Tag: Survey

Mobile Learning and Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Resilience

Posted on June 8, 2026 | Policy Brief

Climate resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa depends on more than technological innovation. It also requires the preservation and transmission of locally embedded agricultural knowledge. Drawing on evidence from the ICRAFS project in Northern Ghana, this brief examines the conditions under which voice-based mobile learning can support climate adaptation among smallholder farmers. The audio modules were delivered through Farmerline’s Mergdata platform and reached more than 50,000 farmers in six local languages. They combined mobile learning with indigenous farming knowledge and Latvian seed-saving experience. Survey and fieldwork evidence show that digital extension is most effective when it is trusted, timely, intelligible across local languages and dialects, attentive to household decision-making, and linked to farmers’ economic realities. The brief argues that climate-resilient food systems require hybrid knowledge systems: scalable digital tools combined with community-based knowledge, locally adapted farming practices, and institutional support. It also shows how comparative lessons, such as Latvia’s seed-saving experience, can inform policy without being replicated directly.

Digital Extension and Climate Resilience

Climate change is increasing production risks for smallholder farmers, particularly in regions where food systems are highly vulnerable to environmental and economic shocks. In this brief, climate resilience refers to the ability of smallholder farmers and the wider food systems they depend on to adapt to climate-related shocks while sustaining production and livelihoods. In Sub-Saharan Africa, rising temperatures, irregular rainfall, soil degradation, and growing pest outbreaks are placing increasing pressure on agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods.

At the same time, access to mobile technologies has expanded rapidly. Even in remote and hard-to-reach rural areas, mobile phones have become a central infrastructure for communication and information exchange, alongside local radio stations and community hubs. However, many smallholder farmers continue to rely on basic feature phones rather than smartphones, making voice-based communication systems especially important for agricultural extension services.

International organisations and development agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), have increasingly supported digital agricultural extension and mobile-based advisory systems as part of broader efforts to strengthen climate resilience and food security. Throughout this brief, digital agricultural extension refers to the use of mobile and digital tools to deliver farming advice and information. These systems create new opportunities for delivering agricultural knowledge at scale.

However, digital access alone does not automatically improve climate resilience. Extension systems that focus mainly on technological delivery risk overlooking social realities such as literacy barriers, local ecological knowledge, gendered patterns of information-sharing and decision-making, and trust in advisory systems. The key policy question is therefore not whether digital tools can reach farmers, but whether they can reach them in ways that are trusted, understandable, timely, and useful for real-time farming decisions.

Evidence from Northern Ghana suggests that digital agricultural extension is most effective when technology functions as a mediator that strengthens and amplifies existing community knowledge systems.

The ICRAFS Project: Evidence from Northern Ghana

The “Building Digital Education of Indigenous/Heritage Crops for the Resilience of African Food Systems in the Climate Crisis” (ICRAFS) project brought together Latvian and Ghanaian partners, including BICEPS, Farmerline, CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute, and the Latvian Permaculture Association, a leading organization behind Latvia’s seed savers movement. By combining development policy expertise, digital extension infrastructure, and local agricultural research capacity, the project explored how indigenous knowledge and digital learning can support climate adaptation among smallholder farmers. As part of the project, two educational modules were developed, each consisting of ten short audio lectures. The lectures covered regenerative agriculture, indigenous crops, seed-saving practices, soil management, pesticide reduction, and climate adaptation strategies. To ensure accessibility, the content was delivered in six local languages (Dagbani, Konkomba, Buli, Sissale, Chokosi, and English) through voice-based systems compatible with basic feature phones.

The audio content reached more than 50,000 farmers through Farmerline’s Mergdata platform, a Ghanaian digital agricultural extension system that combines mobile-based advisory services with AI-enabled tools designed for low-connectivity and low-literacy rural contexts. The educational content and broader community-based approach were developed in cooperation with the Latvian seed savers movement, whose experience in preserving heirloom crops and decentralised seed-sharing networks informed both the training materials and the wider vision for strengthening local resilience systems in Ghana.

The analysis draws on a baseline survey of 367 farmers and mixed-methods fieldwork with 60 farmers in Northern Ghana. Together, these data provide insight into the conditions under which mobile-based agricultural learning can support climate adaptation, highlighting the importance of design choices around language, trust, timing, and local knowledge.

