Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the

Migration from Venezuela:

opportunities for Latin

America and the Caribbean

Regional socio-economic

integration strategy

Migration from Venezuela:

opportunities for Latin

America and the Caribbean

Regional socio-economic

integration strategy

First published 2021

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ILO-UNDP Data Catalog

Migration from Venezuela - opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean: Regional socio-economic

integration strategy. International Labour Organization & United Nations Development Programme, 2021, 68 p.

Labour migration, decent work, employment promotion, informal economy, social protection, Latin America.

ISBN: 978-92-2-034294-7 (print version)

ISBN: 978-92-2-034295-4 (web pdf)

Also available in Spanish:

Migración desde Venezuela: oportunidades para América Latina y el Caribe - Estrategia regional de integración

socioeconómica, ISBN: 978-92-2-033101-9 (print version); ISBN: 978-92-2-033100-2 (web pdf)

The designations employed in ILO and UNDP publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice,

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This document was authored by Adriana Hidalgo and Francesco Carella from ILO, and David Khoudour from

UNDP.

February 2021

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is

mandated to promote decent work for all people

regardless of their nationality. The United Nations

Development Program (UNDP) works with people at

all levels of society to help create nations that can

cope with crises, and lead and sustain the kind of

growth that improves the quality of life of each and

every person. Both organizations joined forces to

develop this Regional strategy for socio-economic

integration.

1 The Regional Platform for Interagency Coordination was formed at the request of the Secretary General of the United Nations on April 12,

2018 to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM ) in order to

direct and coordinate the response of the system’s agencies to Venezuelan refugees and migrants, and to complement and strengthen

the countries’ national and regional actions. This response includes meeting the need for protection, assistance and integration of this

population in the host countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. At present, it is made up of international cooperation agencies,

non-governmental organizations, donor agencies and nancial institutions. The Regional Platform is replicated at the national level

through local coordination mechanisms established with the governments.

The Regional strategy was enriched by the

contributions of the agencies that are part of the

Integration Sector of the Coordination Platform for

Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V

) in an

effort to build coherent and complementary proposals

for efforts directed at the migrant population from

Venezuela, including refugees, asylum seekers and

returnees, as well as host communities in the region.

The strategy also contributes to the achievement of

the objectives of the Quito Declaration on Human

Mobility and Venezuelan Citizens in the Region, of

September 2018.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Context

Since 2015, more than 5.4 million people have had

to leave their country as a result of the economic,

social and political crisis facing Venezuela. Around

85% went to another country in Latin America and

the Caribbean (LAC). This gure, which does not

include hundreds of thousands of returnees, makes

this the most serious migration crisis in the history

of the region.

Often, destination countries view refugees and

migrants as a burden that affects the provision of

public services and the national and local scal

balance. However, international experience shows

that migrants, including refugees, also contribute to

the development of host countries (OECD-ILO, 2018).

Turning migration into a factor for sustainable

development requires that public authorities at

both the local and national levels promote the

socioeconomic integration of the refugee and

migrant population.

Why a Regional Strategy for

socio-economic integration?

While humanitarian aid seeks to meet the basic needs

of the refugee and migrant population, in particular

food, health and housing, a regional economic

integration strategy aims to make its recipients the

promoters of their own subsistence by promoting

their sustainable inclusion in host communities and

their contribution to local economies.

Who is it for?

The Regional Strategy is aimed at the main host

countries for the refugee and migrant population

from Venezuela; in particular, to government

institutions that have some degree of competence in

the socioeconomic integration of this population, and

to employers’ and workers’ organizations, with the

aim of promoting social dialogue around this area.

The countries participating in the Quito Process

identied socioeconomic integration as one of the

priority axes of their work agenda. In addition, the

Regional Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants

from Venezuela (RMRP, 2020), designed within the

framework of the Coordination Platform for Refugees

and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V), includes

socioeconomic and cultural integration among its

four axes for priority action.

Objectives of the Regional

Strategy

The Regional Strategy is oriented towards the

formulation of concrete responses to meet three

objectives:

1. To reduce the levels of socioeconomic vulnerability

of refugees and other migrants from Venezuela.

2. To maximize the contribution of this population to

the economies of the recipient countries.

3. To promote social cohesion through initiatives

that also benet the host communities.

Executive Summary

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Priority axes of the Regional

Strategy

The Regional Strategy is part of a medium and

long-term framework because it recognizes that the

majority of refugees and migrants from Venezuela

will settle for several years and that the only viable

option for them to contribute to the sustainable

development of their host countries is to promote

socioeconomic integration and coexistence with

their citizens. It is based on international standards

on labour and human rights.

To this end, the Strategy is articulated around seven

priority axes:

i. Regularization and proling of the population

from Venezuela: proposes making more flexible

and expediting the processes of regularization and

proling of the migrant and returned population

and carrying out studies on their demographic

and socioeconomic prole.

ii. Professional training and recognition of

qualications and competencies: seeks to

promote professional training and recognition of

qualications in the region in order to promote

labour inclusion.

iii. Employment promotion: plans to promote

access and efciency of labour intermediation

programs and platforms, boost the employability

of refugees and migrants, and adopt measures

for their transition into the formal economy.

iv. Entrepreneurship and business development:

includes the integration of migrants and refugees

into sustainable entrepreneurship programs

and value chains, as well as promoting self-

employment.

v. Financial inclusion: proposes facilitating access

to nancial services in host countries, promoting

nancial education and adapting banking

services to the needs of the migrant and refugee

population.

vi. Access to social protection, proposes the

preparation of a roadmap to promote a regional

social protection floor and a campaign to

disseminate information on access to social

security.

vii. Social cohesion: foresees the design of

institutional strengthening programs and

awareness campaigns to combat discrimination

and xenophobia.

Strengthening regional

cooperation mechanisms in

matters of the socio-economic

integration of refugees and

migrants into their host

communities

Until now, the Latin American and Caribbean

governments’ response to the Venezuelan migration

crisis has been directed more towards national action

than regional action, although the Quito Process

pursues the latter. For this reason, it is essential that

the countries of the region manage to strengthen

cooperation mechanisms and adopt and implement

truly regional policies, particularly in matters of socio-

economic integration for the refugee and migrant

population that comes from Venezuela, as well as for

host communities.

For the successful implementation of the seven

axes outlined above, it is key that the countries of

the region manage to strengthen their cooperation

mechanisms and adopt regional policies. The

Regional Strategy suggests how to develop and

implement such regional initiatives, focusing on the

areas of:

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

i. Human mobility and regularization: better

cooperation in the management of migratory

flows at the regional level and the adoption of

concerted regularization mechanisms to facilitate

intra-regional human mobility and socioeconomic

integration.

ii. Mutual recognition of degrees and

competencies: when a person, whatever their

nationality or immigration status, validates

a technical or academic degree in one of the

countries of the region or certies their labour

competencies, this recognition will be valid in the

other countries of the region.

iii. Labour intermediation: regional cooperation on

labour intermediation implies that both databases

of job vacancies in each country and those of the

job-seeking population, including refugees and

migrants, are shared.

iv. Social protection: the extension of subregional

agreements and promotion of coordination

between national social security laws to guarantee

the access of migrant workers and their families to

national social protection systems and reinforce

the system of portability of rights.

This type of initiative will contribute to a better

response to the protection and inclusion needs of

refugees and migrants from Venezuela at the regional

level in a context aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis.

It will also contribute to the achievement of the

objectives of the Quito Process.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Executive Summary

Abbreviations Table

Foreword

Acknowledgments

1. Description

2. Objectives of the Regional Strategy for socio-economic integration

2.1 Why a Regional Strategy for socio-economic integration?

2.2 Applicability and relevance of a Regional Strategy

2.3 Who is the Regional Strategy for and what is expected after its implementation?

2.4 The norms and principles that support and guide the Regional Strategy

a. Technical and declarative instruments

b. Normative instruments of the United Nations System

c. Normative instruments of the Interamerican System for Human Rights

d. Normative instruments of the ILO

3. Socio-labour proling of the population from Venezuela

3.1 Main obstacles to labour insertion

3.2 Distribution and differences by gender

3.3 Main obstacles to labour insertion

3.4 Lack of decent work and job precariousness

3.5 Impact on employment and work due to the measures adopted to stop the spread of

COVID-19

3.6 Social protection in the regional context

4. Priority axes of the regional strategy for socioeconomic integration

4.1 Regularization and proling of the population from Venezuela

4.2 Professional training and recognition of degrees and skills

4.3 Promotion of employment

4.4 Entrepreneurship and business development

4.5 Financial inclusion

4.6 Access to social protection

4.7 Social cohesion

5. Strengthen regional cooperation mechanisms on socio-economic integration

5.1 Expand spaces for collaboration in areas of human mobility and regularization

5.2 Build a regional framework for the mutual recognition of degrees and skills

5.3 Promote labour intermediation at the regional level

5.4 Adopt regional social protection mechanisms

References

Graphics Index

Graphic 1. Percentage of Venezuelans and nationals in the informal sector

Graphic 2. Main areas of regional cooperation in socio-economic integration

Table Index

Table 1. Multilateral mechanisms in the region

Table of Contents

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Abbreviations Table

LAC Latin America and the Caribbean

ACN Andean Community of Nations

CARICOM Caribbean Community

DTM Displacement Tracking Matrix

OECS Organization of Eastern Caribbean States

OISS Organización Iberoamericana de Seguridad SociaI (Iberoamerican Social Security Organization)

ILO International Labour Organization

IOM International Organization for Migration

PEP Special Residency Permit (Permiso Especial de Permanencia)

PEPFF Permiso Especial de Permanencia para el Fomento de la Formalización (Special Stay Permits

for the Promotion of Formalization)

PTP Permiso Temporal de Permanencia (Temporary Residence Permit)

UNDP United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

RPL Reconocimiento de aprendizajes previos (Recognition of prior learning)

RAMV Registro Administrativo de Migrantes Venezolanos (Administrative Registry of Venezuelan

Migrants)

RMRP Plan Regional de Respuesta para las Personas Refugiadas y Migrantes de Venezuela (Regional

Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela)

SICA Sistema de Integración Centroamericano (Central American Integration System)

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Foreword

The Latin American and Caribbean region today faces

some of the most acute crises in its history. In order

to face the health crisis and contain the spread of the

COVID-19 pandemic, most governments in the region

have adopted measures for physical distancing and

the restriction of mobility. These have resulted in a

protection crisis for the most vulnerable populations,

particularly those in situations of migration and forced

displacement, as well as a socioeconomic crisis that

has affected people employed in the most vulnerable

sectors of the economy, especially women.

These human development crises were added to

the migration crisis that has plagued the region for

half a decade as a result of the economic, social and

political situation in Venezuela. With more than ve

million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the

world, around 85% of which are in Latin America and

the Caribbean, the region has to face new challenges

in terms of the mobility of people, access to basic

and protection services, inclusion in labour markets

and social cohesion.

Beyond the humanitarian response aimed at the

population from Venezuela and the host communities,

it is essential that the main recipient countries in the

region consider options to promote socioeconomic

integration and social cohesion. The document

Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin

America and the Caribbean - Regional strategy for

socioeconomic integration seeks to respond to the

increasingly pressing challenge posed by the issue of

migration from Venezuela, particularly in the context

of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prepared jointly by the International Labour

Organization (ILO) and the United Nations

Development Program (UNDP), within the dual

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

framework of the Quito Process and the Coordination

Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela

(R4V), this document was enriched with inputs from

employers ‘and workers’ organizations, as well as

from the bodies that make up the R4V Integration

Sector. The document Migration from Venezuela:

opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean -

Regional strategy for socio-economic integration is

structured around seven priority axes: (i) regularization

and proling of the population from Venezuela; (ii)

professional training and recognition of degrees and

skills; (iii) job promotion; (iv) entrepreneurship and

business development; (v) nancial inclusion; (vi)

access to social protection; and (vii) social cohesion.

Since these efforts need to be part of a logic of

cooperation, the Regional Strategy proposes the

adoption of concerted mechanisms to facilitate

regional mobility and regularization of the population

in an irregular situation to promote the mutual

recognition of degrees and skills, develop initiatives

that improve labour intermediation at the regional

level, guarantee the access of refugees and migrants

to social protection systems and reinforce the

portability of acquired rights.

The unprecedented challenges faced by our region

require a coordinated response to build more

peaceful, just and inclusive societies, with decent

work, that take into account not only the needs and

vulnerabilities of refugees and migrants, but also

their contributions to the sustainable development of

the region. With this objective, our two organizations

are ready to support regional bodies as well as

national and local authorities in Latin America and

the Caribbean in the implementation of the measures

developed within the framework of this Regional

Strategy.

Vinícius Carvalho Pinheiro

Assistant Director-General of the ILO

Regional Director for

Latin America and the Caribbean International

Labour Organization

Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva

Sub-Secretary-General of the UN

Regional Director for

Latin America and the Caribbean United Nations

Development Programme

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

This Regional Strategy is the result of a collaboration

between the International Labour Organization (ILO),

the United Nations Development Program (UNDP),

the different agencies that make up the Coordination

Platform for Migrants and Refugees from Venezuela

(R4V) and the member countries of the Quito Process.

The document was drafted by Adriana Hidalgo and

Francesco Carella from the ILO and David Khoudour

from UNDP, under the direction of Vinícius Carvalho

Pinheiro, ILO Regional Director for Latin America and

the Caribbean, José Cruz-Osorio, Director the UNDP

Regional Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean,

and Jairo Acuña-Alfaro, Leader of the Governance

Team of the same Regional Centre.

The document also beneted from the valuable

contributions of the members of the R4V Platform,

led by the UNHCR and IOM, and especially those

partners that make up the Integration Sector.

Likewise, the support of the member countries

of the Quito Process was of great importance, in

particular the pro témpore Presidencies of Colombia,

Peru and Chile, as well as the representatives of the

organizations of workers and employers of the region,

who contributed signicantly to the development of

this document.

Finally, it is important to highlight the collaboration

and contributions of the participants of the different

spaces where this Regional Strategy was socialised,

among which the Technical Seminar with the

Integration Sector of the R4V Platform held on May

19, 2020, stands out, along with the Workshop on

Socio-economic Integration and follow-up to the

Recommendations of the Meeting of Ministers of

Labour of the Quito Process, held on August 20, 2020.

Acknowledgments

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Description

The current Venezuelan migration crisis is the worst ever seen in the history

of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Since 2015, more than 5.4 million

Venezuelans have had to leave their country as a result of the economic,

social and political crisis facing Venezuela. This gure, which does not include

hundreds of thousands of returnees, makes it the second largest migration

crisis in the modern world, after the Syrian crisis.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

About 85% of Venezuelan refugees and migrants

moved to another country in the LAC region.

Colombia is the country that is receiving the highest

numbers of people. As of August 5, 2020, this

country welcomed 1.8 million Venezuelans (35.8%

of the entire Venezuelan population in a situation of

mobility), as well as an estimated number of at least

500,000 Colombian returnees from Venezuela. They

are followed by Peru (830 thousand people), Chile

(455 thousand) and Ecuador (363 thousand). Brazil

(265 thousand) is the sixth largest recipient country

for the Venezuelan population, just after the United

States (351 thousand) and before Argentina (179

thousand) (R4V, 2020).

