The Refugee and Migrant Needs Analysis (RMNA) 2024, published by R4V in September 2024, highlighted various challenges faced by migrants and refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean. Despite notable achievements by host governments in providing access to migratory documentation and refugee recognition to some Venezuelan 4.5 million refugees and migrants, many remain without such vital regularization, impacting on their ability to access key services. The RMNA 2024 estimated that 4.18 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela in-destination struggle to access essential services, protection, and socio-economic integration across the 17 host countries of the R4V response.

To respond to these needs, the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) 2025-2026 will bring together 230 appealing partners to implement some 23,600 activities, in nine thematic sectors, to assist more than 2.34 million refugees and migrants, as well as affected host communities. This comprehensive two-year plan includes long-term initiatives to promote inclusion, stability and socio-economic integration for migrants and refugees, to combat discrimination and xenophobia, to strengthen refugee and migrant protection, and to improve their access to documentation, healthcare, education, livelihoods, and decent employment.

Movements of refugees and migrants from Venezuela have characterized the mixed movements dynamics of Latin America and the Caribbean for the past decade and are likely to continue impacting host communities across the region. Increasingly, however, people of other nationalities, most notably from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, as well from countries in Africa and Asia join Venezuelans in their search for protection, solutions, and the ability to integrate into communities where they can contribute to a more prosperous future. As reflected in the findings of the RMNA 2024, R4V partners identified a key risk factor that has been fueling these movements of refugees and migrants (irrespective of status and nationality): a toxic duality of irregularity (i.e. having neither a regular migratory status or recognized refugee claim) coupled with informality of labour. In combination, they have contributed to staggering rates of exposure of refugees and migrants to the risks of trafficking and smuggling, sexual and labour exploitation and abuse, evictions, food insecurity, malnutrition, and a widespread inability to access vital healthcare, as well as disruptions in children’s and adolescents’ education.