In response to the issues raised in the Expert Review, although most fall outside of SII’s mandate, FAST hosted a global Survivor Business Roundtable on 27 June 2022 to gain more insight into survivors’ needs regarding business banking and start-up support. The roundtable focused on how interconnected issues could be addressed, with the intention that the insights and recommendations from participants would be shared with financial institutions and other relevant agencies/organizations working on survivor economic empowerment.
The Survivor Business Roundtable had 28 attendees from the US, UK, Canada, Kenya, and Cameroon (this included survivor entrepreneurs and representatives from survivor support organizations and financial institutions). This Insight Briefing captures their contributions across three thematic areas: Survivor Needs for Business Support, Banking Support for Survivor Business, and Survivor Economic Empowerment. The issues discussed and the recommendations that they provided are captured below.