among refugee and host entrepreneurs. In a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT), the project explores how cash grants alone and in combination with a network intervention shape economic, social and psychological outcomes of refugees and hosts in Kampala, Uganda, and Nairobi, Kenya. A large number of refugees live in urban settings in developing countries, where microenterprises and self-employment are the dominant livelihood strategies (Gollin, 2008).

These urban markets are challenging for refugees because they may lack the personal and professional networks to establish and sustain microenterprises or engage in entrepreneurial activities. Business and social networks provide information and facilitate collaboration (Ashraf, Delfino and Glaeser, 2019; Asiedu et al., 2023; Blattman et al., 2016; Cai and Szeidl, 2018), enable self-reliance among displaced populations (Humphrey, Krishnan and Krystalli, 2019) and can help to forge social cohesion (Betts et al., 2023).