“Countries in the region have done an excellent job welcoming refugees and migrants. They must continue implementing and improving access to asylum procedures, migratory regularization, and documentation initiatives, but their capacities are stretched thin. A significant, predictable and long-term financial effort is needed to ensure Venezuelans’ effective access to essential services, formal employment, health, and education, for them to fully integrate and contribute to countries hosting them.”
By end-2024, it is projected that there will be some 6.82 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela in-destination in the LAC region, including some 4.71 million people in-need (PiN) of assistance according to the updated RMRP 2024.
To support 2.93 million people targeted to receive assistance, the 2024 RMRP update brings together 248 appealing partners, requesting 1.59 billion USD to carry out over 14,000 activities with refugees and migrants and host communities in 17 countries (including some 2.2 million refugees and migrants in-destination targeted to receive assistance; 277,800 refugees and migrants engaging in pendular movements; 66,100 Colombian returnees; 387,200 members of affected host communities; and 624,400 refugees and migrants in-transit1).
More than 1 in 4 appealing partners in the updated RMRP 2024 are refugee- and migrant-led organizations: the growth in their participation in the response plan (an increase of 41 per cent, up to in 2024, from 46 in 2023) is the result of proactive outreach from the R4V Platform and is a concrete manifestation of R4V’s commitment to localization.
1 Given that refugees and migrants in-transit pass through multiple countries, it is likely for them to be assisted in more than one country. To avoid double-counting of individuals, the regional target for in-transit assistance is considered as the number of times people are assisted by R4V partners.
KEY RMRP FIGURES BY COUNTRY
Hover over a country to show key figures
National population projection figures do not include affected host community estimates. The full breakdown by population type of the country figures is available at the RMRP 2024 Insights Dashboard.
Key figures By national and sub-regional platforms
Joining forces for refugees and migrants and
their host communities
Where do we stand
Gael Jhosue and his family access save and dignified housing in a Red Cross Shelter in Bogota, Colombia.
@Medical Teams/Lina Hernández
Despite being five years since the initial RMRP, refugees and migrants from Venezuela continue to have considerable needs for humanitarian assistance, protection and integration.
2023 was characterized by the dominant trend of refugees’ and migrants’ northward movements, not only in Central America but also across South America. The unprecedented trend of onward movements, often through difficult terrain and conditions, exposes refugees and migrants in-transit to significant dangers along these routes, including risks of human trafficking, exploitation and abuse.
Meanwhile, more Venezuelans continue to leave their country than return to it: exits from Venezuela to neighboring Brazil and Colombia outnumbered entries to Venezuela along those same borders during every month of 2023, as in past years. While onward movements of refugees and migrants from previous host countries made up the vast majority (two out of every three) of those engaging in northward transits via the Darien jungle in Panama in early 2023, by the end of 2023, almost two out of three Venezuelans in-transit to Central and North America were leaving directly from Venezuela. According to data on entries and exits to and from Venezuela and neighboring countries in 2023, return movements continue to be predominantly temporary and exploratory in nature.
Given this context, consultations with RMRP partners and other stakeholders resulted in the following revised planning scenarios for 2024, on which the RMRP 2024 Update is based:
Regarding the situation inside Venezuela and push factors to leave, R4V anticipates that outflows of refugees and migrants in 2024 will be approximately 10 per cent greater than in 2023, which represents a lower positive year-to-year growth in departures from the country in comparison to previous years.
Regarding the socio-political and protection environment in countries of destination and transit, despite positive advances in access to migratory regularization, asylum procedures and other forms of regular status for Venezuelans in many countries, factors such as increasing xenophobia, struggling national economies and limited employment and socio-economic prospects – especially for those in an irregular situation – will continue to inhibit refugees’ and migrants’ local integration prospects, which will continue to drive onward and circular movements.
Finally, returns to Venezuela – although there are some slight increases in late 2023 – are expected to continue to be minimal and largely exploratory, representing a small fraction of overall movements, with departures from the country far outnumbering returns.
UPDATE STATUS OF RMRP 2024 ACTIVITIES BY SECTOR
Response changes: Sector Priorities
An R4V partner is providing nutritional supplements to a Venezuelan child.