For their part, Aruba (16%), Curaçao (10.1%),

Colombia (3.6%), Panama (2.9%) and Guyana (2.8%)

are the main recipient countries as a percentage of

the host population. This implies that these countries

are the ones with the greatest pressure in terms

of humanitarian assistance, provision of public

services, access to jobs and citizen coexistence. In

other countries in the region, such as Brazil, Mexico

and Paraguay, the Venezuelan population represents

only 0.1% of the total. Their absorption capacities are

higher, while the costs associated with the integration

of the Venezuelan population are lower than those

of host countries with a higher concentration of

Venezuelan population.

In the region, many destination countries tend to view

refugees and migrants from Venezuela as a burden

that affects the provision of public services and the

national and local scal balance, not to mention

the challenges in terms of cohesion and peaceful

coexistence. However, international experience

shows that immigrants, including refugees, also

contribute to the development of their host countries

(OECD-ILO, 2018). On the one hand, they represent

a source of human capital that makes it possible to

respond to the labour shortage in some sectors of

the economy. They also invest and consume, which

2 “A economía de Roraima e o fluxo venezuelano”. Fundação Getulio Vargas - Diretoria de Análise de Políticas Públicas (FGV-DAPP),

ACNUR, Observatório das Migrações Internacionais (OBMigra), Universidade Federal de Roraima (UFRR) y ACNUR.

contributes to feeding aggregate demand and thus

GDP growth. On the other hand, by paying taxes,

directly and indirectly, the refugee and migrant

population contributes to improving the scal

balance of their host countries.

An example of the positive effects on the local

economy was evidenced in a study on the impact

on society and the economy of the arrival of

Venezuelans to Roraima, Brazil. This municipality

registered growth and economic diversication

during the period of highest influx

. Likewise, the

tax receipts generated in 2018 by all Venezuelans is

comparable to the additional expenses required for

their acceptance, with both gures in the range of R

$ 100 million.

Turning migration into a factor for sustainable

development requires that public authorities,

both at the local and national levels, promote the

socioeconomic integration of the refugee and

migrant population. This is precisely the purpose of

this Regional Strategy. The health, economic and

social crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic

makes it an even more necessary tool.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Objectives of the

Regional Strategy

for socio-economic

integration

The Regional Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (RMRP,

2020) includes socio-economic and cultural integration among the priority

lines of action of the Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from

Venezuela (R4V). It also highlights the fact that “effective socio-economic

and cultural integration is favourable not only for refugees and migrants from

Venezuela, but also for host communities.”

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Likewise, within the framework of the Meeting of

Ministries of Labour in support of the Quito Process,

in Bogotá, Colombia (November 13, 2019), the

representatives of different Ministries of Labour

of Latin America and international cooperation

organizations insisted on the need to “promote

socio-economic integration with an emphasis on

access to the labour market for refugees, migrants

and returnees from Venezuela in Latin America and

the Caribbean through collaborative work with the

different international cooperation organizations and

agencies within the decent work framework. ” They

also recommended “cooperating with the design of

an income generation strategy for refugees, migrants

and returnees from Venezuela, linked to migration

policies, which contributes to the formalization of

work and progressive access to a social protection

floor.”

The Regional Strategy for Socio-economic Integration

constitutes a concrete response to this dual concern of

the Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants

from Venezuela and of the Ministries of Labour of the

member countries of the Quito Process. Not only is

it part of a humanitarian logic of reducing the levels

of socioeconomic vulnerability of refugees and other

migrants who come from Venezuela, but it also seeks

to maximize the contribution of this population to the

economies of the recipient countries and promote

social cohesion through initiatives that also benet

the host communities.

2.1 Why a Regional Strategy

for socio-economic

integration?

While humanitarian aid seeks to satisfy the basic

needs of the refugee and migrant population, in

particular food, health and housing, an economic

integration strategy aims to support the recipients

in becoming actors of their own subsistence. In this

sense, it is a recognition that “there is a growing

need to strengthen the link between humanitarian

assistance and development in the global response

and to place employment in a strategic place

between both components” (ILO, p. 12, 2016). It also

responds to the need to develop or strengthen labour

market institutions and programs that support local

integration, resettlement, voluntary repatriation and

reintegration, as reafrmed in the ILO’s Guiding

Principles: Access of refugees and other forcibly

displaced persons to the labour market.

Refugees and migrants from Venezuela face a series

of obstacles that hinder their integration into the

region’s labour markets or prevent them from creating

their own businesses. The lack of a regular status

represents one of the biggest obstacles to getting

a formal job or starting a business. However, those

in a regular situation also have difculties accessing

decent jobs and obtaining recognition of their

academic degrees and professional skills. Accessing

opportunities to develop skills and competencies

that allow them to be more competitive in the

labour market represents an additional obstacle.

The population from Venezuela, including returnees,

also faces discrimination problems and a high risk

of labour exploitation. This situation is even more

acute in the case of vulnerable populations, such

as women, ethnic minorities and disabled people,

among others.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

In this sense, the Regional Strategy describes the

main ways to promote socioeconomic integration

with special consideration for women, who face more

precarious labour insertion conditions and greater

risks of violence and sexual and labour harassment

for gender reasons, among other realities.

The health, socioeconomic and care crisis generated

by COVID-19, as well as the physical distancing

measures that have been taken throughout the

region, aggravated the migratory crisis and increased

the risks of rejection towards people from Venezuela.

Within the host communities, many people already

experienced situations of poverty, hunger and

exclusion. For this reason, promoting socioeconomic

integration implies thinking about sustainable

development strategies that consider the community

as a whole, and that can and should benet everyone.

A strategy that is exclusively oriented towards the

refugee and migrant population could contribute

to increasing the frustration of the local population

and represent a factor for rejection, especially in the

current context of COVID-19.

From this perspective, the Regional Strategy for

socioeconomic integration is structured around

seven axes:

1. Regularization and proling of the population

from Venezuela

2. Professional training and recognition of

qualications and skills

3. Job promotion

4. Entrepreneurship and business development

5. Financial inclusion

6. Access to social protection

7. Social cohesion

3 International Labour Organization. ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. See: https://www.ilo.org/declaration/

lang--es/index.htm

Each country will be able to position itself in relation

to this Regional Strategy based on its specic needs

and progress on the seven aforementioned axes,

but always within a framework of respect for human

rights and international labour standards, in particular

the fundamental principles and rights at work

. The

participation of the social partners (employers’ and

workers’ organizations) in a tripartite social dialogue

with the Government is very important to dene the

specic adaptations to guide this Strategy in each

national context.

2.2 Applicability and relevance

of a Regional Strategy

When targeting diverse countries, a Regional Strategy

poses the challenge of applicability, adaptability and

relevance. Among the challenges, these factors

should be recognized above all:

} The global socio-economic context derived from

the effects of the pandemic caused by COVID-19

and the quarantine and social distancing

measures adopted by each country.

} The different institutional capacities of each

country.

} That the countries are at different stages of

development to respond to the needs and

demands of the target population of this Regional

Strategy.

Faced with these divergences, an added value of

the regional proposal is to seek that the countries

give each other feedback through the exchange of

good practices and lessons learned. Membership in

regional mechanisms facilitates a more articulated

response (see Box 1).

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Regional collaboration within the Quito Process,

as well as the support of the different actors of the

Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants

from Venezuela (R4V), also constitutes an added

value for the successful implementation of the

Regional Strategy for socio-economic integration.

Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR)

 ●Multilateral Agreement on Social Security (1997).

 Agreement on Residence for Nationals of MERCOSUR Member States and Agreement on Residence for Nationals

of MERCOSUR Member States, Bolivia and Chile.

 Plan to Facilitate the Free Movement of Mercosur Workers (2013

Andean Community of Nations (ACN): Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru

 Andean Instrument for Labour Migration (2003) - Participants: Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

 Andean Instrument for Labour Migration (Decision 545).

 Resolution 957: Regulation of the Andean Instrument for Safety and Health at Work.

Pacic Alliance

Its creation, via the Declaration of Lima (2011), established the purpose of progressively advancing towards “the

free movement of goods, services, capital and people,” to prioritize “the movement of business people and facilitate

migratory transit including migratory cooperation and consular police.”

Caribbean Community (CARICOM)

 ●Members: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica,

Monserrat, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and

Tobago.

 Agreement on Social Security (2006).

Central American Integration System (SICA)

The Central American Social Integration Treaty (Treaty of San Salvador, 1995) aims to achieve Central American

social integration through the coordination, harmonization and convergence of national social policies, for which

purpose the Social Integration Subsystem was created and the Central American Social Integration Secretariat

(SISCA) was established.

Ibero-American Social Security Organization (OISS)

 ●Ibero-American Multilateral Agreement on Social Security.

Table 1. Multilateral mechanisms in the region

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

2.3 Who is the Regional

Strategy for and what

is expected after its

implementation?

The Regional Strategy is directed at the governments

of the main host countries for refugee and migrant

populations that come from Venezuela, especially

government institutions that have some degree of

competence in their socio-economic integration.

It draws on the Colombian experience, where the

Venezuelan Border Management of the Presidency of

the Republic, with the support of UNDP, designed an

income generation strategy for the migrant population

from Venezuela and the host communities (UNDP /

Presidency of the Republic of Colombia, 2019).

Following the implementation of the Strategy, the

population from Venezuela, as well as members of

the host communities, especially those affected by

the health, socioeconomic and care crisis induced by

COVID-19 are expected to:

} Benet from a regular immigration status that

allows them, among other things, to have access

to public or reasonably priced health services,

education, care and nancial services, as well as

to develop new skills and manage the recognition

of their degrees and skills, insert themselves into

the labour markets of the host countries and

create their own businesses.

} Have access to salaried jobs or under the

modality of self-employment in the formal sector

of the economy, with full exercise of their labour

rights and in observance of health and safety

regulations at work, as well as those referring to

the minimum age of admission to employment.

4 This guarantee of access to a minimum level of social protection must be articulated within the framework of a broader strategy of

extension of coverage through an integrated policy approach and access to higher levels of social protection in line with Convention No.

102 of the ILO on the minimum standard of social security.

} Benet from a social protection floor against a

state of need or social vulnerability that requires

the intervention of the different non-contributory

programs, to guarantee access to a basic level

of social protection. This floor will allow, as a

minimum, that they have access throughout

their life cycle to essential health care and basic

income security that, in turn, will enable them

to have effective access to goods and services

dened as necessary at the national level

2.4 The norms and principles

that support and guide the

Regional Strategy

The recommendations included in this document are

part of the global agenda on migration, particularly

labour, forced displacement and sustainable

development. They are based on the guiding principles

dened in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and

Regular Migration (UN, 2018a), the Global Compact

on Refugees (UN, 2018b) and the 2030 Agenda for

Sustainable Development (UN, 2015). The Regional

Strategy follows the guiding principles of human

rights and a gender perspective and adopts a pan-

governmental and pan-social approach.

Likewise, there is a migration governance framework

at the international level that is made up of binding

and non-binding normative instruments, guiding

technical instruments for the denition of national

policies, and others that meet universal aspirations.

These are included in the basis of this Regional

Strategy, but it is also hoped that the countries that

have not ratied them - where appropriate - move

towards this process and that, in all cases, their

content is disclosed and implemented.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Those that are most closely related to the dimensions

addressed by this strategy are listed below,

recognizing that the list can be much longer:

a. Technical and declarative instruments

 ILO multilateral framework for labour migration.

Non-binding principles and guidelines for a

rights-based approach to labour migration

(2007).

 High-Level Dialogue on International Migration

and Development (2013). General Assembly of

the United Nations.

 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

(2015). General Assembly of the United

Nations.

 The “Guiding principles on the access of

refugees and other forcibly displaced persons

to the labour market” (2016).

 General principles and guidelines for fair

recruitment and Denition of recruitment fees

and related expenses (2016 and 2018).

 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular

Migration (2018).

 Global Compact on Refugees (2018).

 Declaration of Panama. 19th American

Regional Meeting of the ILO (2018).

 ILO Centenary Declaration on the Future of

Work (2019). International Labour Conference,

One Hundred and Eighth Session to mark the

Centenary of the ILO.

 Resolution on the ILO Centennial Declaration

on the Future of Work (adopted on June 21,

2019).

b. Normative instruments of the United

Nations System

 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms

of Discrimination against Women (1979).

General Assembly of the United Nations.

 International Convention on the Protection

of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and

Members of Their Families, adopted by

the United Nations General Assembly in its

resolution 45/158, of December 18, 1990.

 Convention on the Status of Refugees, adopted

on July 28, 1951 by the Plenipotentiary

Conference on the Status of Refugees and

Stateless Persons, convened by the General

Assembly of the United Nations.

 Protocol on the Status of Refugees, signed

on January 31, 1967 at the United Nations

General Assembly.

c. Normative instruments of the Interamerican

System for Human Rights

 Convention on Political Asylum (1933).

 Inter-American Convention on the Prevention,

Punishment and Eradication of Violence

against Women or “Convention of Belem do

Pará” (1994).

 Convention on Diplomatic Asylum (1954).

 Convention on Territorial Asylum (1954).

 Additional Protocol to the American Convention

on Human Rights in the area of Economic,

Social and Cultural Rights or “Protocol of San

Salvador” (1988).

 Inter-American Convention Against all Forms

of Discrimination and Intolerance (2013).

d. Normative instruments of the ILO

The fundamental ILO conventions are listed, so

named because they are a prerequisite for the

development of subsequent governance conventions

and considered a priority due to their relevance to

the operation of the international labour standards

system. Other conventions and recommendations

that address the components of this strategy

(employment, social protection, rights of migrant

workers and development of human resources,

among others) are also considered.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

d.1 Core conventions

 Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29)

and its Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour

Convention, 1930.

 Freedom of Association and Protection of the

Right to Organize Convention, 1948 (No. 87).

 Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining

Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

 Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No.

100).

 Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957

(No. 105).

 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)

Convention, 1958 (No. 111).

 Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138).

 Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention,

1999 (No. 182).

d.2 (Priority) governance conventions of the ILO

 Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No.

81); Protocol of 1995 relating to the Labour

Inspection Convention, 1947.

 Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No.

122).

 Labour Inspection (Agriculture) Convention,

1969 (No. 129).

 Tripartite Consultation (International Labour

Standards) Convention, 1976 (No. 144).

d.3 Other applicable ILO conventions and

recommendations

Conventions

 Preservation of Migrants’ Pension Rights

Convention, 1935 (No. 48).

 Employment Service Convention, 1948 (No.

88).

 Migrant Workers Convention (Revised), 1949

(No. 97).

 Social Security (Minimum Standards)

Convention, 1952 (No. 102).

 Plantations Convention, 1958 (No. 110) and

its Protocol of 1982 relating to the Plantations

Convention, 1958.

 Equality of Treatment (Social Security)

Convention, 1962 (No. 118).

 Employment Injury Benets Convention, 1944

(No. 121).

 Invalidity, Old-Age and Survivors’ Benets

Convention, 1967 (No. 128).