Lessons From the Latvian Seed Savers Movement

The Latvian seed savers movement provided an important practical and conceptual reference point for the ICRAFS project.

The Latvian case shows that food-system resilience also depends on cultural memory, social networks, and ecological diversity. Community-based seed-saving systems contribute to ecological resilience by preserving genetic diversity, locally adapted crop varieties, and cultivation practices developed through long-term interaction with specific environmental conditions. Heirloom crops function not only as biological resources but also as carriers of local memory, identity, and intergenerational knowledge. In Latvia, seed-saving also helps preserve agricultural knowledge, rural identity, and community ties in the context of demographic decline and countryside depopulation.

For digital agricultural systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Latvian case offers a useful policy lesson. It should not be treated as a model for direct replication, but as evidence that resilient food systems depend on institutions and networks that protect local varieties, preserve practical knowledge, and maintain trust between farmers, communities, and knowledge holders. Educational initiatives are more effective when they connect climate adaptation and agricultural advice to local cultural experience and community-based knowledge systems.

Main Findings

Digital Access and Adoption

Research findings suggest that mobile phone ownership was nearly universal among surveyed farmers (98%), despite the majority of respondents relying on basic feature phones rather than smartphones. Approximately 72% reported receiving educational agricultural messages via mobile phones, while around 70% stated that they actively applied the information received to production and input-purchasing decisions.

Trust in digital advisory systems was also relatively high: among farmers who had received educational messages, approximately 78% reported trusting the source. Engagement data showed particularly high interest in traditional agricultural knowledge, regenerative farming methods, and seed-saving practices, with listening rates exceeding 70%.

These findings suggest that reach matters, but it is not sufficient. Digital extension becomes meaningful when farmers trust the source, understand the content, and can apply the information in farming and input decisions.

The strongest initial interest was recorded for content on diversification into indigenous crops. However, completion and listening rates suggest that initial curiosity is not enough to sustain engagement. For digital learning to remain useful, content on crop diversification needs to be closely connected to farmers’ immediate production choices, input constraints, market opportunities, and expected livelihood benefits.

In this context, digital agricultural extension services are most useful when they improve accessibility and personalisation, for example through voice-based interaction, local-language delivery, farmer profiling, and more targeted advisory content.

Indigenous Knowledge and Hybrid Resilience Systems

Evidence from Northern Ghana demonstrates that climate resilience is deeply rooted in locally embedded knowledge systems developed across generations. Farmers rely on sophisticated ecological knowledge to manage agricultural risks under uncertain climatic conditions.

Field observations identified a range of indigenous adaptation practices, including traditional composting systems, organic soil-fertility management, smoke-based seed preservation methods, and the use of ash to protect stored crops from pests. Farmers also rely on ecological indicators to interpret environmental change. For example, the presence of the weed Striga (“bochaa”) is widely understood as a sign of declining soil fertility or soil acidity.

High engagement with content on indigenous crops further suggests strong farmer interest in locally adapted crop systems as part of climate adaptation strategies.

Importantly, farmers do not perceive digital information as a replacement for indigenous knowledge. Instead, mobile-based advisory systems are integrated into existing local decision-making processes. This creates a hybrid resilience model in which indigenous knowledge provides contextual interpretation, while digital systems support broader dissemination, coordination, and real-time information sharing. However, the effectiveness of these hybrid resilience systems remains constrained by broader structural inequalities.

Structural Barriers to Effective Digital Extension

Despite the potential of mobile-based agricultural learning, several structural barriers continue to limit effectiveness.

Gender, language, and accessibility

Digital extension is not equally accessible to all farmers. Mixed-methods evidence from Northern Ghana shows that gender roles shape both access to technology and agricultural decision-making. Although women represented the majority of respondents, men often remained household gatekeepers, controlling mobile-device ownership and broader agricultural resource allocation. This creates asymmetries between formal access to information and effective control over decisions. It also means that digital extension must consider how agricultural information is shared within households, not only whether a message reaches a phone.

