NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, September 22, 2016

George Soros is pumping $500 million into migrant- and refugee-founded businesses and other initiatives, the billionaire investor announced Tuesday, noting that his hope is other investors will follow suit.

“Our collective failure to develop and implement effective policies to handle the increased flow has contributed greatly to human misery and political instability—both in countries people are fleeing and in the countries that host them, willingly or not,” Soros wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published online Tuesday. “Migrants are often forced into lives of idle despair, while host countries fail to reap the proven benefit that greater integration could bring.”

While acknowledging that governments should play a key role “by creating and sustaining adequate physical and social infrastructure,” Soros pointed to “power of the private sector” as a critical need, too.

In response to the Obama administration’s recently announced call to action for U.S. companies to play a larger role in the refugee crisis, Soros wrote, “I have decided to earmark $500 million for investments that specifically address the needs of migrants, refugees and host communities.”