The UN Refugee Agency and International Organization for Migration on Thursday launched a $1.79 billion plan to meet the needs of Venezuelan refugees and migrants and their host communities in 2022.
The fourth iteration of the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan aims to respond to the humanitarian and increasingly development-related needs of Venezuelans who are being hosted in 17 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 6 million migrants and refugees have fled political and economic instability in Venezuela, representing the largest forced displacement crisis in the region’s history.
“This is a sharp increase in people in need compared to previous years. It also … reflects the growing challenges faced by both refugees and migrants from Venezuela and [by] host communities,” said Eduardo Stein, joint special representative of UNHCR and IOM for Venezuelan refugees and migrants, during a launch event Thursday.
“By 2022, most refugees and migrants from Venezuela will have spent several years in their host communities. As a result, their needs go beyond immediate lifesaving interventions to include access to regularization and documentation, protection, self-sufficiency, and integration.”
Projections show there will be 8.9 million migrants and refugees from Venezuela by the end of 2022, Stein said. The population will include people who have settled in a destination country, “pendulares” who move back and forth across borders, and Colombians who had been living in Venezuela but have returned to their own country.
Amid the crisis, 8.4 million will require some type of assistance next year, Stein said. Two million of those are members of host communities.
The RMRP will target 3.82 million people through 192 partner organizations, including 23 refugee- and migrant-led diaspora groups.
“Since 2016, more than 6 million Venezuelans have abandoned their country — escaping the multidimensional crisis in Venezuela … turning this migration into the biggest forced migration phenomenon in the world.”
— María Carmelina Londoño, Colombia’s vice minister of multilateral affairsThe COVID-19 pandemic has made Venezuelans more vulnerable, as many rely on informal jobs to meet basic needs, and those who have migrated irregularly — outside of laws, rules, or international agreements — often lack access to basic services such as health care, education, and social protection programs. For the first time, the RMRP intends to measure its outcomes against Sustainable Development Goal indicators in 2022.
The size of the RMRP appeal has grown steadily over its existence and has never been fully met. Funding reached 55% of 2019’s appeal and 47% of 2020’s. In 2021, a $1.44 billion appeal was only 45% funded — despite an international pledging conference in June that claimed to raise $1.55 billion, as many of the promised funds have yet to be delivered.
United Nations officials lauded countries that had taken steps to regularize the legal status of Venezuelans within their borders, facilitating access to official documentation, public services, and employment. Earlier this year, Colombia — which hosted the largest number of migrants and refugees from Venezuela as of August, at 1.84 million — announced it would provide a temporary protection status for those in the country.
“Since 2016, more than 6 million Venezuelans have abandoned their country — escaping the multidimensional crisis in Venezuela, seeking opportunities to reconstruct their lives, turning this migration into the biggest forced migration phenomenon in the world, even greater than the one in Syria,” said María Carmelina Londoño, Colombia’s vice minister of multilateral affairs. She added that Colombia is second only to Turkey in numbers of migrants hosted.
The increasingly permanent nature of Venezuelans staying in host communities has presented integration challenges, with the RMRP highlighting the frequent xenophobia faced by migrants and refugees. The plan requests $381 million to target 950,000 of the 7.55 million people in need of assistance with integration.
The sector with the second-largest financial requirement is food security at $283 million, followed by health at $229 million and protection at $219 million.
“We have witnessed dramatic scenes at the borders, hungry families sleeping on streets. And we have gone through a pandemic with devastating effects for our societies and economies. Nevertheless, today there are more of us, and we have strengthened our cooperation in search of solutions to this crisis,” said Filippo Grandi, U.N. high commissioner for refugees.
“Over the next year, we will need the trust and solidarity of the international community to be able to implement the path we are presenting today: responding to the most urgent needs while we develop programs which allow long-term integration.”