@UNICEF
Sectors such as Humanitarian Transportation, Nutrition and WASH, as well as the Sub-sector of Human Trafficking & Smuggling observe overall increased needs compared to their original 2024 estimates (and in comparison, to 2023) after the RMNA 2023 identified an increase in refugees’ and migrants’ needs in these areas, particularly among in-transit populations, but also among those in-destination and affected host communities.2
Other sectors – including Education, Food Security, Health, Integration, Protection, including its Sub-sectors on Child Protection and on Gender-Based Violence (GBV), as well as the Shelter Sector – noted that refugees’ and migrants’ (as well as affected host communities’) needs in these areas had reduced in 2023. Yet the increased transit population projections, even among these sectors, highlight a dramatic increase in needs of refugees and migrants in-transit.3
2 With the exception of Human Trafficking and Smuggling, where the PiN for the in-destination population was less the original 2024 estimate.
3 With the exception of Integration, where the PiN among the transit population lower, also as not all countries calculated a PiN for integration needs among transit populations.
WHAT’S THE RMRP?
A Venezuelan man protects himself and his baby from a blazing sun after crossing the Darien jungle.
@IOM/Gema Cortes
Since its establishment in 2018, the R4V Platform has acted as an inclusive and accountable forum that coordinates and monitors the operational response under the RMRP. The RMRP provides for immediate humanitarian and protection assistance for vulnerable refugees and migrants, encourages their inclusion into state-led planning efforts and national social protection systems, promotes self-reliance through income-generation and livelihoods programmes, and helps develop sustainable capacities of national and local actors to provide basic services.
Since its first iteration in 2019, the RMRP has served to , to positively impact the lives of refugees and migrants across the region, as well as affected host communities, including through the convening of solidarity and donors’ conferences (in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023), utilizing the RMNA and RMRP as advocacy tools, to ensure financial support is secured from international cooperation to respond to millions of refugees and migrants from Venezuela across the region.
The RMRP 2023-2024 was the first multi-year response plan developed for the R4V response. For the second year of this response plan, this RMRP 2024 Update was the opportunity for partners – including new partners joining the RMRP for the first time – to submit new activities, as well as to either maintain, adjust, or remove activities they had previously proposed in the RMRP 2023-2024, all with the goal to best.
Meet the current needs of refugees and migrants and affected host communities. The information contained in the RMRP 2024 Update is the result of this activities submission, revision and validation process for 2024.
FINANCIAL REQUIREMENTS BY SECTOR AND YEAR
Detailed information on each appealing organization’s activities, including their geographic and thematic focuses, targeted individuals (disaggregated by age/gender/population group and geographic administrative level 1), and financial requirements, as well as updated information on their implementation status, is available on the Data Page of R4V.info, and on the R4V Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), underscoring the common commitment towards transparency and accountability of R4V partners.
THE REGIONAL RESPONSE for 2024
Venezuelan indigenous Warao couple attending community-based English classes in Guyana.
@UNHCR/Alicia Gomez.
In addition to providing assistance to Venezuelan refugees and migrants in-destination in 17 countries (Argentina, Aruba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay) and to affected host communities, the updated RMRP for 2024 supports refugees and migrants of all nationalities in-transit in six countries (Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru).
Emili came to Brazil to start from scratch, with no acquaintances and without knowing the language. Now, she sells her knitwear in one of the most busy spots in Brasilia.
@R4V/Natalia Roldán
The Strategic Objectives of the updated 2024 response remain the same as those in the original RMRP 2023-2024:
1. Provide and improve safe and dignified access to essential goods and critical services in synergy with sustainable development assistance.
2. Enhance the prevention and mitigation of protection risks, and respond to corresponding needs through supporting the protection environment in affected countries.
3. Increase resilience, socio-economic integration opportunities, social cohesion, and inclusive participatory processes to improve living standards of affected populations.
These objectives aim to improve the living conditions of refugees and migrants as well as of affected host community members, and to provide a foundation for a better future for them, in line with the UN Secretary-General’s Agenda for Humanity, the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through an alignment and integration of SDGs into the RMRP, R4V actors will support host governments’ efforts to integrate SDGs in their national development plans and strategies, further strengthening the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus across the region.
This updated RMRP 2024 also includes, for the first time, an alignment between activities in the RMRP coordinated by R4V for countries in the region hosting refugees and migrants from Venezuela and activities in the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) coordinated by OCHA within Venezuela.
sectorial downloads
MAIN RMRP DONORS