 Medical Care and Sickness Benets

Convention, 1969 (No. 130).

 Human Resources Development Convention,

1975 (No. 142).

 Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions)

Convention, 1975 (No. 143).

 Workers with Family Responsibilities

Convention, 1981 (No. 156)

 Preservation of Social Security Rights

Convention, 1982 (No. 157).

 Employment Promotion and Protection

against Unemployment Convention, 1988 (No.

168).

 Private Employment Agencies Convention,

1997 (No. 181).

 Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No.

183).

 Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189).

 Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019

(No. 190).

Recommendations

 Livelihoods Security Recommendation, 1944

(No. 67).

 Medical Care Recommendation, 1944 (No. 69).

 Migrant Workers Recommendation (Revised),

1949 (No. 86).

 Migrant Workers Recommendation, 1975 (No.

151).

 Social Protection Floors Recommendation,

2012 (No. 202).

 Transition from the Informal to the Formal

Economy Recommendation, 2015 (No. 204).

 Employment and Decent Work for Peace and

Resilience Recommendation, 2017 (No. 205).

 Violence and Harassment Recommendation,

2019 (No. 206).

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

The Regional Strategy is established within this

regulatory framework and is based on the following

principles:

 All of the actions implemented include both

the refugee and migrant population, including

returnees, as well as the host communities,

unless for some reason their application is

specied only for one or the other.

 It is recognized that refugees enjoy a different

protection status under international law.

 Respect for human rights in general and

labour rights in particular are guaranteed for

all working people in a situation of mobility.

 Tripartite social dialogue is promoted in the

debate on and denition of the governance

frameworks for labour migration.

 The actions for implementing the Strategy

include the promotion of decent work, both in

the urban and rural sectors.

 The exercise of freedom of association

and collective bargaining is recognized and

guaranteed.

 It is based on and promotes equal opportunities

and treatment in employment, as well as

respect for diversity.

 The right of minors to live free from child

labour and hazardous work.

 The right of people to live free from forced

labour.

 The promotion of a national social protection

floor, which guarantees income security

throughout the entire life cycle and effective

access to essential health services,

accompanies measures to promote socio-

economic integration because this constitutes

one of the elements required for decent work.

 It is formulated from a gender and

intersectional perspective that considers the

relevance of the service offer according to

the life cycle and the business cycle, which

guides actions and strategies, and recognizes

the different experiences faced by women in

terms of barriers to socioeconomic inclusion

and, in particular, those related to care needs

and responsibilities for families, which usually

falls on migrant women.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Socio-labour proling

of the population from

Venezuela

Socio-economic integration is essential for the population from Venezuela,

who need stable sources of income to sustain themselves in their new location

and send remittances to their families. However, despite the fact that the

majority of Venezuelans and returnees are of a productive age and have a high

educational prole, they face many challenges when entering the labour market

under decent working conditions.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

3.1 Age and educational prole

According to various studies, the majority of refugees

and migrants from Venezuela are young, between 18

and 35 years old, with the group between 26 and 35

years old being the largest, followed by the group

of people between 18 and 25 years old. Salgado et

al. (2017) point out that in Chile, the population of

Venezuelans is young and in full productive capacity

because they belong to the age range of between 20

and 35 years old and, to a lesser extent, in the range

of 36 to 50 years, with an average of 29.2 years.

Similarly, Simoes, Cavalcanti, Moreira and Camargo

(2018) point out that in Brazil, Venezuelan immigrants

are mostly young (72% are between 20 and 39 years

old). Ramírez et al. (2019), and further establish that

in Ecuador, 55% of the Venezuelan population is in

the age range between 18 and 35 years.

An analysis of the most recent reports of the

IOM Displacement

Tracking Matrix (DTM) for

the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean

corroborates these results. In Panama, 83% of the

Venezuelan people surveyed are in the age range

of 18 to 45 years, with a higher concentration in the

ages of 26 to 35 years (DTM September 2019); in

Trinidad and Tobago, the majority are between 25

and 29 years old, followed by the group of people

between 30 and 34 years old (DTM September 2018).

The analysis of these same reports makes it possible

to verify that Venezuelans with higher educational

levels migrate to the Southern Cone of America,

Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican

Republic, while those with technical and secondary

educational proles (mostly complete) tend to migrate

to the Andean countries, Brazil and the Caribbean

countries of Aruba, Curaçao, Trinidad and Tobago,

5 The Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) is IOM’s global tool for capturing, processing and generating information on the movements

of people in different countries. Specically, they are surveys of people over 18 years old that are carried out at border points and

destination cities. They provide information on the prole of people in human mobility, transit routes, living and working conditions, as

well as the particular vulnerabilities and specic needs they face.

6 According to a report on the RV4 Platform, there were three shipwrecks that caused more than 80 deaths of Venezuelans who were

taking the sea route to Caribbean countries (RV4 April-May 2019).

and Guyana. This is presumed to happen because

those with a higher occupational qualication

migrate to countries that are perceived to have

better and greater job opportunities (Bravo and Úzua,

2018; Koechlin, Solórzano, Larco and Fernández-

Maldonado, 2019). It also follows that, due to their

socioeconomic prole, the rst group corresponds

to people with the ability to travel to more distant

destinations since, according to the DTM analysed,

those who migrate to the Southern Cone, Panama,

Mexico, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic

make all or part of the trip by plane while those who

travel to neighbouring or closer countries make part

of their trip by bus, boat

and / or on foot.

However, some differences between the rst and

second migratory waves can be identied. The

rst migrations corresponded mainly to people

with postgraduate, university and higher technical

studies, including professionals in careers such

as Engineering, Social Sciences, Administrative

Sciences, Education, Medicine and Law, among

others (Mercer, 2019; Tincopa et al., 2019; Salgado

et al., 2017). The most recent waves include younger

people with less education and little work experience.

In other words, recent migrations are of people who

leave the country in conditions of greater vulnerability

and with less work experience (Blouin, 2019).

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

3.2 Distribution and differences

by gender por género

Women represent about half of the people who

come from Venezuela and, on average, have higher

educational levels than their male counterparts;

they also have work experience. It is estimated that

more than 70% worked before migrating and of

these, approximately 57% had a formal job, a similar

proportion to their male counterparts, while 16% were

unemployed (9% of men were) ( IOM, 2018).

Despite this, they face signicantly worse job

placement conditions than men. Unemployment

is generally double what they experienced before

they migrated and at least double that of their male

counterparts. These results are influenced by the

combination of the sexual division of labour within

households and in labour markets, and the violence

experienced in transit and destination (Carcedo,

Chaves Groh and Larraitz Lexartza, 2020).

Within households, the migratory experience tends

to reinforce, reproduce and increase the differences

in the distribution of care work and other unpaid

tasks. Women who come from Venezuela take care

of the family more intensively than before migrating

and do so more than men. This difference tends

to grow in the places of destination, where the

difculties of educating the little ones, the lack of

care services and support networks, and the scarcity

of resources that prevent hiring third parties for

household tasks lead women to disproportionately

assume reproductive responsibilities within families.

To meet this demand, they also do not have the

help of the extended family and, in particular, of

older women; less than 10% of women are over

50 years old. For women heads of households,

the pressure is even greater (Carcedo et al., 2020).

In LAC countries, the sexual division of labour outside

the home produces labour markets with strong

segmentation and horizontal segregation by sex, which

implies a high concentration of women in professions

and trades that require fewer qualications (ECLAC,

2019). These markets favour the disqualication of

women who come from Venezuela and reinforce

precarious work in jobs that are usually located within

the informal economy and, therefore, in working

conditions with a lack of decent work. Among

these are occupations related to cleaning, caring

for other people, and street vending. In fact, women

reach a labour market that is already segregated

by sex, but they only manage to insert themselves

into feminized and low-productivity occupations.

They are not successful in entering occupations

where women are the majority, but require high or

medium-high qualications, such as health and

education. For many, this segmentation of the labour

market implies giving up their professions and work

experiences and reinforces their disproportionate

participation in the care economy in two ways:

inside and outside their homes, paid and unpaid.

The violence and harassment experienced by women

and girls of all ages who come from Venezuela also

impact their access to livelihoods and contribute to

their exclusion from labour markets, which implies

loss of employment, lack of incentive to search and

consequent real access only to jobs with high levels

of risk. Street sales, domestic work and sex work are

some of the sectors in which migrant women nd

employment opportunities and, at the same time,

risk situations, as well as exposure to violence and

exploitation.

The reinforcement of the domesticity mandate

reaches not only the loss of their professions,

businesses or disconnection from the collective

spaces in which they were reafrmed, they also lose

the possibility of acting and interacting on their own

behalf in different settings and with different people.

This drastic change, the lack of job opportunities and

precarious living conditions, as well as an increase in

reproductive workloads and the risks of sexual, sexist

and xenophobic violence reinforce this enormous

decline in their quality of life.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

3.3 Main obstacles to labour

insertion

In general, refugees and migrants from Venezuela,

especially women, nd more opportunities to

be employed in the informal economy, with the

limitations it implies in terms of access to labour

rights. The reason is structural: between half and

three-quarters of the jobs in Latin America and

the Caribbean are in the informal economy, either

because they are jobs without a formal contract and

in precarious conditions or because they include low-

productivity enterprises and, therefore, do not offer

the possibility of affording coverage against various

risks of the present and future (ILO, 2019).

In Peru, the study by Koechlin et al. (2019) points

out that the insertion of Venezuelan people into

employment “has been at the cost of reinforcing

the predominant tendencies of the Peruvian

occupational structure, that is, the generation of

employment in the informal sector of the economy”

(2019, pp. 50 -51). In its study on immigration of

South Americans in Argentina, the ILO (2011, p. 123)

indicates that these people are inserted in “(…) a

labour market characterized by the high presence of

precarious jobs for the population as a whole, where

the migrant population takes the worst part (…). ” The

insertion of the migrant population into the labour

market is determined, therefore, by its structure and,

in this case, by informality, clearly to the detriment

of compliance with labour rights. In Trinidad and

Tobago, more than 90% of Venezuelans surveyed for

7 The delays in obtaining an appointment to start the application for the residency procedure in Argentina are up to 12 months. On the

other hand, in May 2018, the Argentine Executive increased the prices of all administrative immigration fees, including the fee to request

an urgent appointment that increased ve times from 2,000 to 10,000 Argentine pesos (from 47 to 234 euros) (Pacecca, 2018, in Acosta

et al., 2019).

8 In Panama, among the different challenges to regularizing or applying for refugee status, the DTM report indicates: (1) the expiration

/ theft / loss of passport (Venezuelan people are not accessing new documents either in the consulates or in Venezuela) although,

on occasions, they receive consular certicates of passport extension for the immigration and labour regularization procedures; (2)

the cost of immigration regularization and legal representation. Additional costs include the processing and sending of documents to

Venezuela, payment to the responsible person in Panama and travel / stay in the capital for those who live in the interior of the country

(DTM September 2019, p. 15).

9 In Ecuador, where neither documents nor extenuating circumstances are required, the main limiting factor to obtaining documentation

is the cost. The visa application costs 50 USD; the UNASUR Visa costs 250 USD, and the temporary visa costs 400 USD (Ministry of

Foreign Relations, 2019, in Célleri, 2010, p. 13).

the DTM report indicated that they were working in

the informal sector (DTM September 2018).

In relation to immigration regulation, the processes

involved are long and expensive, and in some cases

access to it is impossible. Not having a regular

immigration status constitutes a limitation for access

to decent work, as already outlined by various studies

(Tincopa, 2019

; Acosta et al., 2019

; DTM Panama

2019; Célleri, 2019

). In the Dominican Republic, the

DTM report indicates that, “although the Venezuelan

population nds activities that generate income,

these are low. There is limited access to labour rights

due to their irregular migration status ”(DTM October-

November 2018). In a study carried out with women

in Peru, the results of which can be extrapolated

to men, the following were identied as obstacles

to labour insertion: (1) the difculty of requesting

appointments at the National Directorate of Migration,

which leads women to resort to “processors” (people

who can access the website at dawn to process an

appointment); (2) the existence of few State ofces

for managing immigration documents, such that

women have to stand in long lines to obtain them;

and (3) high costs, such as for the Interpol File and

the immigration card (Tincopa, 2019).

Having a document proving one’s refugee status or

a work permit is not a guarantee of access to the

job market. There are some barriers that are related

to the lack of information on the part of the private

sector about this migratory category, since they

do not know whether these documents are valid

and are not sure of the existence of restrictions to

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

hiring migrants, such as work permits for certain

occupations.

Access to vocational training in the LAC region is

usually conditioned on the possession of immigration

documentation and, in general, a residence card and

a basic level of education are required according

to the policies of vocational training institutes.

Sometimes, as previously mentioned, migrants and

refugees do not carry their diplomas and, therefore, it

is impossible to demonstrate the minimum required

degree, which makes it impossible to access these

alternatives to strengthen employability. In countries

like Costa Rica, people between the ages of 15 and

17 can access the courses available at the Instituto

Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA), regardless of their

immigration status. Access facilities for this type

of training promote job placement under more

favourable conditions, because they allow access to

degrees that prove mastery of certain skills.

The validation of university degrees requires going

through tedious processes (obtaining apostilles

or nding documents that are not available in

Venezuela), that are long and expensive. In many

cases, the document that they do not carry or that

they cannot obtain is the diploma itself: “despite the

fact that 40% of the Venezuelan people surveyed

have higher education, only half have been able to

bring their diploma to Peru (50 %). Of this group, only

half have validated their diploma (50%) ”(Blouin, 2019,

p. 58). A related problem is the inability to obtain

documents in Venezuela when requested.

The costs also represent an obstacle because “the

Venezuelan migrant must debate whether to assume

the costs of validating professional degrees or

whether to save that money for survival purposes or

for sending remittances” (Blouin, 2019, p.59). This

situation generates a low correspondence between

their studies (university or technical-superior) and

the type of work they perform.

Koechlin et al. (2019), in their study on labour

insertion in Peru, asked what is the relationship

between the training that the Venezuelan migrant

brings and the occupation they perform: of 575

people who completed their university or technical

degree studies, only 7,65% are working in their eld

of study (university students and technicians in their

profession), while 92.35% are working in some other

activity. Among those surveyed, inappropriateness

affects both men and women in a similar proportion.

It should be taken into account that, sometimes,

countries limit the incorporation of workers to certain

occupations or professions, so this inappropriateness

is not always due to barriers related to the recognition

of degrees.

3.4 Lack of decent work and job

precariousness

The majority of Venezuelan migrants and refugees,

regardless of their educational level and work

experience, are working in the informal sector.

The most frequent occupations are: in shops,

street vendors, customer service, restaurants and

construction; a majority of women are relegated

to paid care and domestic work. Informal working

conditions do not meet the requirements of labour

legislation. They are characterized, on the contrary, by

the lack of a written employment contract, existence

of longer or shorter working hours than desired,

payment of minimum wage or less, non-payment

of wages, lack of social protection (they do not have

access to health or pension systems), disrespect

for labour rights (bonus, vacation pay and overtime,

among others) and early dismissals after passing the

trial period.