Low literacy levels further reinforce the importance of voice-based communication. Approximately 62% of respondents reported having no formal education, and farmers consistently found voice-based messages in local languages easier to understand than text-based formats. However, linguistic accessibility goes beyond translation: dialects, locally used farming vocabulary, and informal agricultural expressions strongly shape whether advice is understood, trusted, and acted upon.

Timing and economic incentives

Agricultural information is highly time-sensitive. Farmers reported that advice loses value if delivered outside key planting, harvesting, pest-management, input-purchasing, or output-selling windows. This means that digital extension depends not only on content quality, but also on synchronisation with local agricultural and market calendars.

Farmers also evaluate new practices through immediate economic outcomes. Long-term climate adaptation goals alone are often insufficient under conditions of economic vulnerability. Qualitative interviews suggest that farmers are more likely to adopt new practices when they are connected to visible benefits such as improved yields, lower input costs, reduced risk, or stronger market opportunities.

Overall, the main policy challenge is not simply expanding digital access, but designing extension systems that are trusted, locally intelligible, timely, and economically relevant. Voice-based delivery can help overcome literacy and smartphone barriers, but it is most effective when integrated with local radio, farmer groups, community leaders, and extension agents.

Policy Recommendations

The following recommendations are particularly relevant for rural agricultural regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income contexts where smallholder farming, limited digital infrastructure, low literacy rates, and dependence on feature phones continue to shape access to agricultural information and climate adaptation resources. They are addressed to agricultural ministries, extension agencies, donors, digital service providers, development partners, and farmer organisations working in rural, low-connectivity contexts.

  1. Shift voice-based systems from providing information to making information usable.

Voice-based advisory systems should be accessible through basic feature phones and combined with local radio, TV, farmer groups, and community-based extension channels. Their success should be assessed not only by reach, but also by whether farmers understand, trust, and use the information in agricultural decisions.

  1. Integrate indigenous knowledge into digital extension design.

Digital agricultural content should be co-designed with farmers, local extension agents, and community knowledge holders. Indigenous knowledge, local dialects, and farmer-used agricultural vocabulary should be integrated into digital platforms to improve trust, cultural relevance, and adoption.

  1. Account for gendered decision-making in digital extension.

Digital extension should account for the fact that receiving agricultural information does not always mean having the authority, resources, or training needed to act on it. Household decision-making over land, inputs, sales, technology use, and production priorities may still be shaped by gender roles. Advisory services should therefore support direct communication with women farmers, while also encouraging household-level information-sharing so that relevant advice reaches those involved in production and household food security.

  1. Align advisory services with agricultural and market calendars.

Advisory messages should be timed around key planting, harvesting, pest-management, input-purchasing, and output-selling periods, reaching farmers before decisions are made.

  1. Link climate adaptation to immediate economic benefits.

Climate adaptation should be communicated through immediate livelihood gains, linking regenerative agriculture, indigenous crops, seed-saving, and soil-management practices to improved productivity, lower input costs, reduced risk, and stronger market opportunities.

  1. Support community seed-saving and knowledge networks.

Community seed-saving initiatives, indigenous crop preservation, and farmer-to-farmer knowledge networks should be supported. Latvian experience shows that such systems can strengthen agrobiodiversity, reduce dependency on external inputs, and preserve locally adapted knowledge. In African contexts, these models should be adapted through local farmer organisations, extension services, and community institutions rather than replicated directly.

Conclusions

The evidence from Northern Ghana shows that digital agricultural extension can support climate resilience when it is designed around the realities of smallholder farmers. Voice-based mobile learning can reach farmers with limited literacy, limited internet access, or only basic feature phones, but technology alone is insufficient to change agricultural practices. Digital extension is most effective when it is trusted, accessible in local languages and dialects, responsive to how farming decisions are made within households, delivered at the right moment in the agricultural or market cycle, and linked to visible economic benefits.

Indigenous knowledge should not be treated as a barrier to innovation. Rather, it provides the local interpretation, ecological memory, and practical experience that make digital advisory systems more relevant and credible. The Latvian seed savers movement offers a useful comparative lesson: community-based knowledge systems can preserve biodiversity, strengthen rural identity, and maintain trust across generations.

The main policy implication is to treat digital extension as part of a broader rural resilience strategy. Investments in digital advisory systems and voice-based communication should be accompanied by support for local-language content, community institutions, farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange, and locally adapted seed-saving and farming practices.

