In 2018 the Turkish government embarked in a journey to develop a new approach to solve the travails of refugees and displaced people– an approach meant to steer institutional power, entrepreneurship, technology, and capital all together and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) a multi-stakeholder platform was convened bringing together prominent experts and institutional key players from all sectors to design a novel and comprehensive model to tackle specific challenges refugees face in daily life and integrating in hosting countries. Founders included, besides the MFA, the UN Development Programme (both the country and regional offices together with the Istanbul International Centre for Private Sector in Development), the World Food Programme, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Turkish corporations Limak Holding and Eczacıbaşı Holding – Qatar Fund for Development joined later in 2019.

The model was designed by an international group of experts as a 3 legs organisation: Systems Labs, SDG Impact Accelerator (SDGia), and Impact Investing Fund. In 2019, a pilot project was kicked off. This report documents all the steps of the pilot from the very beginning when digital id and non-sewage sanitation were selected as challenges, up to the proof of concept of selected enterprises in the field.