Figure 1 compares the percentages of informal

work among nationals and people of Venezuelan

origin in ve South American countries: Argentina,

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The percentage

of Venezuelans working in the informal sector is

systematically higher than that of nationals and

exceeds 70% in all ve countries. On average, the gap

between the two populations is around 24%.

Graphic 1. Percentage of Venezuelans and nationals in the informal sector, 2018-19

Perú

Colombia

Ecuador

Brasil

Argentina

0 2010

 % of Venezuelans working in the informal sector

 % of nationals working in the informal sector

30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Source: World Bank (2020).

In Chile, Salgado et al. (2017) report that 45% of the

Venezuelan people surveyed in their study entered

the labour market as salespeople and that another

20% are working as waiters, which is equivalent to

saying that 65% work in the service sector, under the

modality of customer service. In Peru, Tincopa et al.

(2019) point out that 29% of women who work do so

in itinerant or informal jobs and 43% in jobs related

to direct sales or customer service. Thus, “a very

notable characteristic of the Venezuelan migrant

population in all the countries of South America,

including Ecuador, is their presence in the streets,

squares, parks and markets, selling products such as

sweets, fast food, homemade sweets, juices, or the

traditional Venezuelan arepa ”(Ramírez et al., 2019,

p. 20).

Koechlin et al. (2019) note that a visible characteristic

of the labour insertion process consists of “the

precarious working conditions in which a signicant

percentage of immigrants nd themselves. (…) The

precarious factors are reflected in the working hours,

salaries, formality and informality of employment,

job rotation ”(p. 36). The study shows that, for

Lima, Arequipa and Piura, 82% of the Venezuelan

people surveyed reported working longer than the

established legal workday, which is equivalent to 48

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

hours per week

and 46% reported having an income

below the minimum wage. When introducing the

gender variable, the study nds that more Venezuelan

women receive an income below the minimum

compared to their male peers (58% reported by

women versus 37% reported by men).

For Chile, Salgado et al. (2017) point out that although

49% of the people surveyed had a written contract,

“some 43.1% of those who have a contract, do not

contribute to the pension fund. This situation has a

certain correlation to when they were asked if they

were contributing to the health system (…), 17.4% of

those who have some type of employment contract

do not contribute to the health system ”(p.108). Célleri

(2019), in the study on Ecuador, found that 51% of

the people surveyed with a job have a dependency

relationship, but 70% indicate that they have not

signed a contract. According to the author, a possible

explanation for this situation is that they enter jobs

under the condition of a “probationary period,” which

according to current legislation in Ecuador is three

months, a period in which employers can make

dismissals without the obligations that they would

have under a xed contract and with the payment of

social security.

This situation is also evident in the DTM reports.

In Brazil, 80% of the people who reported being

employed receive less than the minimum wage and

72% did not sign any employment contract (DTM

April 2019). In Paraguay, 20% of the people who

reported employment earn less than the minimum

wage (DTM October 2018). In Trinidad and Tobago,

47% of Venezuelan people who work reported earning

less than the minimum wage and 23% reported

being in violation of their labour rights for not being

paid or being paid less than the agreed salary (DTM

September 2018).

10 When cross-analyzing the variables of working hours and remuneration, the study found no relationship between greater number of

hours worked and higher remuneration.

Women also face the worst working conditions in

the informal sector; more often they lack a contract,

earn less than the minimum and less than their male

counterparts (wage gap), and work fewer hours than

desired. They also face particular risk situations at

work or when searching for work: sexual harassment,

abuse and rape. They are, therefore, subject to dual

employment discrimination due to their status as

women and refugees or migrants.

Pressure is evident in the labour market due to

informal, low productivity and precarious jobs.

There is an oversupply of labour for this type of

work, which results, on the one hand, in an increase

in job insecurity, which affects both nationals and

refugees and migrants and, on the other, an increase

in xenophobia and discrimination.

3.5 Impact on employment and

work due to the measures

adopted to stop the spread

of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a veritable health,

socioeconomic and care crisis. The quarantines

and other physical distancing measures adopted to

prevent the spread of the virus, although necessary,

generated an economic recession at the global

level that resulted in a decrease or paralysis of

productive activities, especially in sectors such as

hotels, construction, restaurants, travel and tourism;

a strong increase in unemployment and a reduction

in working hours and income (UN, 2020). The

International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that real

GDP will suffer a drop of 3% in the world in 2020 and

a drop of 5.2% in LAC (IMF, 2020). The UNDP (2020a)

anticipates that the Human Development Index (HDI)

could reverse for the rst time in three decades.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Recent ILO estimates show a decrease in the number

of working hours of around 10.7% compared to the

last quarter of 2019, which is equivalent to some 305

million full-time jobs in the world (based on a 48-hour

workweek) and a reduction of 13% in the Americas

(ILO, 2020a). These same estimates show that many

young people under 30 years of age, who make up

around 70% of international migratory flows at the

international level (ILO, 2017b), were affected by the

closure of work centres and borders. The productive

sectors that are most affected are precisely those

with the greatest presence of young workers (ILO,

2020a).

In the world, almost 1.6 billion workers in the informal

economy were affected by isolation measures or

by working in the most affected sectors, and their

income was reduced by 60% during the rst month of

the crisis (ILO, 2020). According to the Inter-American

Development Bank (2020), the level of informality

could reach 62% in Latin America and the Caribbean,

a percentage that currently stands at 54%, according

to the ILO.

In 2020, the poverty rate could increase to 4.4% and

the extreme poverty rate to 2.6% compared to 2019,

reaching 34.7% of the Latin American population

- which is equivalent to 214.7 million people -; for

its part, extreme poverty would reach 13% - which

is equivalent to 83.4 million people (ECLAC, 2020d,

cited by ECLAC and ILO, 2020).

People who work in the informal economy and who

are therefore not covered by the countries’ social

protection systems are the ones who are most

affected by the economic and labour crisis. Refugees

and migrants, who also suffer the consequences

of xenophobia and discrimination, constitute a

particularly vulnerable population because most

of them work in activities related to commerce and

services, including itinerant sales, domestic work,

11 “Interagency Group on Mixed Migration Flows,” Colombia, which is part of the Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from

Venezuela, R4V.

caring for children and the elderly, construction and

recycling, all informally (UNDP, 2020b). As expected,

these activities will be among the most affected when

the restrictive measures adopted due to the health

crisis are totally or partially lifted. The economic

reactivation process will also depend on the

conditions in which the companies nd themselves

in order to operate again. Many had to close, lay

off staff or slow down their production, so they did

not receive or perhaps do not receive support from

governments (tax benets, extensions to pay debts,

subsidies to keep jobs, reduction of social costs, etc.)

and will have serious difculties in resuming their

activities.

Since there is not yet a vaccine, the population will

have to live with the SARS-COV-2 virus and that will

imply an adaptation of the operating rules of many of

the services in which the migrant population is or was

employed, and this will be reflected in the quantity

and quality of jobs. Health and safety regulations

at work are especially relevant in this case, and also

require adaptation to prevent the spread of the virus.

A rapid needs assessment in the context of COVID-19,

carried out in Colombia (May 2020) by GIFMM

indicates that, since preventive measures were

implemented, 20% of households report receiving

income from paid work when before, this number

was up to 98%, which shows a decrease of 78%.

In addition, 48% of the people surveyed said they

did not have any source of income, which implies

a signicant increase compared to the 4% who

reported no income before the isolation measures.

Also noteworthy is the increase in the percentage of

households that are using their savings (before, they

were used by 2% and now, by 13%).

Those who work in activities such as, for example,

the distribution of food - with a strong presence of

Venezuelan workers - did not suffer restrictions on

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

mobility because they are “essential services,” so they

can continue to function despite the social distancing

measures. However, they were exposed to the risk

of contagion because they lacked, in all cases, the

necessary protective elements and were not covered

by social protection, in addition to encountering

difculties in joining workers’ organizations and

establishing dialogues with the employment sector.

School closures and, in many cases, distance

learning can put a strain on families; in particular, for

women, who dedicate three times as much time to

unpaid care and domestic work as men. Furthermore,

gender inequalities are accentuated in households

with lower incomes, in which the demand for care

is higher, given that they have a higher number of

dependents per household (ECLAC, 2020a).

Finally, the massive arrival of the population from

Venezuela made it difcult to design a response to

the demand for housing. This additional vulnerability

factor was increased by the context of the COVID-19

epidemic. In fact, the excluded neighbourhoods,

which have an overrepresentation of the refugee

and migrant population, are particularly affected,

given that the shelters, short-stay hotels or shared

apartments are highly overcrowded spaces with poor

infrastructure, which represents a vehicle for the

spread of the virus and an increased risk of exclusion.

3.6 Social protection in the

regional context

Social protection, which includes social security, is a

human right that is dened as a set of policies and

programs designed to reduce and prevent poverty,

vulnerability and social exclusion throughout the life

cycle. The provisions of Convention No. 102 of the ILO

on the minimum standard of social security (1961)

establishes nine main areas of protection: family

and child benets; maternity and unemployment

benets; benets in case of accidents at work and

occupational diseases; sickness, old-age, disability

and survivors benets, and health protection. The

provision of all these benets is made through a

combination of contributory schemes based on

traditional social insurance and non-contributory

benets nanced by taxes (ILO, 2017a).

Beyond recent advances in the consolidation of

comprehensive social protection systems in Latin

America and the Caribbean, signicant coverage

gaps persist in geographical terms (with marked

differences between urban and rural areas) and

especially with respect to some groups considered

difcult to cover, as in the case of migrant workers

and their families. The countries developed their

social protection systems on the basis of different

starting lines and various institutional schemes

and, therefore, the results achieved are quite

heterogeneous in terms of coverage and quality of

benets. Currently, more than ve out of ten workers

do not contribute regularly to social security and,

therefore, lack any type of coverage.

Colombia promoted, through the Special Residency

Permit (PEP), the regularization of the Venezuelan

population, to facilitate their access to formal

employment. Thus, the immigration authorities

regularized more than 660,000 Venezuelans in

less than three years. However, coverage rates for

Venezuelans in a regular situation within the social

protection system remain relatively low. As of April

30, 2020, the number of PEP holders registered in the

Single Database of Afliates (BDUA) of the General

System of Social Security in Health was 216,285, that

is, only 32.7% of Venezuelans are PEP holders (UNDP

/ Presidency of the Republic of Colombia, 2019).

In addition to traditional problems such as high

informality, there are other elements that exert pressure

on the performance of social security systems, such

as accelerated technological change and disruptions

in the organization of production and work; the aging

of the population and the increase in dependency

rates; the incidence of natural disasters and, also,

the phenomenon of labour migration (ILO, 2018).

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

A global mapping conducted by UNHCR in 2018

found that most national social security systems are

not accessible to non-nationals. In the few countries

where access is given to refugees, it is partial or

limited due to restrictive legal frameworks or barriers

to implementation

. Over the years, an understanding

has been achieved on the part of both the authorities

and the general population that these programs do

not depend on the discretion of the government in

power, but rather are rights that must be guaranteed

by the States (ECLAC, 2017). Non-contributory

social protection policies were implemented through

the appropriate institutions using available public

funds and with a commitment to implement them

from a human rights perspective. In addition, these

policies have an international, constitutional and

legal framework which recognizes the right to social

security of all people without distinction.

All these factors mean that the region has a

favourable framework for promoting the inclusion of

refugees and migrants in national social protection

systems

Due to the serious situation in the LAC region resulting

from the effects of the pandemic, governments

applied different measures to extend social

protection to the populations in which COVID-19

caused the greatest damage. At the beginning of the

pandemic, the use and adaptation of existing cash

transfer programs was the most frequent response.

Due to the prolongation of the health crisis and the

limited coverage of social protection instruments,

which were not enough to cover vulnerable

populations such as informal workers and vulnerable

households, new instruments such as vouchers

12 Phelps, Laura: Mapping opportunities for linking humanitarian cash-based interventions with national social safety nets for displaced

populations, UNHCR, March 2018.

13 “The incorporation of refugees in national non-contributory social protection programs (social assistance) in the Americas, how to

move forward?” UNHCR July 2018.

14 https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_633165/lang--es/index.htm

15 United Nations Development Programme (2020). Technical Note: the economic impacts of covid-19 and gender inequalities

recommendations and guidelines for public policies. Retrieved from: http://americalatinagenera.org/newsite//images/cdr-

documents/2020/04/PNUD_GENERO_COVID19__ESP_FINAL_ok_5.pdf

and transfer programs were created. However, the

migrant population was not always included in these

responses (Rubio, Escaroz, Machado, Palomo and

Sato, 2020).

COVID-19 response measures such as isolation

highlighted the global care crisis and, in particular,

global care chains

. Within the framework of social

protection, care must be understood as a basic right

of citizenship that the community assumes and

guarantees in order to maximize individual and social

well-being, with direct supervision of the State in the

provision of care services and the regulation of the

responsibilities assumed by other institutions.

Unpaid care and domestic work increased as a

result of the COVID-19 outbreak, from caring for

patients at home and the elderly, school closures

and mandatory quarantines. Women and girls are

the primary caregivers in the home and have greater

domestic and family care responsibilities. Worldwide,

they do two and a half times more unpaid care and

domestic work than men.

Migrant women, especially those who are involved in

domestic care, face a greater possibility of exposure

when they maintain their economic activity and when

they are unable to do so, as a consequence of travel

and mobility restrictions, they experience harsh

socioeconomic consequences derived from income

losses. Unequal power relations and discriminatory

social norms can pose additional risks for migrants in

contexts where discrimination and xenophobia limit

their access to a source of employment, livelihoods

or services

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Priority axes of the

regional strategy

for socioeconomic

integration

The Regional strategy for socio-economic integration aims to respond to

the needs of this population not only with humanitarian actions, but also

with measures aimed at their socio-economic integration. In this sense,

the Strategy is part of a medium- and long-term framework and recognizes

that the majority of refugees and migrants from Venezuela will settle for

many years, which is why the only viable option for them to contribute to the

Sustainable development of their host countries is to promote socio-economic

integration and citizen coexistence. With this objective, the Regional Strategy

focuses on seven axes: (i) Regularization and proling of the population from

Venezuela; (ii) Professional training and recognition of degrees and skills; (iii)

Promotion of employment; (iv) Entrepreneurship and business development; (v)

Financial inclusion; (vi) Access to social protection, (vii) Social cohesion.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

4.1 Regularization and proling

of the population from

Venezuela

The regularization of migration and the recognition of

refugee status are central elements of the integration

of refugees and migrants into their host countries.

Having the necessary documentation is essential

for them to have access to services and the formal

job market. However, in many Latin American and

Caribbean countries, a large proportion of the

Venezuelan population is in a situation of irregular

stay. For some people, this is because they used

irregular channels to cross borders or because they

do not have ofcial documentation, which is difcult

to acquire in Venezuela; for others, it is because

they encountered legal or practical barriers to

accessing refugee status determination procedures,

and the rest, because the host countries increased

restrictions on regularization. Faced with this, public

authorities in the region should adopt more flexible

and expeditious regularization mechanisms, as

well as improve their asylum systems to favour the

integration of migrants and refugees and increase

their contribution to the economies and societies of

the countries receiving them.