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted within the project “Building Digital Education of Indigenous/Heritage Crops for the Resilience of African Food Systems in the Climate Crisis” (ICRAFS), supported by the Development Cooperation Programme (LATDEV) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia for 2024–2025. Grant agreement No. LV-72.

The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Consequences of Disability from the Perspective of Time Allocation

Posted on April 20, 2026 | Policy Brief

A significant proportion of the economics literature on the consequences of disability focuses on its implications for labor market activity and the effects of programs dedicated to supporting the disabled. This focus leaves out fundamental aspects of disability, and poor health more generally, which play a crucial role in directly determining individual and social welfare. In this policy brief, we report key results from a recent paper in which we examine the implications of disability from the perspective of time use (Hamermesh and Myck, 2025). Our analysis is based on the data from the American and the Polish Time Use Surveys and is complemented with time use information from several other countries. We examine how disability affects the variety of activities performed during the day by older individuals and how it changes the amount of time spent on the main, most common activities. Using information on how people value variety, we provide monetary estimates of the time cost of disability.

Introduction

Having a physical disability may in many ways restrict opportunities. Disability reduces employment, labor force participation, and work hours; it has negative consequences for earnings and thus consumption and wealth. It affects happiness, partly through labor-market effects, and partly through its inherent impact. A substantial body of literature has examined the interaction of disability and labor market outcomes with a particular focus on the implications of disability support and labor market activity (Acemoglu and Angrist, 2001; Autor and Duggan, 2003; Kruse et al., 2018). While there are also studies on disability and overall welfare measures (Meyer and Kok, 2019; Deshpande et al. 2021), little is known about how disability affects details of people’s daily routines beyond labor market decisions. We address this gap in a recent paper (Hamermesh and Myck, 2025) in which we look at the implications of physical disability through the lens of time use.

Since utility is jointly determined by income and time, disability-related changes in how people allocate their time during the day may significantly affect their well-being. These effects will be especially important for older people, since they are more likely to have a physical disability and less likely to be working for pay than others. Understanding how disability affects time use may also be informative about policies that ease the daily lives of people with a disability. A physical disability imposes a constraint on how a person spends his/her time. Some things become more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to do, essentially raising the amount of time spent on that activity needed to achieve a given amount of satisfaction from it. For other activities, the rise in the cost of time inputs may be less; but other than passive leisure and passive personal activities, it is difficult to think of endeavors whose cost is not raised by a physical disability. Physical disability could also make switching activities more difficult, which means that additional time spent on certain activities adds nothing to the person’s utility. If so, disability will, in this case, again lead to fewer activities being undertaken. Because variety in time use rises with income (Gronau and Hamermesh, 2008), if supported by the data, these arguments underlie an additional dimension of the loss engendered by a disability.

Disability and Allocation of Time in Time Use Surveys

To examine the implications of disability on how people allocate their time, we take advantage of time use studies from the US (ATUS) and Poland (PolTUS) and complement them with results based on studies from several other countries. Individuals in these studies are asked to complete detailed diaries with information on how they spent their day, usually with well over a hundred activity categories assigned to each of the 144 10-minute slots in the 24 hours covered by the survey diary. On top of the information about how people spend their day, the two surveys include information on self-assessed disability status (in the case of the US data) and on the official certified disability status (in the PolTUS data). Our analysis focuses on older people who are no longer active on the labor market (aged 70+ in the US, 65+ in Poland), for whom we have detailed time use information as well as other necessary basic characteristics, such as age, marital status, ethnicity, education, etc.

In the first step of the analysis, we use samples of all adults to aggregate reported non-work activities into four categories of the most common things people do: activities that, on average, take over 10 minutes per day, more than 5, 2, and 1 minute per day. We then use these categories to examine how a physical disability, conditional on a number of socio-demographic characteristics, affects the time spent on these activities (“total time in category”) and the number of activities within the categories performed on the survey day (“# activities in category”). The summary of results is presented in Table 1.

