On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Albert Einstein Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI) Programme, this study has been executed to evaluate the past progress of DAFI implementation and identify strengths and weaknesses in the overall strategy. Specifically, the study examines whether DAFI graduates have contributed to reconstruction of conflict regions upon repatriation, or to integration in their country of asylum; and whether these individuals are in a position to contribute to development and ultimately to greater regional peace and stability.

Studies at the tertiary level endow refugees with the knowledge and skills to contribute to the community as role models, particularly in the case of female DAFI graduates. The results contained in this study confirm that DAFI graduates benefit enormously from their sponsorship, and proceed to transfer these benefits in turn to their communities through employment in fields which enable them to have a lasting impact upon reconstruction and sustainable development in the refugee community and their country. These individual results, taken together and amplified over 15 years of DAFI implementation worldwide, mark a lasting contribution to peace and stability in regions of conflict and acute refugee crisis.