UNHCR's Social Protection Fund

The Social Protection Fund is a small grants programme in aid of refugee self-help projects. These are projects identified and implemented by refugees themselves as a way of addressing the challenges faced by their community.

The Social Protection Fund provides small grants of up to RM12,000 for individual small-scale self-help projects that are developed and implemented by refugee groups.

Since the Social Protection Fund commenced in end 2009, over 320 projects have been implemented, that have thus far benefited over 61,700 refugees.

Projects cover a variety of areas including community-development, skills- building, youth-related and education projects and livelihood projects.

Contributions from individual and corporate donors go directly to refugee projects in this empowerment initiative. UNHCR disburses these funds and provides monitoring and reporting to donors.

Donors can choose to contribute towards existing projects that require some additional funding for up-scaling its activities. Or donors can also provide start-up funding for new projects.