 Table 1. Relation of Temporal Variety and Disability Status, Older Nonworkers in the USA (ATUS) and Poland (PolTUS)

Source: Hamermesh and Myck (2025). Notes: reported coefficient values on disability measures; controls include standard demographic characteristics, household composition, time, and regional controls. Standard errors reported in parentheses below the parameter estimates. ATUS: N=11,188, PolTUS: N = 14,180 diaries, 7,090 individuals. Total number of activities per category: ATUS: 13, 24, 46, 74; PolTUS: 16, 30, 47, 71. For details see Hamermesh and Myck (2025).

Older individuals in the US and Poland with a self-assessed (US) or certified disability (PL) engage in a reduced number of activities per day compared to those with no disability. The reduction ranges from 0.4 to 1.0 activity in the US, depending on the category, which corresponds to a decline in variety from about 6.6 to 10.3 percent. In Poland, the reductions are smaller – from 0.3 to 0.4, corresponding to declines of between 3.5 and 4.3 percent. ATUS estimates also suggest that older disabled Americans spend more time in each of the four sets of activities than do those without a disability.

These results are confirmed in our analysis using time use surveys from Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, which are all available in the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) database. While countries use slightly different definitions of disability, and there are country-specific differences in how individuals allocate their time during a typical day, in all countries except for the UK, we find consistent results that older non-workers with a disability/health issue enjoy less variety in their time use than those without a disability. The estimated differences are as high as 17 percent in Italy and 18 percent in Spain.

Evaluating the Monetary Cost of Disability Using Its Effect on Time Use Variety

The above results show that having a disability is associated with fewer different activities undertaken during a day.  Our additional analysis for the US, based on a proposed “sesqui difference” estimator, supports a claim that this relationship is likely to be causal (for details see Hamermesh and Myck, 2025). Thus, in a framework that recognizes the joint roles of time and income for well-being, by reducing the temporal variety that a person can enjoy, a disability directly reduces living standards. While we cannot infer the change in utility from the imposition of these extra costs and the loss in variety, we can ask how much compensation (income) would allow the person with the disability (and thus less time variety) to achieve the same variety in time use as an otherwise identical non-disabled individual.

For this purpose, we re-estimate our models for the data from the US, Poland, Canada, the UK, France, and Spain, using smaller samples for which we also have details about people’s household incomes. The summary of results is reported in Table 2. As the dependent variable we use the group of the top 46 and 47 most common activities in the US and Poland, respectively, and the aggregated activity categories available in the MTUS datasets for the other countries (see Table 2 notes for details). We find positive and statistically significant relations of income to time variety in all of the examined countries and confirm earlier results on the relationship between time use variety and disability measures. We then use the results to compute the monetary compensation C relative to the mean average annual income of older non-workers, YAVE, that would equalize the temporal variety enjoyed by people with/without a disability:

where the αj are the estimated relationships of disability status and income to the variety of time use.  The final row in Table 2 shows the estimate of C in each of the six countries. It ranges from a low of 61 percent of average annual income (the U.K.) to nearly five times average annual income (the U.S.). The weighted average of the six estimates is 2.24.

Table 2. Relationship of Disability Status and Income to Temporal Variety: U.S., Poland, Canada, U.K., France, and Spain

Source: Hamermesh and Myck (2025). Notes: Time use activity category grouping: US top 46 categories; Poland: top 47; Canada, UK, Italy, and Spain, respectively: 55, 54, 44, and 52 aggregate categories available in MTUS database. For Poland: two time use diaries for each of 6059 individuals. Vectors of controls include standard demographic characteristics, excluding educational attainment, given very high correlation of education with household income. Standard errors reported in parentheses below the parameter estimates. For details see Hamermesh and Myck (2025).

Conclusions

In a recent paper, we demonstrated that a physical disability is related to how a person spends time. Fewer different things are done, so that on average each activity undertaken consumes more of the individual’s time (Hamermesh and Myck, 2025). Looking into more details, we find that more time is spent sleeping and watching television, and less is devoted to activities that require active participation, such as cooking, cleaning, and attending religious services. That older people with disabilities engage in fewer activities than otherwise identical individuals implies a loss of well-being because people generally find variety enjoyable— being able to perform more activities on a usual day is income-superior. Indeed, taking the average of the estimates for six different countries, we find that it would take more than twice the value of people’s annual income to compensate them for the loss of time-use variety of someone with disability compared to an older person without it.

