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The influx of refugees across the globe and largely confining refugees to refugee camps remains unresolved, complex, and uncertain. The quest for refugees to improve their livelihoods by engaging in entrepreneurship in host countries leads to harsh policies including encampment policies that restrict refugees to camps. Despite these restrictions and tough conditions in camps setups many refugees continue to thrive with entrepreneurship. Thus, the problem being addressed in this thesis is to explore how social capital develops to promote business entrepreneurship amongst refugees living in camps amid adversity in Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi.
The final outcome of research carried out recently in Dzaleka, in partnership with the University of Malawi, with funding from Southern New Hampshire University.
Refugee entrepreneurship forms part of the informal economy of Malawi, despite a national encampment policy that denies refugees freedom of movement and of employment outside Dzaleka refugee camp. Using a sample of refugee entrepreneurs working in an urban and in a rural location, this research utilizes a quantitative method to analyze refugee-owned enterprises in Malawi.