Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI)

Who can apply

Hold recognised refugee status in your country of asylum; asylum seekers whose refugee status has not yet been recognised are not eligible
Completed secondary schooling to a high standard
No other means to finance university studies
Not older than 28 at the start of your studies
No other member of your family is already holding a DAFI scholarship
Refugees seeking resettlement in a third country are not eligible, even if otherwise qualified
The course chosen should be one likely to lead to employment in your country of origin, and generally runs three to four years

It is not a study-abroad scholarship

The biggest thing applicants get wrong about DAFI is assuming it works like Chevening or Fulbright, sending you to a university overseas. It does not. DAFI pays for a refugee to study at a university in the country where they already hold refugee status, or, for returnees, back in their home country. A Somali refugee living in Kenya studies in Kenya. A refugee in Rwanda studies in Rwanda. The scholarship exists because refugees are frequently barred from national student loan systems and scholarship schemes reserved for citizens, not because it funds international relocation. If what you actually want is to study abroad, DAFI is the wrong programme, whatever an aggregator site’s headline implies.

How the local application window actually works

There is no central DAFI application portal and no single global deadline. UNHCR ran DAFI in 58 countries in 2024, and in many of them the actual processing is delegated to an implementing partner NGO rather than UNHCR staff directly. In Kenya, that partner is Windle International Kenya. In Ethiopia, UNHCR’s own education page names DAFI as one of two scholarship routes for refugees who have already secured a university admission offer, alongside a separate government (RRS) route, but does not publish a fixed annual date. Rwanda gives the clearest recent example of the pattern: its main call for the 2026-2027 academic year opened on 15 July 2026 and closed on 7 August 2026, a window of just over three weeks. That window has now passed, and no currently open call was visible in Kenya or Ethiopia at the time of writing (Kenya’s most recent public announcement found was dated 2024). The practical takeaway for a reader is to watch their own country’s UNHCR help site or local partner organisation from several months before the academic year starts, because these calls open and close quickly and are not trailed in advance.

The four-year renewal, not a one-off payment

DAFI is not a single lump-sum award. UNHCR’s own materials describe scholarships lasting up to four years of undergraduate study, with continuation depending on making satisfactory academic progress from one year to the next; falling behind can trigger a review and possible discontinuation. Applicants should plan for DAFI as an ongoing commitment with real academic stakes each year, not a single cheque that arrives once and is done.

Who actually qualifies, and who is excluded

Beyond holding recognised refugee status, UNHCR’s own FAQ sets out exclusions that are easy to get backwards: asylum seekers whose refugee status has not yet been recognised are not eligible, and neither are refugees who are seeking resettlement in a third country, even if they otherwise qualify. Only one member of a family can hold a DAFI scholarship at a time, and the programme is explicitly need-based, requiring that the applicant has no other means of financing their studies. There is also a course-selection rule worth knowing: UNHCR expects the chosen course to be one likely to lead to employment in the applicant’s country of origin, and to run three to four years, which steers most DAFI study toward practical, employment-oriented undergraduate degrees rather than open-ended study.

How it differs from broader Africa-focused funds

DAFI’s eligibility gate is legal status, not nationality, merit ranking, or a country quota, which sets it apart from something like the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program (also listed in this directory), which selects academically strong students from specific African countries regardless of refugee status and often funds study at partner universities abroad or on the continent. DAFI will not compete with Mastercard Foundation on prestige or a single flagship university brand, but for the population it actually serves, refugees who are frequently shut out of citizen-only national scholarship schemes, it is one of the only funded routes into higher education at all. For more on how scholarship money for the continent is actually distributed, see our guide to scholarships for African students.