With disability rates among older people in the range of 20-50 percent, depending on age, a better understanding of the different dimensions of utility loss that result from it seems necessary to specify appropriate policy recommendations. By analyzing how a disability is related to the time use of older people, we have opened a large variety of questions and areas for future research that will add to our understanding of the impact of disabilities. A comprehensive approach to the consequences of disability, going beyond the limitations at the workplace and beyond the expense of medical interventions, is necessary to structure policies focused on relaxing time constraints and thus, among other things, allowing those with disabilities to enjoy a greater variety of activities.

Acknowledgement

Michał Myck acknowledges the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida.

References:

  • Acemoglu, D., Angrist, J. (2001). Consequences of employment protection? The case of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Journal of Political Economy, 109, 915-57.
  • Autor, D., and Duggan, M. (2003). The rise in the disability rolls and the decline in unemployment,  Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118, 157-206.
  • Deshpande, M., Gross, T., Su, Y. (2021). Disability and distress: The effect of disability programs on financial outcomes, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 13, 151–78.
  • Gronau, R., Hamermesh, D. (2008). The demand for variety: A household production perspective, Review of Economics and Statistics, 90, 562-72.
  • Hamermesh, D., Myck, M. (2025). The Time Cost of a Disability, Journal of Health Economics, 104, 103079, doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2025.103079.
  • Kruse, D., Schur, L., Rogers, S., Ameri, M. (2018). Why do workers with disabilities earn less? Occupational job requirements and disability discrimination, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 56, 798-834.
  • Meyer, B., Kok, W. (2019). Disabilities, earnings, income, and consumption, Journal of Public Economics, 171, 51-69

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

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Strategic Integration of the Belarusian Business and Policy Implications for the EU

Posted on February 9, 2026 | Policy Brief

The forced internationalization of Belarusian businesses since 2020 has transformed a localized economic crisis into the formation of a sophisticated, high-growth-potential economic diaspora within the European Union. Drawing on a novel survey of over 114 Belarusian-rooted businesses, this brief analyzes their integration patterns and value alignment with Western markets. The findings reveal a cohort characterized by high entrepreneurial orientation, a rejection of state paternalism, and significant growth potential. This makes them a valuable asset to host-country development and a vital resource for Belarus’s future economic reconstruction.

The Context: Scale and Scope of the Exodus

Before 2020, Belarusian business migration was a predominantly economically driven phenomenon of “gradual Europeanization” – businesses strategically pursued access to larger markets, more stable legal frameworks, and new technologies. Moreover, many Belarusian companies were born-globals (Vissak & Zhang, 2016) and considered the domestic and even Russian market as a launch pad for further expansion into developed technological markets (Marozau et al., 2021). By 2020, the private sector’s contribution to Belarus’s GDP reached 55%, surpassing that of state enterprises (Daneyko et al., 2020). However, the political crisis following the 2020 elections and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine fundamentally altered this trajectory, turning migration into a “survival strategy”.

This “forced internationalization” occurred in two distinct waves. The 2020-2021 wave primarily consisted of individual entrepreneurs, top managers, and IT specialists who fled direct political repression. In turn, the post-2022 wave was driven by the relocation of entire high-tech and knowledge-intensive companies in order to preserve client bases and financial access after international sanctions were imposed on Belarus following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Today, the EU has inadvertently become the custodian of a substantial portion of Belarus’s future economic potential. Over 300,000 Belarusians have emigrated, with an estimated 87% of them holding higher education degrees—a dramatic “brain drain” for Belarus that translates into a “brain gain” for the EU (Lvovskiy et al., 2025).

Figure 1. Origin of surveyed Belarusian-rooted businesses

Source: Authors’ estimation.

The number of enterprises with Belarusian founders operating across Central and Eastern Europe is estimated at approximately 10,000 (Marozau & Danilchuk, 2024).

This study utilizes a mixed-methods approach, centered on a 2024 proprietary survey of 114 founders and executives of Belarusian-rooted businesses, primarily located in Poland and Lithuania. The sample covers micro- (62%), small- (30%), and medium enterprises across ICT (39%), services/trade (48%), and manufacturing (13%).

Portrait of the Belarusian Business Diaspora

The Belarusian business presence in the EU is characterized by heavy geographic concentration on the eastern flank (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia), though it shows signs of maturing into a global network.