On the other hand, as a complement to the

regularization processes, it is important to have

detailed data on the socio-labour proles of the

Venezuelan population, as well as the returnees, to

better understand who they are and what their areas

of training and experience are, and thus seek a better

insertion into the labour markets of the host countries.

On the other hand, to favour the matching process

between demand and labour supply, information is

also needed about the characteristics of the labour

demand.

u Current situation / obstacles

 An important part of the Venezuelan population is

in an irregular situation in many countries of the

region.

 In many countries, the Venezuelan population,

particularly the most vulnerable, has limited

access to the information available on the

different options for regularization.

 The regularization mechanisms that were

implemented in most of the countries of the

region are relatively rigid and prevent addressing

the permanent flow of people from Venezuela.

 The high costs of visas and the long periods

needed to respond to the procedures represent

another obstacle to regularization.

 Despite the fact that many Venezuelan nationals

could qualify as refugees, few are ever recognized

as such by the authorities of the host countries.

 Some of those who returned do not have

the necessary documentation to prove their

nationality and are in an irregular situation.

 Efforts to characterize the refugee and migrant

population remain very limited.

 There is a scarcity of data on the population from

Venezuela disaggregated by sex, diversity, age,

ethnic origin, and disability status, among others.

 Detailed and systematic data is lacking on the

educational and socioeconomic characteristics

of the population from Venezuela and their ability

to enter the labour markets.

 When they exist, a systematization of the data

about the characteristics of the labour demand is

required.

 There is a lack of knowledge on the part of the

private sector regarding the validity of the regular

stay documents and about the processes for

hiring refugees and migrants.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

u Proposal

In order to address the massive arrival of refugees and

migrants from Venezuela and facilitate their process

of socio-economic integration, it is necessary for the

governments of the recipient countries to implement

processes of regularization of the Venezuelan

population in an irregular situation, recognition

of their refugee status through the persons who

qualify and requested protection, and proling of

the returned population (including persons born in

Venezuela who are the sons and daughters of Latin

American refugees and migrants).

Such regularization and proling processes, which

are based on a registry of the population from

Venezuela, as Colombia did in recent years through its

Special Stay Permits (PEP), are the most effective in

allowing refugees and other migrants to successfully

enter formal labour markets and contribute to the

economic growth of their host countries (Clemens,

Huang, and Graham, 2018). In this sense, one of the

rounds of PEP in Colombia covered people who had

entered the country irregularly as long as they had

registered with the government between April and

June of 2018, which allowed for the regularization

of large numbers of Venezuelans. Argentina and

Uruguay, for their part, grant MERCOSUR residence

visas to people from Venezuela, despite the fact

that this country was suspended from this body.

In the rst case, they obtain a temporary two-year

visa. In the second, a permanent resident visa. Upon

entering, Brazil grants temporary residence to any

Venezuelan person as long as they have some type

of identity document, which allows them to arrange

for permanent residence three months before the

previous one expires, although they must prove that

they have a legal source of income. Peru, through

the Temporary Permit of Permanence (PTP), allowed

people to move to a migratory category of long-term

16 This measure follows the decision, adopted in June 2019 by CONARE, to recognize that the situation in Venezuela constitutes a serious

and widespread violation of human rights, as described in the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees of 1984.

residence after one year, but at present, the program

is closed (Selee and Bolter, 2020).

Some examples of migrant registries are: Colombia,

with the Administrative Registry of Venezuelan

Migrants (RAMV), which collected information on the

size and prole of this population, specically those

who were in an irregular situation, as it was carried

out during the round of PEP for people in irregular

condition; and Ecuador, started in September 2019,

which provides information on an approximate

number of migrants from Venezuela, their

characteristics, migratory situation, socioeconomic

position, and work and educational proles (Selee

and Bolter, 2020).

Another important example of regularization was the

decision of the Brazilian government to recognize the

refugee status of Venezuelans through group-based

determinations, such as the prima facie approach.

Under this approach, asylum applications that

meet the necessary criteria are processed through

an expedited procedure, without the need for an

interview

It is necessary to make procedures more flexible

and to extend the criteria for recognizing refugee

status, so that the Venezuelan population benets

from greater protection and the processes of

socioeconomic integration in the host country are

accelerated. Several countries in the region extended

the denition of “refugees” in their national legislation

based on the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees -

as is the case of Brazil (UNHCR, 2019) -, while others

increased their capacities to process applications

for asylum or developed simplied or accelerated

processes.

It is also important to carry out proling processes

for the migrant population from Venezuela, which

include refugees, asylum seekers and returnees,

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

through coordinated surveys among the different

entities in charge of providing care in different

areas and those that participate in the process of

socioeconomic integration, in particular the Ministries

of Labour, Education, Health and Social Protection,

as well as the departments of statistics. The proling

processes must consider that, many times, the

reasons for leaving Venezuela are associated with

the criteria for recognition of the refugee’s condition,

such as persecution, situations of violence or serious

disturbances of public order that threaten the life, as

well as the security or freedom of these people.

u Strategic lines

1. Adoption of flexible regularization mechanisms

 Adopt different migratory categories or create

ad hoc temporary alternatives (for example,

special residence permits or humanitarian

visas), to enable access to services and

insertion into formal labour markets.

 Strengthen national asylum capacities,

including improving refugee status recognition

processes to reduce response times and make

conditions more flexible, so that a greater

number of asylum seekers can access the

refugee qualication and, therefore, obtain

recognition of their legal status.

 Improve the information and guidance

mechanisms for the regularization processes

of Venezuelans, aimed at employers, and both

employers’ and workers’ organizations.

 Reduce the costs of visas and residence

permits, when they have a cost, or apply

special rates for vulnerable populations.

 Create regularization mechanisms for people

in an irregular situation who obtain a formal

employment contract.

 In the context of COVID-19, adopt more flexible

regularization mechanisms to guarantee

greater protection, which simplies the

incorporation of migrants and refugees into

the labour market in a context where the need

for foreign labour was more than evident.

2. Streamline the proling processes of the

returned population from Venezuela

 Information and orientation mechanisms so

that people who return to Venezuela after

several years or even decades know their rights

and the current processes for the recognition

of their nationality in their country of origin.

 Facilitate proling processes so that returnees

and, in particular, those belonging to the

“second generation” can request recognition

of nationality in their country of origin (or that

of their parents).

3. Proling of the demographic and

socioeconomic prole of the population from

Venezuela

 Collect existing information to avoid

duplication of efforts / studies and waste of

resources.

 Carry out studies that assess the living

conditions of the population from Venezuela

such as: the composition of the household;

access to health, education and childcare

services; level of education and professional

skills; work and business experience, as

well as vocational prole; current economic

activity and working conditions; cases of

vulnerability, discrimination and labour

exploitation; the situation of migrant women

and the specic obstacles they face; ethnic

minorities: indigenous and Afro-descendant

communities.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

4.2 Professional training and

recognition of degrees and

skills

Investing in vocational training is a key aspect of

the process of socio-economic integration since it

reduces the gap between the demand and supply

of skills. While it is true that a part of the population

from Venezuela is educated and has skills that

can be useful for the economies of the countries

of the region, another part requires technical or

complementary training, including socio-emotional

skills, to better meet the needs of labour markets

in the host countries and thus facilitate their job

placement. In this sense, it is important to involve

employers’ and workers’ organizations in the design

of vocational training programs so that they consider

the needs of companies.

Another essential stage in the labour inclusion

process is the validation of technical and academic

qualications, so that studies completed outside the

destination country are recognized. This validation

process, although not a legal requirement in all

sectors, opens up more formal employment options.

But in practice, there are many obstacles that

make it difcult or prevent most professionals from

validating their qualications, so they nd themselves

in a precarious employment situation despite their

academic level.

For their part, in many countries, people without

degrees but with professional experience have the

option of requesting recognition of this experience

through skills certication mechanisms. Recognition

of previous learning acquired throughout working

life can facilitate the process of insertion into the

job market for the Venezuelan refugee and migrant

population, as well as for returnees.

u Current situation / obstacles

 The channels of communication and coordination

between public employment services, companies

and vocational and technical training institutes

need to be streamlined and strengthened so that

the training offered is relevant and meets the

needs of the job market.

 The incorporation of women continues to be

widespread in areas or occupations traditionally

assigned by gender. Afrmative measures are

required for the promotion of gender equality.

 Most of the people from Venezuela are inserted

in occupations that are not related to the studies

they have completed.

 The underutilization and waste of their job skills

represents a loss not only for the refugee and

migrant population, but also for the national

economy that is deprived of skills and capacities

that it might need.

 In many cases, qualied persons, whether

Venezuelan or returnees, do not carry their

diplomas acquired abroad.

 They face difcult requirements to full, such

as the apostille of certicates and technical and

academic degrees in Venezuela or, in certain

cases, their translation.

 They must assume high costs and long

procedures to validate degrees that account for

the studies obtained and thus certify their skills,

acquired formally or informally, which means that

they must be underemployed and self-employed

in the informal sector.

 Women are the ones with the highest levels of

imbalance, since they have the highest levels of

education (as a group), but also the highest levels

of underemployment.

 In many countries, refugees and migrants in an

irregular situation are unable to validate their

qualications or certify their skills.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

u Proposal

The denition of the training curricula must be aligned

with the requirements of the companies, market

studies and information collected by the public

employment services and duly accredited private

employment agencies. Due to the impact of the

pandemic, the new dynamics developed around work

promoted the construction and operation of digital

platforms to promote the sale of goods and services,

and thus enable communication between very

diverse actors from different geographical locations.

At this time, training institutes have an opportunity to

capture these possibilities and transform them into

new careers or enrich / adapt existing ones, including

those in health-related areas.

The wastage of the competencies of migrant

workers is caused by difculties in the recognition

of prior learning (RPL), which, in turn, is due to

difcult-to-meet requirements established by

the responsible institutions. They have to do with

costs, misinformation, duration and immigration

documentation, among others, which are related to

legal or regulatory provisions that would need to be

reviewed to enable more inclusive access. The RPL

also nds limitations because some countries may

not recognize certain competencies, a barrier that

could be reversed at a regional level, working on

frameworks that homogenize the qualication.

In other cases, the limitation originates from the

lack of studies that determine which skills the

market needs to have strengthened or developed,

and the consequent training offer, which must

also be reviewed and updated. The participation

of representatives of workers and employers is a

conducive channel for identifying the necessary and

17 Emergency Decree No. 037-202. El Peruano (Sunday, April 12, 2020): https://www.mef.gob.pe/es/normatividad-sp-9867/por-

instrumento/decretos-de-urgencia/22200-decreto-de-urgencia-n-037-2020-1/le

18 Ofcial Decree 260 (Thursday, March 12, 2020). Ofcial Gazette of the Republic of Argentina No. 34.324: https://www.boletinocial.gob.

ar/suplementos/2020031201NS.pdf

available skills, which opens the possibility of working

on the gaps (OECD / UNHCR, 2018).

Some countries facilitate the process of validation

of degrees by making the procedure free, as is the

case of Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay. Argentina,

in February of 2018, began to recognize the degrees

as if there was a reciprocity agreement between the

two countries, even though it does not exist, which

eliminated the apostille requirement and accelerated

their management by decentralizing the validation at

different public universities in each of its provinces.

Uruguay had a centralized system in a university in

the country and, with the increase in immigration,

it decentralized the procedure in different university

faculties, which reduced waiting time (Selee and

Belter, 2020).

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted

the need to recruit refugees and migrants to meet

the demand for local labour, particularly in the health

and care sectors. In this sense, some countries

accelerated and simplied the procedures for

validating the qualications of health professionals

in order to increase the number of personnel

assigned to care for infected people. Peru ordered

the hiring of refugees and migrants who were

medical professionals to reinforce health care in

the face of the COVID-19 emergency. To do this, it

created the Special COVID-SERVICER Service, made

up of medical professionals, to exclusively attend to

the health emergency and in which both Peruvian

health professionals, refugees and migrants

can participate. In Argentina, by means of Ofcial

Decree 260 of Thursday, March 12, 2020, authorized

“exceptionally and temporarily the hiring and exercise

of professionals and health technicians graduated

abroad, whose degree is not revalidated or enabled

in the Republic of Argentina

. “These measures

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

could have continuity and, at the same time, are an

example of good practices that may be replicated in

the future in light of the needs of the labour market in

other areas or occupations.

u Strategic lines

1. Vocational training

 Review of admission requirements for the

refugee and migrant population at training

institutions for work.

 Development of training courses in the sectors

of the economy and branches of economic

activity with the greatest demand in the

market, in consultation with employers’ and

workers’ organizations.

 Promotion of careers in information and

communication technologies, as well as in the

provision of cleaning and disinfection services

in health establishments, management of

elements of risk to biosafety in occupational

spaces, risk and health management systems

and security against COVID-19, among others.

 Strengthening the link between vocational

training and public employment services,

as well as with workers’ and employers’

organizations, so that there are feedback

channels about the occupations in greatest

demand, capturing the needs of companies

and referring the seekers of employment to

vocational training institutes.

 Construction, in association with organizations

and bodies that are working in this area, of a

regional occupational framework to facilitate

labour mobility.

 Promotion and facilitation of women’s access

to technical and professional training on equal

terms with men and in non-traditional areas.

 Consolidation, through social dialogue, of the

link and congruence between employment,

qualications and migration policies, which

generates an exchange of information between

the educational system and the labour market,

in order to develop training procedures in

relevant elds and anticipate the needs.

 Construction, through tripartite dialogue, of

training modalities that include training in the

workplace.

2. Validation of degrees granted in Venezuela

 Adopt a flexible process for the validation of

degrees obtained abroad and reduce costs,

especially in the context of COVID-19.

 Creation of a fund to subsidize the process of

validating the degrees of the most vulnerable

people.

Design of alternative mechanisms to the

apostille, to be able to recognize the degrees

granted abroad.

3. Competency certication

 Increase in nancial and human resources at

the disposal of the competency certication

bodies, to streamline the certication

processes.

 Mapping of public employment services and

the degree of attention to the refugee and

migrant population, as well as referral to

training or recognition of prior learning (RPL).

 Review and simplication of procedures and

requirements for RPL, as well as associated

costs, especially in the current context of

COVID-19, which demonstrates the need to

incorporate more of the Venezuelan population

into the job market.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

 Prospective employment studies for

professional updating or reconversion.

 Holding meetings with representatives

of employers and workers, analysis with

employment platform rms and review of

successful insertion practices, as well as

aspects to improve.

4.3 Promotion of employment

Economies in the region are characterized by

high levels of informality, unemployment and job

vulnerability. The migrant population, particularly

the female population, is particularly exposed to this

vulnerability. The lack of economic opportunities

causes many people from Venezuela to look for

options in the informal sector, but also, in some cases,

to resort to illegal activities that can contribute to

increased citizen insecurity in the host communities.

In this sense, the best humanitarian aid that public

authorities can provide is to facilitate the access

of the refugee and migrant population to labour

markets.

