Leading experts from academia, civil society circles and the business community came together to discuss labour market integration of Syrians in Turkey with a special focus to the agriculture sector at IKV Istanbul EU Information Center on 21 February 2019. After the opening remarks of IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Nas, Brookings Institute TUSIAD Senior Fellow Prof. Dr. Kemal Kirişci introduced his recent analysis on a possible ’Refugee Compact for Turkey’ and raised the following question: Is an integration model with a visible contribution to employment possible?

After a brief presentation from Prof. Dr. Gökhan Özertan, Department Head of Economics at Boğaziçi University regarding the overall look of Turkish agriculture sector, good examples and case studies were shared by the participants. During the general discussion, together with the employment and labour market integration of the Syrians in Turkey, other related issues such as gender equality, informality and legal status were brought to the agenda.