Nearly half (49%) of the surveyed companies were new local startups that were established from scratch in the current primary jurisdiction (Figure 1). Meanwhile, relocated firms – those that operated in Belarus and have fully or partially moved – make up 42% of the sample. Only 6% continue to operate in Belarus while opening branches abroad. This distribution underscores a shift toward local entrepreneurial formation, suggesting that the diaspora is not merely transplanting existing structures but actively generating new ones. The nearly even presence of relocated and new local startup firms reflects a dual pathway: one of continuity and adaptation, and another of innovation and reinvention.

Analysis of workforce composition reveals a heavy reliance on Belarusian talent, both from recent relocations and the existing local diaspora (Figure 2). Many businesses are still relatively small and founder-driven, with hiring networks often rooted in trusted Belarusian professional circles. However, as these companies grow and mature, many may begin to prioritize specialized skills and experience over nationality, leading to more diverse and internationalized teams over time. In their current phase, however, they continue to play a crucial role in employing and integrating Belarusian talent across EU labor markets (Lvovskiy et al., 2025).

Figure 2. Staff composition of surveyed Belarusian-rooted businesses

Source: Authors’ estimation.

Business Dynamics and Resilience

Despite the trauma of forced relocation, these businesses exhibit a remarkably entrepreneurial orientation and a focus on expansion rather than mere survival. An overwhelming 74% of firms prioritize expansion, a stark contrast to businesses remaining inside Belarus, where only about one-quarter plan to expand (BEROC, 2023). 64% of respondents anticipate increasing their staff over the next year. While they initially provide a “safety net” for other Belarusian emigrants, 40% of firms are now actively recruiting local Polish or Lithuanian specialists to help with localization.

Only 18% of firms would consider moving back to Belarus even if the political situation changed immediately. This indicates that the “exodus” has resulted in a permanent structural change; these businesses are becoming European entities with Belarusian roots.

Navigating the European Market: Challenges, Responses, and Support Needs

As the Belarusian-rooted business becomes more established in new countries, issues of initial adaptation and legalization are becoming a thing of the past.

The most frequently reported barrier is difficulty entering new markets, selected by 39% of respondents (Figure 3). This is followed by high labor costs, particularly in terms of salary expectations (30%), and disparities in treatment of companies with Belarusian origins (29%). These three factors reflect a combination of structural and perception-based challenges that affect firms’ ability to scale operations across borders.

Figure 3. Key barriers hindering growth and expansion

Source: Authors’ estimation.

A substantial share of firms, citing a lack of qualified personnel or management (25%) and noting difficulties related to the legalization of founders and employees (23%), point to significant constraints in human capital and the administrative burdens associated with cross-border employment and residency requirements.

Meanwhile, Belarusian entrepreneurs have shown a high entrepreneurial orientation, focusing on two main strategic directions: optimization of internal processes and adaptation of product/market strategy (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Steps taken to minimize the impact of risks and enhance competitiveness

Source: Authors’ estimation. Note: Several options could be selected.

When asked what would most help the company’s development, Belarusian entrepreneurs in the EU expressed a strong consensus that political and legal normalization is far more relevant than immediate economic aid or market-specific support. The end of the war in Ukraine (58.8%) as the highest-ranked factor underscores that the geopolitical instability caused by the war is the single largest drag on their business, impacting everything from security to market perception (Figure 5).

Figure 5. What would most help business development?

Source: Authors’ estimation. Note: Several options could be selected.

The Analysis of Value Alignment

In general, previous research collectively positions the entrepreneurial class – and by extension, the business diaspora – as a proactive, motivated, and democratically aligned segment of Belarusian society (Bornukova & Friedrich, 2021). The combination of a long-term societal shift toward market principles (Daneyko et al., 2023) and the unique psychological profile of Belarusian entrepreneurs has profound political implications. Their strong preference for self-reliance over state welfare, their belief in the benefits of competition, and their demonstrated risk tolerance are not merely business characteristics; they are foundational democratic values centered on individual agency and responsibility (Audretsch & Moog, 2022).