The Colombian Special Residency Permit for the

Promotion of Formalization (PEPFF) allows the

regularization of Venezuelans who are in an irregular

situation, provided they have received an offer of

formal employment. In Brazil, Costa Rica and Peru,

those seeking asylum are granted a temporary work

permit, so they can remain in regular immigration

status while their case is resolved (Selee and Belter,

2020).

u Current situation / obstacles

 The labour insertion of refugees and migrants

occurs, above all, in the informal sector of the

economy. Many times, they work as street

vendors and shop assistants.

 Most of the region’s labour markets maintain high

informality rates and have difculties absorbing

the demand for labour.

 The condition of irregular stay due to the lack

of identity or immigration documents restricts

the possibilities of getting into a decent job and

forces them to work informally.

 A large part of this population reports income

below the minimum wage and working hours

greater than 48 hours a week.

 Their unionisation rate - in the studies where

it was investigated - is very low. There is great

ignorance about the right to organize and fear of

exercising it.

 This population often lacks a written contract.

 Migrant women:

 Are more affected by unemployment and

underemployment than men, and they receive

lower wages, mostly below the minimum.

 Work fewer hours due to the need to care for their

children, and because of the lack or difculty in

accessing these services.

 Are more exposed and more affected by

situations of violence and sexual and workplace

harassment.

 Are mainly offered customer service jobs

that, deep down, have a sexual connotation of

attractiveness or “hook” to convince potential

clients or consumers (ILO and IOM, 2019), so

there is a bias in the job offer. However, these

prejudices and perceptions also expose them

to situations of sexual exploitation and human

trafcking and limit their access to “traditional”

jobs such as caring for children and the elderly or

housework. They are more likely to be victims of

human trafcking and migrant smuggling.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

u Proposal

Generating the necessary capacities in the Ministries

of Labour is the rst step in designing proposals

that promote employment, particularly the Public

Employment Service and Labour Inspection.

The demand for these services underwent a notable

increase in most of the countries and generated its

necessary modernization through technological

tools that facilitate labour intermediation, such

as, for example, applications and databases that

collect information on occupational and professional

proles. Some of these services may establish

restrictions on the access of refugees and migrants,

mainly linked to the required documentation. They

must be identied, and reform measures must be

taken that may imply modications in administrative

regulations or specic laws. Alliances with the

private sector and workers’ organizations are key

to knowing the requirements of companies and the

availability of labour. The promotion of employment

in rural areas should be incorporated in order not

to restrict job opportunities to the most populated

cities and to supply the workforce that is sometimes

needed in rural areas. Migration can even represent

an opportunity and should be included in the design

of strategies aimed at revitalizing rural areas. Having

a young population that is available to work and often

has higher qualications and skills than nationals

can ll labour shortages not only in agricultural

activities, but also in activities that require more skills

and that, usually, due to their geographic location do

not attract national professionals.

The promotion of women’s employment should also

be incorporated in order to overcome the prevailing

bias towards offering women customer service jobs

or sales that expose them to situations of violence

and harassment. It is necessary to promote equity

in employment because Venezuelan women have

higher educational levels than Venezuelan men,

but they are more affected by unemployment and

underemployment, and they are the ones who receive

a higher percentage of wages below the minimum or

lower wages in comparison with their male peers. At

the same time, it is important to coordinate actions

with the pertinent state agencies to address the

limitations they have in access to work due to the lack

of care services and even access to the educational

system for their children. Also, it must be ensured

that pregnant or lactating women have equal access

to the world of work.

As for Labour Inspection, the vulnerable position in

which many refugees, migrants and returnees nd

themselves promotes the precariousness of their

working conditions and the non-observance of their

rights. A sensitized and trained inspection team which

has the technical and technological tools necessary

to identify work centres with a high concentration of

this population is key to recording and monitoring

the correction of infractions and thus protecting their

rights. The Labour Inspectorate must receive training

on ILO Convention 190 on the elimination of violence

and harassment in the world of work, in order to

contribute to the prevention and elimination of this

type of violence; It must also be empowered and act

if necessary, both in the formal and informal sectors,

whether due to violence committed by employers,

co-workers, clients or suppliers, with special regard

to violence and gender-based harassment.

u Strategic lines

1. Promotion of access to the different programs

and services available for guidance and job

placement

 Review of the requirements for access

by refugees and migrants, in particular

those referring to the required immigration

documentation.

 Establishment at the local level of alliances

with the private sector, workers’ organizations

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

and local governments, to adapt both the

demand and the supply of employment.

 Carrying out studies to characterize the

supply and demand of labour, data collection

and processing (qualications, educational

level, sector where they manage to insert

themselves, number of refugees and migrants

who request services and recruitment of job

offers, among others).

 Preparation of studies of manpower needs and

skills for the future, with programs for adapting

skills to projections of future demands, framed

in the future of work and attentive to the

economic reality generated by COVID-19.

 Consideration of the particular conditions in

which labour insertion or reintegration takes

place in the face of the risk of contagion

of COVID-19, which demands additional

measures for health and safety at work,

particularly in domestic services and paid care

for people.

 Creation of a regional network of public

employment services to facilitate mobility

among refugee and migrant workers.

 Design of specic employability routes for

job seekers from Venezuela in the Public

Employment Services.

 Sensitisation of the personnel who provide

services related to situations of gender

violence, which constitutes an obstacle for

the effective labour insertion of women and

access to training services.

2. Promotion of employment in rural areas: so that

job placement opportunities are not restricted

to the most populated cities and the shortage

of labour that is sometimes experienced in rural

areas can be addressed.

 Carrying out studies of the supply and demand

for labour in rural sectors.

 Strengthening / design of temporary /

seasonal employment programs that respect

national and international regulations, as well

as the agreements signed between countries.

 Strengthening strategies that reinforce

urban and rural links, especially with regard

to food systems (production, transport and

marketing).

 Increase in public programs aimed at the rapid

recovery of livelihoods in rural territories. Food

production activities are essential to guarantee

the food security of host communities, but

they can also be a fundamental element of

local economic stimulation (food markets and

related activities). These programs should

be oriented towards the host and migrant

communities.

 Promotion of public programs that promote

the creation of “green jobs.”

 Generation / strengthening of dialogue

regarding rural development policies with

government institutions, workers’ and

employers’ organizations and local social

organizations.

 Improved regulation of agricultural worker

recruitment activities to ensure fair hiring.

 Increase in the creation of non-agricultural

jobs in rural areas.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

 Incorporation of health and safety measures

in agricultural and livestock work to protect

working people in particular from COVID-19.

3. Strengthening of labour administration

 Carrying out improvements to the computer

platforms of the public employment systems.

 Training and development of reference

protocols to other institutions and programs.

 Awareness of civil servants about vulnerabilities

and rights violations that increase the risk to

refugees and migrants, including returnees.

 Development of protocols that allow the

exchange of vacancies between the various

host countries.

 Strengthening the capacities of the Labour

Inspectorate through training and the design

of protocols for the care of the refugee and

migrant population.

 Training for the Labour Inspection on

Convention 190 and its Recommendation

206, to act in the prevention and elimination

of violence and harassment in the world of

work. In turn, to provide the Inspection with

the necessary powers to act in the event

of violence and harassment, including the

issuance of orders that require the interruption

of work activity in the case of danger to the life,

health or safety of the workers.

 Supervision of compliance with health and

safety regulations at work by the Labour

Inspection, to guarantee the implementation

of protective measures against COVID-19

in all work centres, with special attention to

domestic work that, due to its characteristics,

requires different strategies.

4. Promoting employability

 Dissemination of existing services and

programs through employers’ and workers’

organizations, as well as the requirements for

hiring refugees and migrants.

 Creation or reinforcement of the courses

offered for the development of socio-emotional

skills for life and leadership, especially for

women, as well as their promotion through

guidance and job placement services.

 Promotion and referral to available professional

training programs (also virtual), including

those related to the area of soft skills.

 Emphatic promotion of diverse jobs for

women, with the aim of combating the bias

that only offers women jobs in customer

service and sales, thus increasing the equality

of conditions with their male counterparts.

 Dissemination of information on the labour

rights of women and men and for the former,

on mechanisms of protection and complaint

in situations of sexual and labour harassment,

as well as those involving rights related to

maternity and breastfeeding.

 Strengthen the capacities of trade union

organizations to organize workers and defend

their rights.

 Coordination with the institutions responsible

for facilitating women’s access to care

services, to promote their insertion into the

labour market.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

5. Adoption of measures for the transition from

the informal to the formal economy, based

on the guidelines of the Recommendation on

the transition from the informal to the formal

economy, 2015 (No. 204):

 Productivity: creation or strengthening

of business, nancial and technological

development services; development of sectors

and value chains.

 Standards: disclosure, training, simplication

of procedures and social dialogue.

 Incentives: for accessing the formal sector

and social protection.

 Establish simplied or progressive tax regimes,

depending on the level of consolidation of the

business, such as grace periods during the

rst years of operation.

 Strengthen the capacities of trade union

organizations to include specic clauses in

collective bargaining in order to extend labour

protection to these workers.

 Supervision: promotion of a culture of

compliance, institutional strengthening and

formalization agreements.

4.4 Entrepreneurship and

business development

The creation of businesses represents an alternative

for the Venezuelan and returnee population that has

productive projects or difculties of insertion into the

formal labour market. At present, only a minority of

refugees and migrants arrive with a small amount

of capital that could be used to start this type of

undertaking. But, to scale these initiatives and

expand business options between this population

and the host communities, it is essential to develop

initiatives that allow for the promotion of potential

entrepreneurs or business projects through training

and support, as well as nancing through alliances

between the public and private sectors.

u Current situation / obstacles

 Establishing a formal business involves numerous

regulatory and administrative requirements that

are complex for most entrepreneurs in general

and can represent additional obstacles for

refugees and migrants.

 Little availability of programs and services

for business advice or for the promotion and

development of enterprises for the refugee and

migrant population.

 Restrictions on access to these programs and

services due to their condition of irregular stay.

 Barriers to access nancial services and loans

to start or strengthen enterprises related to

documentation: credit history, possession

of assets, unrecognized identity documents,

ignorance of refugees and migrants as potential

clients.

 Women have more difculties accessing credit

because, in many cases, they do not have

collateral, something that is complicated by their

status as migrants.

 Most of the Venezuelan people are inserted into

informal jobs or create informal enterprises. Many

of them do not qualify as micro-enterprises, but

as subsistence businesses.

 The micro-enterprise segment is characterized

by a high rate of failure (in the rst ve years of

existence, 45% in Peru and 53% in Ecuador) due to

environmental factors, lack of market information,

low productivity and innovation, low business

management capacity and lack of access to

nancial services (IDB, 2018). For refugees and

migrants, who face additional challenges, these

rates are likely to be even higher.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

 Most of the enterprises created by the population

from Venezuela are born out of immediate need

(in the absence of adequate employment options)

to support the family and not because a concrete

opportunity has presented itself.

 It is also common for mothers without care options

or access to school for their children to engage in

productive ventures in order to balance their care

responsibilities with the need to generate income.

Many times, refugee and migrant women are

forced to take their children to work, which takes

place on the street and in the sales sector, for

fear that they will suffer abuse or violence at the

hands of unknown persons with whom they live in

difcult, often overcrowded conditions.

 All the above factors mean that the majority of

Venezuelan refugees and migrants’ ventures are

low in productivity and innovation, informal, with

little long-term perspective, and operating in

already saturated markets.

 In conclusion, it is important to develop sustainable

companies that create employment under decent

working conditions and are a dynamic factor

in local economies. In turn, this type of work is

important for women (even with their greater care

responsibilities) and their prole, specic needs

and interests must be considered in order to

provide real opportunities.

u Proposal

The potential to develop sustainable businesses is

rarely fully realized. Among the obstacles to business

development are external factors over which

companies have no control, as well as internal factors

related to the skills and knowledge of entrepreneurs.

In the specic context of refugees, migrants and

returnees, the situation is aggravated by a lack of

19 The Conclusions can be accessed at this address: https://www.ilo.org/empent/Publications/WCMS_114235/lang--es/index.htm

knowledge of the market in the host countries, their

policies and regulations, existing programs in public

and private entities to support entrepreneurship

and due to lack of access to a social and business

network (UNCTAD / IOM / UNHCR, 2018).

It seeks to promote a people-based approach to

sustainable companies, which recognizes that,

in the world of work, the social, economic and

environmental spheres interact inseparably. This

approach is promoted by the ILO in accordance

with the Conclusions regarding the promotion

of sustainable enterprises

emanating from the

International Labour Conference of June 2007.

The private sector, through business associations

and Chambers of Commerce, can contribute to this

process by providing technical and nancial support

to business projects initiated by refugees and

migrants, as well as vulnerable people from the host

communities.

u Strategic lines

1. Creating a suitable environment for sustainable

companies and effective integration in value

chains

 Macro assessment of the environment

conducive to sustainable entrepreneurship

and recommendations for public policies to

support entrepreneurship.

 Proling and analysis of the subsectors / value

chains with high potential for entrepreneurship,

both for refugees and migrants from

Venezuela, as well as for the host community,

with special consideration for women who,

due to their care responsibilities, would benet

from a formal job without a xed schedule.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

 Implementation of the Approach for Inclusive

Market Systems (ESMI), which promotes the

development of value chains for access to

employment and entrepreneurship in small

and medium-sized companies in order to

develop holistic livelihood strategies based on

the market.

 Proling and implementation of pilot projects

to promote the integration of refugees and

migrants in new and innovative ventures, and

thus avoid displacement.

 Establishment of alliances with constituents

(for example, chambers of commerce in

different areas).

 Improvement and / or expansion of business

development services that include: technical

assistance and support with procedures and

registration (company creation, invoicing, tax

registration, permits or licenses); taxation;

access to credit and marketing.

 Program to promote the quality of the service

of the Business Development services

operators, which use the Start and Improve

your Business (IMESUN), Gender and

Entrepreneurship Together (GET Ahead) and

Our Coop methodologies.

 Adaptation of training programs to the reality

of the pandemic, which requires, among other

things, the design of digital platforms and

greater flexibility in training times.

2. Strengthening and preparing refugees and

migrants from Venezuela for their economic

integration through entrepreneurship

 Analysis of the skills, experience and particular

knowledge of the population from Venezuela,

with special attention to women.

 Training in managerial capacity of individual

or collective ventures, with the IMESUN, GET

Ahead and OUR COOP methodologies.

 Awareness of refugees and migrants about

market opportunities, support programs and

nancial and non-nancial services.

4.5 Financial inclusion

A major obstacle to the socioeconomic integration of

the population from Venezuela is the lack of access

to the nancial system. In most of the countries of

the region, it is very difcult to open a bank account

and, even more so, to benet from credit. This lack

of nancial inclusion also represents an obstacle to

accessing formal jobs or creating businesses. For

this reason, it is important that public authorities

in host countries work hand in hand with nancial

institutions to enable access to these services.

u Current situation / obstacles

 The Venezuelan population in a regular situation

has very low rates of nancial inclusion compared

to host communities.

