Impact
During the past two decades of commitment to vulnerable young people & women, RET has worked in 34 countries affected by conflicts and crises and in fragile environments. You may visit our Where We Work section to learn about our past and present countries of operations.
RET’s extensive presence in the field has positively impacted the lives of just over 2 million direct beneficiaries/program participants, 55% of whom are female participants. 12,500 youth leaders have trained and managed nearly 430 tertiary education scholarships, paving the way to more peaceful and stable communities by empowering a generation of young people to become actors of positive social change.
Our actions have also led to constructing, renovating, and equipping over 1,600 schools, women’s and girls’ centers, training more than 30,000 educators, and improving the proficiency of numerous local and, even, national education administrations. In all, RET has indirectly reached over 20 million indirect beneficiaries.
RET’s impact is amplified through the fact that RET does not follow traditional models of sending large numbers of foreign experts to manage local problems. While RET employs staff from around forty countries, nearly all are locally based. Almost 100% of RET staff in each country of operations are citizens of that country or neighboring countries, with only very few expats operating regionally or from headquarters.
45 HQ & Administrative Center members
550-1300 Field Team members
With 550 – 1,300 team members around the world, RET creates a positive impact on local employment and professional development. RET’s local staff add a level of value to RET’s engagement in each country. Despite similar total income levels for projects, we have varied in the field staff employment totals depending on the nature of the project, i.e., whether it is a labor-intensive, center-based approach or more of a technical expertise capacity-building project.
RET’s global presence benefits local professionals through access to knowledge management, essential technical expertise, good/best practices, and lessons learned, as well as through training and building proficiency and skill sets of local staff by RET’s international cadre of technical experts.


Resources
The RET brand was created through the vision of Mrs. Sadako Ogata, former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who, in 2000, chose Geneva, Switzerland, the humanitarian capital of the United Nations, as the headquarters for RET, to work closely with UN agencies. As RET grew in operations and added many countries around the world, the need to redefine RET’s mission and vision, and recalibrate its focus became apparent. Thus, in addition to RET International, RET AMERICAS, and RET GERMANY were founded as independent international organizations to take RET’s know-how and carry it into the future. The RET Alliance consists of international organizations, which are independent, non-profit organizations with legally & financially independent boards.
When RET was created in 2000, the world’s focus was on children and not youth;
RET has been growing as our mandate has caught traction among the international community and youth & women are more and more recognized as a key underserved population. In total, since its inception, RET has raised and channeled over 250 million USD from the international community towards vulnerable young people and women. We presently work in two main regions, which are the:
(1) EMEAA – Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia
(2) LAC – Latin America and the Caribbean
In this growth, we have strived to keep direction and support (G&A, General and Administrative support) costs at a minimum, conforming to industry standards.

RET. Bridging the Gaps in Africa.
The Americas. Asia. Europe. The Middle East.

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