Compared to a survey of businesses inside Belarus in 2018, the 2024 the Belarusian business diaspora operating outside the country holds a stronger commitment to self-reliance, risk-taking, and core market principles than business representatives operating inside Belarus just a few years earlier (Marozau & Apanasovich, 2026). It strongly supports free pricing, the end of subsidies to uncompetitive firms, and rejection of economic paternalism (e.g., guaranteed jobs over higher salaries) (Figure 6). This alignment means that the diaspora has internalized the “European” institutional mindset, making them natural partners for EU economic initiatives and the primary “agents of transformation” for a future democratic Belarus.

Moreover, the shared experience of forced migration, combined with the resilience and adaptability of Belarusian entrepreneurs (Marozau, 2023), has fostered collaboration and ecosystem-building across Poland and the Baltic states. This commitment to market principles is evident in the rapid emergence of Belarusian business associations and informal networks across the EU (Krasko & Daneyko, 2022). While such spontaneous civil society development is atypical for Belarus, it aligns closely with the EU’s decentralized business environment (Greenwood, 2002). In contrast to post-2020 Belarus, where the state restricts independent business organizations and advocacy (Marozau, 2023), the diaspora has quickly formed self-governing, trust-based networks. These organizations substitute for weak institutional trust at home, mitigate geopolitical risks,   and   provide   advocacy,   networking,   and representation to host-country and EU institutions (Marozau & Danilchuk, 2024), demonstrating the diaspora’s capacity for democratic self-organization.

Source: Marozau & Apanasovich (2026)

Conclusion and Implications

The relocation of Belarusian entrepreneurs to the EU does not represent a break with the past so much as a fulfillment of long-standing aspirations, but these values appear to have developed before, often in defiance of a more centralized and restrictive policy environment in Belarus. Consequently, success abroad is based on the entrepreneurial principles already cultivated under challenging conditions and is not merely the result of adapting to new institutional settings. Strong alignment with liberal market values – including private ownership, individual initiative, fair competition, and transparent governance – positions Belarusian entrepreneurs as a foundational pillar of a future democratic Belarus integrated into the European family. Therefore, supporting this diaspora is not merely a question of solidarity or migration management. It is a high-return strategic investment that strengthens the EU’s economic base, supports democratic transition in its neighborhood, and affirms the values that underpin the Union itself. Tailored interventions are needed to address their legal vulnerabilities and enable their full participation in EU markets.

To unlock the full value of this asset for regional growth and long-term transformation, a strategic recalibration of policy is needed.

First, the Belarusian business diaspora should be understood as a distinct and underutilized contributor to the European economy—shaped by geopolitical disruption yet strongly aligned with EU market norms and integration pathways. The barriers these businesses face are not typical SME challenges but structural frictions that limit investment, scaling, and value creation in host countries. Addressing these frictions would deliver direct benefits to local economies through job creation, tax revenues, and industrial capacity. Fuller market participation could be supported through trust-building within local business ecosystems, consistent access to finance, greater legal predictability for founders and key staff, and appropriate risk-sharing instruments for capital-intensive sectors such as manufacturing. In parallel, regulatory clarity enabling banks to distinguish between sanctioned or state-linked entities and independent Belarusian firms would reduce unnecessary de-risking that suppresses legitimate economic activity within the EU.

Second, the Belarusian business diaspora represents a strategic asset for the future economic and democratic reconstruction of Belarus, whose value depends on being anchored and strengthened within the EU today. Operating in European markets allows these entrepreneurs to accumulate capital, managerial experience, institutional trust, and familiarity with EU regulatory and governance standards – assets that will be critical in a post-authoritarian transition. Retaining this community within the European economic space ensures that future reconstruction efforts can draw on actors already embedded in EU value chains, rather than relying solely on external assistance or ad hoc capacity-building.

Targeted funding mechanisms and professional networks can support this long-term role by enabling transparent links with the remaining private sector in Belarus, preserving skills, business relationships, and market knowledge that would otherwise erode over time. Finally, cross-sectoral initiatives involving entrepreneurs, civil society, and democratic actors can strengthen diaspora cohesion and amplify its contribution as a carrier of economic know-how and democratic practices. Joint efforts around education, skills development, and employability are particularly valuable, as they address EU labor market needs while preparing the groundwork for Belarus’s eventual reintegration into the European economic and institutional space.

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.