 Most of the people from Venezuela do not have

any type of nancial service or product with

nancial institutions in their host countries.

 There are legal barriers and banking regulations

that limit the possibilities for opening and / or

contracting nancial products and services by the

refugee and migrant population.

 Other obstacles to the nancial inclusion of this

population lie in the lack of knowledge of current

regulations on the part of bank branch personnel,

as well as in the perception that this population

presents a high-risk factor.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

u Proposal

Financial inclusion is an essential requirement for

labour and business formalization. For this reason,

it is important to work hand in hand with nancial

institutions, to sensitise the different banks and their

branches about the rights of the migrant population

in terms of access to the nancial sector, adapt

the offer of services to their needs and make the

mechanisms for access to credit more flexible. On

the other hand, promoting this type of inclusion

implies investing in nancial education programs

aimed at the Venezuelan and returnee population.

Financial institutions have to see this population

as presenting an opportunity to generate new

businesses that can become a source of prots.

Greater access to credit mechanisms is also a way

for Venezuelans to consume and invest more in their

host countries, thus stimulating GDP growth.

With government support, suitable interventions

could be designed to pool public and private funding

in order to partially transfer the risk to Development

Finance Institutions and donors (co-investment,

provision of technical assistance, nancing of market

studies, creation of collateral).

Likewise, the nancial inclusion of the Venezuelan

population can be facilitated by fostering cooperation

between nancial institutions in the region. This

implies, for example, promoting alliances with

banking institutions to develop mechanisms for

shared credit history at the regional level. It could

also be connected with credit bureaus to enable

options for access to commercial banking resources

or consider the possibility of creating regional

guarantee funds so that the Venezuelan population

can benet from loans.

u Strategic lines

1. Facilitate the access of the Venezuelan

population to nancial services

 Elimination of regulatory and administrative

barriers that prevent the Venezuelan

population, particularly those in a regular

situation, from accessing nancial services in

their host countries.

 Sensitisation of nancial institutions on the

rights of the Venezuelan population through

the development of training programs on

serving refugee and migrant clients, with a

special focus on the situation of women.

 Dissemination of information bulletins that

explain the rights of refugees and migrants

and encourage the different actors in the

sector to promote banking among those who

are in a regular situation.

 Organization of awareness and training

workshops in municipalities with a high

concentration of population from Venezuela,

so that bank branch personnel are familiar

with immigration issues.

2. Promote nancial education

 Formulation and implementation of an

ambitious nancial education plan aimed at

Venezuelans and returnees with modules

specically designed for a population that is

not familiar with the nancial system of the

host / return countries.

 In communities where it is necessary, include

host communities in the nancial education

program.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

 Holding nancial education workshops in the

main receiving cities, as well as in areas with

a high migration density, in collaboration with

the different centres for attention to migrants

and the main associations of Venezuelans and

returnees. This is particularly relevant in the

current context of restricted mobility, during

which greater access to digital platforms has

been promoted.

3. Adapt the banking and credit offer to the needs

of the refugee and migrant population from

Venezuela

 Mapping of current nancial and non-nancial

services for refugees and migrants, with

special attention to the services provided to

women, as well as an analysis of the quality of

the services.

 Design of nancial products adapted to the

specicities of the population from Venezuela,

especially in the current circumstances where,

due to the economic crisis, they have been

more vulnerable.

 Development of institutional, nancial and

technical sustainability plans for operators of

nancial and non-nancial services.

 Creation of a guarantee fund to facilitate

access to credit for this population and allow

banks to recover a part of their losses in cases

of non-repayment.

 Collaboration with key international nancial

institutions, as well as key donors interested

in the self-reliance of refugees and migrants,

to nd blended nancial solutions that could

incentivize nancial service providers to serve

this population.

4.6 Access to social protection

People from Venezuela are characterized by high

levels of vulnerability, difculties in accessing social

security and a predominantly informal job placement.

This situation conspires against effective access to

social protection, resulting in a low or limited level

of coverage. In this context, people from Venezuela

access jobs of poorer quality and low salaries, they

lack social protection against the different social

contingencies to which they are exposed, such as

old age, disability, death, health and accidents from

work, and they do not have safe work environments.

On the other hand, those who achieve formal labour

insertion have all of these coverages and, in addition,

in some cases they can accrue the contribution

periods in each of the national systems to which

they have contributed, thanks to the application of

bilateral agreements and multilateral social security

services (ILO, 2018).

In the current COVID-19 crisis, in low- and middle-

income countries, those who are most affected are

those who work in the informal sector, as well as

people with limited access to health services and

social protection. They are the ones who are most

at risk of falling into poverty and facing greater

difculties in the recovery phase (ILO, April 7, 2020).

These same circumstances of lack of income and

social protection are what lead many people to return

to Venezuela.

u Current situation / obstacles

 There is ignorance about the rights to social

protection of the refugee and migrant population,

as well as about all the programs and services

in social protection, both contributory and non-

contributory. In general, the lack of information

that contributes to effective access to social

protection including social security predominates.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

 There is poor coverage in terms of non-

contributory social protection programs that

must ensure a minimum level of protection, both

for host communities and refugees and migrants.

 Difculties persist in accessing a social protection

floor that guarantees income security throughout

the life cycle and access to essential health

services for the refugee and migrant population,

due to the lack of regular stay documents or other

restrictive requirements.

 Mainly informal labour insertion, which prevents

the materialization of labour rights and social

security.

 The most recent migratory waves account for

young, pregnant women, those with young

children, and many breastfeeding women. It is

essential to give them and their children access

to health services and food supplements if

necessary, among others.

u Proposal

Recommendation No. 202 of the ILO on national

social protection floors is an important instrument

for closing social protection gaps in countries and,

in particular, those related to refugees and migrants.

The Recommendation species guidelines to

advance in the consolidation of a comprehensive

social protection system, where a social protection

floor plays an important role in guaranteeing both

income security throughout the life cycle and

essential health care. The ultimate objective of this

international instrument is to guide the formulation

of a proposal for the expansion of social security in

coordination with the rest of the social, economic

and employment policies, in order to help guarantee

income security throughout the entire life cycle and

access to essential health services.

The proposal is made up of a horizontal dimension that

refers to the number of people covered and another,

vertical dimension, that refers to the social risks

covered by the system and the level (quality) of both

nancial and in-kind benets. The social protection

floor guarantees a minimum level of security

represented by effective access to income security

throughout the life cycle (children and adolescents;

active ages; and older adults) and essential health

care. Then, it simulates a social protection ladder

that can be climbed to the highest levels, in line with

other international instruments, such as Convention

No. 102 of the ILO on the minimum standard of social

security and those considered third generation, which

stipulate an even higher protection threshold. The

options for implementing a social protection floor

are multiple, and it is possible that contributory, non-

contributory, universal, assistance and / or mixed

regimes may coexist, as well as a combination of all

the above.

The Recommendation establishes that when

designing and putting the national social protection

floors into practice, the Member States must

promote productive economic activity and formal

employment, including the adoption of labour market

policies and tax incentives, policies to promote

education, vocational training, productive skills

and employability, as well as entrepreneurship and

sustainable companies in a decent work framework,

as proposed by this Regional Strategy, while

guaranteeing coordination among all of them. All of

this will help to consolidate a social protection floor

and promote higher levels of social protection for all

people, including the migrant population.

In rural areas, special attention must be paid to

strengthening public non-contributory social

protection programs such as, for example,

conditional cash transfer programs that exist in

all the countries of the region and are aimed at the

poorest populations. These programs should expand

their coverage both to vulnerable nationals who are

not covered, as well as to refugees and migrants. It

is important to complement them with productive

inclusion plans that imply, in the case of rural areas

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

still highly dependent on agriculture, coordination

with other programs aimed at strengthening

access to natural and nancial resources, technical

assistance, and marketing routes.

To advance in the consolidation of a comprehensive

social protection system that includes a social

protection floor, the following roadmap is proposed,

which is more necessary than ever in this context of

a pandemic that has highlighted the importance of

universal social protection.

u Strategic lines

1. Roadmap to guarantee access to social

protection for refugee and migrant workers and

their families, promoting a social protection

floor:

 Preparation of reports with policy

recommendations, which include an analysis

of international regulations and national

legislation, barriers to access, coverage gaps

and challenges for connecting refugees and

migrants with the national social protection

system, whether contributory or non-

contributory.

 Preparation of a proposal to implement a

social protection floor which guarantees

effective access to minimum income security

and essential health care throughout the

life cycle. This should review requirements,

access barriers and measures that can be

implemented in order to realise the right to

social security.

 Preparation of a flexible afliation proposal for

national and foreign self-employed workers,

as well as for domestic workers.

 Design of a micro insurance scheme for

handling family contingencies both in the

country of origin and destination.

 Inclusion of migrant children in existing

care systems, which must be expanded and

strengthened in order to address their specic

needs.

 Preparation and integration into the

comprehensive national social protection

system, progressively, of a proposal for daily

care and attention for children of migrant

parents.

 Consideration of the particular situation of

migrant women and provision of solutions

to their particular needs, including access

to maternity and medical services for their

children, as well as conditional transfers for

each minor.

 Safeguarding the nancial and actuarial

sustainability of the different proposals.

 Promotion of effective coordination of

government institutions in general and social

security in particular to guarantee good

governance of labour migration in the area of

social security.

 Promotion of the application or negotiation

and signing of social security agreements

between two or more countries, which allow

the accrual of years of services and payment

of the corresponding benets. The creation

of a single regional register of social security

contributions may be envisaged.

 Review of current agreements to improve

the following principles: equal treatment,

access, conservation or transferability of

social security benets, wait times and pre-

existence.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

 Strengthening the capacity of trade union

organizations to offer information and

assistance services to these workers.

 Promotion of minimum wage policies that

include migrant workers.

 Inclusion of refugees and migrants from

Venezuela in the programs and measures

adopted by governments to meet their most

pressing needs while mobility restrictions are

in effect.

2. Roadmap to disseminate information on

accessing social security and create a culture

of social security:

 Design of an action plan to strengthen the

social security culture among nationals and

refugee and migrant communities, to promote

their incorporation into a social protection

floor.

 Creation of a national tripartite body to monitor

the performance of the system and propose

alternatives that ensure effective and timely

access to social security for migrants.

 Implementation of community workshops

with union and community organizations to

socialise their rights and obligations under

labour legislation, health and safety at work,

as well as health and social welfare among

the communities that are the object of the

Regional Strategy.

 Promotion of the ratication and application

of ILO conventions and recommendations

on social protection for refugee and migrant

workers.

 Design and dissemination of informational

material on rights and obligations in matters

of social protection, and the mechanisms for

making them effective.

 Design of a communication plan on the

benets of being protected against different

social contingencies.

4.7 Social cohesion

The success of the Regional strategy for socio-

economic integration will be based not only on

concrete actions aimed at the refugee and migrant

population, but also on social cohesion programs

that allow better coexistence with citizens of host

communities. In different areas of Latin America

and the Caribbean, the rapid increase in both the

Venezuelan and returned population creates a

series of risks that could constitute a threat to social

cohesion, even more so in the current context of the

COVID-19 crisis.

The increasingly visible presence of refugees and

migrants in the streets, job competition in some

sectors of the economy and, especially, in the informal

sector, as well as the increase - real or perceived -

in insecurity represent some of the factors that can

contribute to the increase in xenophobia in host

countries, especially in municipalities where there

is a strong concentration of people from Venezuela.

As a result, Venezuelan refugees and migrants face

discrimination problems in the labour markets that

prevent their process of inclusion in decent work

conditions and force them to disproportionately

enter into precarious conditions and the informal

sector (see Figure 1), where they are more at risk of

being victims of labour exploitation.

For these reasons, it is important that the countries

of the region address social cohesion as an integral

part of their responses to socioeconomic integration.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

u Current situation / obstacles

 Xenophobia has increased in almost all the

countries of the region as the number of refugees

and migrants from Venezuela has grown.

 Returnees, despite having the nationality of the

countries to which they return, also suffer from

issues of rejection and stigmatization.

 The high rates of unemployment,

underemployment and informality in the region

have contributed to reinforcing xenophobic

sentiments, particularly among the most

vulnerable population.

 The population from Venezuela faces growing

problems of discrimination, particularly in terms

of access to services and formal jobs.

 Women from Venezuela suffer from dual

discrimination, rst as refugees or migrants and

second as women.

 The COVID-19 epidemic has contributed to the

increase in xenophobic sentiments, as some

communities see refugees and migrants as

responsible for the spread of the virus.

u Proposal

To promote social cohesion, it is important to

implement comprehensive programs that benet both

the refugee and migrant population from Venezuela,

including returnees, and host communities. Thus,

the different programs for vocational training, job

promotion or nancial support for entrepreneurship

aimed at Venezuelans should also include a local

component for the host population, especially the

most vulnerable.

Reciprocally, given the conditions of vulnerability of a

growing part of the refugee and migrant population,

the differentiated programs to combat poverty

aimed at vulnerable populations (disabled people,

Afro-descendants, indigenous people, women

heads of households, victims of armed conflicts,

among others) should have a specic component

for refugees and migrants. In São Paolo, Brazil, the

Trabalho Novo (New Work) program, which supports

newcomers and offers them housing in municipal

shelters, Portuguese and computer classes, as well

as access to job offers, was initially designed for

residents from the streets before being extended to

the refugee and migrant population. This program

allowed hundreds of Venezuelans to gain nancial

autonomy thanks to better integration in the labour

market and the host society.

u Strategic lines

1. Design of institutional strengthening programs

at the national and local level

 Work to raise awareness among public

authorities so that they better understand

the multiple reasons why Venezuelans and

returnees leave their country, as well as the

challenges and vulnerabilities they face,

depending on their personal conditions and the

environments in which they nd themselves.

 Programs designed with the participation

of governments, employers’ and workers’

organizations, to promote social dialogue.

 Investment in training so that the different

State services can provide better services

and more accurate information to refugees

and migrants, taking into account issues

of discrimination, xenophobia, citizen

coexistence, socio-economic and cultural

integration, among others.

 Strengthening institutional capacities to

improve migration governance with a view

towards reducing irregular migration, which

tends to exacerbate xenophobic attitudes.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

 Design of gender-sensitive policies that

consider the different impacts of migration on

host communities.

 Dissemination of information on the rights of

refugees and migrants and the mechanisms

for their enforcement, as well as on the

channels for reporting situations of gender-

based violence and workplace and sexual

harassment.

2. Carrying out awareness campaigns with host

communities to ght discrimination and

xenophobia:

 Campaigns in the national and local media to

better explain the issue of forced displacement

and promote citizen coexistence, with an

emphasis on the contribution migrants make

to the development of the countries.

 Need to reduce xenophobic attitudes due to

erroneous beliefs that associate the spread of

the virus to people in a situation of mobility.

 Promotion of integration activities at the local

and national level, such as intercultural and

food fairs, among others.

 Organization of participatory meetings and

workshops at the local level, to sensitise host

communities and jointly develop solutions

that facilitate the local integration of refugees

and migrants.

 Training programs for teaching staff, to help

them sensitise students on the migration issue

and ght more effectively against xenophobia

in schools.

 Sensitisation of employers’ and workers’

organizations, as well as the business

community, to prevent abuse and

discrimination problems in the workplace, and

facilitate the labour insertion of refugees and

migrants from Venezuela into local markets.

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Strengthen regional

cooperation mechanisms

for socio-economic

integration

Until now, the response of Latin American and Caribbean governments to the

Venezuelan migration crisis has been directed more towards national action

than regional action, although the Quito Process pursues the latter. For this

reason, it is essential that the countries of the region succeed in strengthening

cooperation mechanisms and adopting and implementing truly regional

policies, particularly in matters of socio-economic integration for the refugee

and migrant population from Venezuela, as well as for host communities. In

this sense, the outbreak of COVID-19 in the region and the negative impact

that quarantines and other social distancing measures have had on economic

activity and employment make regional cooperation even more necessary.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

Regional cooperation on socio-economic integration

should, rst of all, share the best practices implemented

by the different host countries in Latin America and

the Caribbean. Through a peer review process, it is

possible to identify which of these practices should

be replicated - with needed adaptations - in other

countries. The regional cooperation framework could

also aim for Latin American and Caribbean countries

to implement regional initiatives for socioeconomic

integration, in particular in the areas of (i) human

mobility and regularization, (ii) mutual recognition of

degrees and skills, (iii) labour intermediation and (iv)

social protection.

This type of initiative would allow for better

management of the response to refugees and

migrants from Venezuela at the regional level within

a context aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. It would

also contribute to the achievement of the objectives

of the Quito Process.

Graphic 2. Main areas of regional cooperation in socio-economic integration

Human

mobility and

regularization

Job

intermediation

Mutual

recognition of

degrees and

compentencies

Protection

social

5.1 Expand spaces for

collaboration in the areas

of human mobility and

regularization

Although the Venezuelan migratory crisis constitutes

a phenomenon of a regional dimension with

repercussions in most of the LAC countries, the

cooperation mechanisms in the area of human

mobility and the regularization of people in an

20 https://www.cancilleria.gob.ec/declaracion-de-quito-sobre-movilidad-humana-de-ciudadanos-venezolanos-en-la-region/

irregular situation have been relatively limited. In the

early years of the crisis, the countries of the region

facilitated the mobility of people from Venezuela,

particularly through a broad interpretation of

regional integration agreements, especially within

the framework of ACN, Mercosur, and CARICOM.

Thus, in the Quito Declaration on Human Mobility of

Venezuelan citizens in the Region

, dated September

4, 2018, the representatives of the governments

of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,

Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Uruguay agreed, “in accordance with the national

legislation of each country, to accept expired travel

documents as identity documents of Venezuelan

citizens for immigration purposes.” In this way,

Venezuelan people were authorized to enter most

of the countries in the region without a visa, and in

some cases, without a passport.

However, with the rapid and massive increase in the

number of refugees and migrants, restrictions on

mobility have multiplied (Selee and Bolter, 2020). A

growing number of countries began to require new

entry requirements, such as: a valid passport, despite

the difculties and high cost that this represents for

the vast majority of the Venezuelan population; a visa,

which many Venezuelan people cannot afford, and

an apostilled criminal record certicate in Venezuela,

which implies additional costs and terms.

The result of these increasingly restrictive measures

is that mobility at the regional level was limited,

complicating the living conditions of the population

from Venezuela. This trend translated into a high

number of Venezuelans in an irregular situation.

According to data from the R4V Platform (2020),

around half of Venezuelan refugees and migrants

are in an irregular migratory situation. These

restrictions also contributed to creating bottlenecks

in some transit countries, particularly in Colombia,

the country with the longest land border with

Venezuela and at the same time, the most open to

entry for the Venezuelan population. Many people in

transit were stuck in the border areas when some of

the countries in the region decided to change their

entry rules. Municipalities located on the borders

between Colombia and Ecuador, Ecuador and Peru,

and Peru and Chile were particularly affected by

these bottlenecks. In this sense, the policies adopted

unilaterally by the different countries of the region,

which were reinforced by the almost generalized

closure of the borders during the COVID-19 crisis,

had negative repercussions for both the refugee

and migrant population, as well as for neighbouring

countries.

For this reason, better cooperation in the management

of migratory flows at the regional level and the

adoption of concerted regularization mechanisms

would make it possible to avoid these types of

negative effects and facilitate the socio-economic

integration of the population from Venezuela. This

implies, for example, that the main host countries

in the region adopt joint regularization programs to

avoid massive movements to countries that decide to

unilaterally make the options for regularization of the

migrant population more flexible. In this sense, the

biannual meetings of the Quito Process could be used

for the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of each member

country to assess the conditions of the population in

an irregular migratory situation and adopt concerted

regularization measures. An alternative could be

the implementation of a regional regularization

commission to examine the current situation in

detail and propose specic recommendations that

facilitate human mobility processes at the regional

level, as well as regularization mechanisms.

On the other hand, the countries of the region could

better harmonize, especially within the framework

of the Quito Process, the procedures for asylum

applications by dening common principles for the

recognition of refugee status for Venezuelans. These

could be based on the 1984 Cartagena Declaration

on Refugees, which proposes a broader denition of

refugees than the Convention Relating to the Status

of Refugees (1951) and the Protocol on the Status of

Refugees (1967). In this way, the processes of access

to refugee status would be streamlined, taking into

account the specicities of the current situation in

Venezuela.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

5.2 Build a regional framework

for the mutual recognition

of degrees and skills

An essential stage in the process of socio-economic

integration of refugees and migrants is the possibility

of obtaining recognition, on the one hand, of technical

and academic qualications, and on the other, of the

job skills that they were able to acquire throughout

their schooling and professional life. In this sense,

as noted above, it is essential that the countries of

Latin America and the Caribbean relax both their

mechanisms for the recognition of degrees awarded

abroad and for the certication of skills (see Section

4.2). But this dual process could be reinforced if

the countries of the region adopted a framework of

mutual recognition of degrees and competencies.

Regarding the recognition of competencies, the

representatives of the Ministries of Labour and

international cooperation organizations, as well as

employers’ and workers’ organizations - meeting on

November 13, 2019 in Bogotá, Colombia, in support

of the Quito Process - recommended support for

“regional homologation initiatives for the certication

of labour competencies,” in collaboration with the

“Inter-American Centre for the Development of

Knowledge in Vocational Training (CINTERFOR) of

the ILO and other entities involved in this area.” In fact,

since 2015 there has been a competency certication

network that includes the entities responsible for this

process in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa

Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras,

Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay

Regarding the mutual recognition of technical and /

or academic degrees, the main regional coordination

initiative is the Organization of the Andrés Bello

Agreement for Educational, Scientic, Technological

and Cultural Integration

, which brings together

21 https://www.oitcinterfor.org/red_certicacion

22 http://convenioandresbello.org/cab/

Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador , Spain,

Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican

Republic and Venezuela. Despite the efforts towards

educational integration among these countries, there

are still no regional mechanisms for the recognition of

degrees, which explains a large part of the difculties

faced by people with technical and / or academic

degrees awarded in Venezuela.

In this context, a regional framework for the mutual

recognition of qualications and competencies

would imply that, every time a person, whatever

their nationality or immigration status, validates a

technical or academic degree in one of the countries

of the region or certies their labour competencies,

this recognition is valid in the other countries of the

region. In this way, people who decide to migrate to

another country do not have to go through all the

procedures again and can contribute more effectively

to the economies of the recipient countries. This

regional framework of mutual recognition would

benet not only the population from Venezuela, but

also any citizen of one of the member countries with

the intention of migrating within the region. It is a

mechanism that facilitates, at the same time, intra-

regional mobility and socioeconomic integration.

This dual process of mutual recognition, which

involves both the Ministries of Education (in

particular in matters of recognition of qualications)

and of Labour (together with the national institutes

of vocational training, especially for the certication

of competencies), could be implemented within

the framework of existing multilateral mechanisms

in the region (see Table 1) and on the basis of the

agreements that apply to this matter. In addition, it

is possible to provide technical assistance for the

development of a regional qualications framework,

which can be submitted to the consideration and

validation of the member countries of the Quito

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

Process. This framework would constitute a common

understanding among the countries of the region of

what is expected at each level of vocational training

and, once it is validated by the participating States, it

would facilitate the labour mobility of those who have

been certied. This framework should cover, at least,

levels 1 to 5 out of 8, with level 1 being the one with

the lowest qualications; levels 2 to 4: the different

degrees of technical-professional training and levels

5 to 8: those of higher education. Level 8 corresponds

to the doctorate.

5.3 Promote labour

intermediation at the

regional level

People from Venezuela tend to be concentrated in

border areas, particularly in the case of Colombia,

and in large cities, where there are more options

for accommodation and work, although many

times they are in the informal economy and thus

are synonymous with labour exploitation and

socioeconomic vulnerability. They also choose

destinations where they already have family or

community networks that can provide support. But,

in most cases, refugees and migrants do not have

enough information about the job opportunities

that exist in the host countries and, even if they do,

they cannot always access the public employment

services programs due to their immigration status or

lack of information on these services. For this reason,

it is important that employment services can identify

the specic barriers faced by Venezuelans and

returnees in order to improve their integration into

employability routes and help them access decent

jobs, taking into account the needs of the different

countries.

It is possible that the skills that Venezuelans and

returnees bring with them are not required in the

host country or that the absorption capacity of

the labour market is insufcient, but that they can

be used in other countries of the region. For this

reason, a reinforcement of cooperation between the

different public employment services in LAC can

contribute signicantly to a better labour inclusion of

the population from Venezuela. In addition, it would

allow better integration into the labour markets of the

region and favour intra-regional labour mobility.

Among the recommendations to the representatives

of the Ministries of Labour and international

cooperation organizations, as well as to the

employers and workers mentioned previously, is

the promotion of “the initiative for the Integration

of Public Employment Services of the Latin

American Region and the Caribbean among the

interested countries.” This initiative aims precisely at

exchanging job vacancies, having more information

on job opportunities, facilitating labour relations by

taking advantage of the skills of workers, and creating

an international mobility route in the region.” It also

highlights the need to strengthen the operation and

response of these services.

Regional cooperation on job placement implies

that databases are shared on job vacancies in

each country, as well as on the population seeking

employment, including refugees and migrants. To

better understand where job opportunities are, a

common system for monitoring the situation of labour

markets at the local level can be adopted in each

country, based on indicators such as unemployment

rates, the size of the informal economy and the

business climate (Bahar, Dooley and Huang, 2018).

In the same perspective, it is important that the

providers of the different employment agencies, both

public and private, work with business associations

to identify the skills needed in each country and share

them with other countries in the region. An initiative

of this nature demands a certain homogeneity

between the different computer platforms of the

public employment services of the countries, at the

same time that it requires regulations that allow

them this socialization.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

5.4 Adopt regional social

protection mechanisms

Access to social protection is a key component of

the process of socioeconomic integration of the

refugee and migrant population (see Section 4.6).

For this reason, regional cooperation should aim to

strengthen regional social protection mechanisms.

This implies that, through better coordination of

national legislation, refugees and migrants benet

from a social protection floor that guarantees them,

throughout their life cycle and whatever their level of

qualication, effective access to minimum income

security and health care, in accordance with the

Social Protection Floors Recommendation of 2012

(No. 202) and the ILO Social Security (Minimum

Standards) Convention of 1952 (No. 102). On the

other hand, the Venezuelan migratory crisis shows

the importance not only of integrating this population

into national social protection systems, but also of

consolidating the portability of rights at the regional

level.

In fact, the lack of an instrument for the coordination

of social security legislation (bilateral, multilateral or

Ibero-American agreement) that allows the accrual

of services and payment of social security benets

translates into difculties in preserving the rights in

progress acquisition or allowing the portability of

acquired rights. Even in the presence of agreements

that coordinate social security legislation or allow

portability, certain categories of workers do not have

access to the different benets, despite having a

formal employment relationship (e.g., temporary

migrant workers).

In this sense, one of the 23 objectives agreed to

within the framework of the Global Compact for

Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (UN, 2018a) is:

“Establish mechanisms for the portability of social

security and the benets acquired”. The objective is

for people who work in the formal sector to be able

to add the contribution periods in the different social

security systems of all the countries where they

have contributed and to access the corresponding

benets in the country where they are (ILO, 2018).

When the beneciaries complete the age and years

of contribution requirements, each social security

management entity will assume the contribution

periods in each country and will pay a full benet or

pro rata for the years of contributions to its system,

depending on whether it is a pension or other social

benets.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, most of the bilateral

and multilateral coordination agreements for social

security systems contemplate the transferability of

the rights and benets of the migrant population.

Such is the case of the Multilateral Agreement on

Social Security of Mercosur, the Andean Instrument

for Social Security of the ACN, the Multilateral Ibero-

American Agreement on Social Security of the OISS,

the Agreement on Social Security of CARICOM and

the Agreement on Social Security of the OECS (ILO,

2018).

However, these types of agreements only cover

nationals of the countries that have signed the

agreements and do not extend to migrants from

other countries. Hence the need to promote the

ratication of the Ibero-American Social Security

Agreement so that more countries are included in

this mechanism for portability of social security

rights. Until now, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,

Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay have ratied

this agreement, which is in force in all of them.

Although Venezuela also ratied it, it has not yet

deposited the instrument’s ratication or developed

the application protocols. This implies that, in the

case of Venezuelans, there are no mechanisms for

the portability of rights and benets when they move

from one country to another. Furthermore, portability

is limited when people migrate from one sub-region

to another (for example, from an ACN country to a

Mercosur country).

 Migration from Venezuela: opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean

For this reason, it is important to extend subregional

agreements and promote coordination between

national social security legislation, to guarantee

access of migrant workers and their families to

national social protection systems. It is essential

that they be included in the strategies designed

by the States to build social protection floors and

ensure, among other things, access to health care

and coverage against contingencies such as the one

currently experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Likewise, it is necessary to review or sign agreements

between the countries to strengthen the portability

system, where the rights acquired in one of the

countries of the region remain in force when people

migrate to another country in the region.

The ratication and universal application of the

Ibero-American Social Security Agreement can be a

strategy for achieving this goal. This would facilitate

intra-regional mobility without being detrimental

to the social rights of the refugee and migrant

population, even when these people are not citizens

of one of the countries that are signatories of these

agreements, as is the case today with the Venezuelan

population. This implies harmonization work between

the different social protection providers, including

individually funded systems.

Regional socio-economic integration strategy 

References

Acosta, Diego; Blouin, Cécile; Feline Freier,

Luisa (2019). La emigración venezolana:

respuestas latinoamericanas. (Venezuelan

emigration: Latin American responses) Work

papers. Fundación Carolina. At: https://

www.fundacioncarolina.es/wp-content/

uploads/2019/04/DT_FC_03.pdf

Bahar, Dany; Meagan Dooley y Cindy Huang (2018).

Integrating Venezuelans into the Colombian

labor market: Mitigating costs and maximizing

benets. A research document, Washington,

Brookings Institution. At: https://www.

brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/

Venezuelan-Migrants_english.pdf

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (2020). Factor

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