Design of Planned Comprehensive Actions to Respond to Migration in Border Areas in the Department of La Guajira - Colombia

This project aims to ensure that returning Colombian citizens receive rapid and comprehensive assistance in the Guajira Department along the border with Venezuela. The complex and often irregular migration movements in this region create an elevated risk of human rights violations for returning migrants, particularly those in situations of vulnerability. The Colombian Government lacks adequate capacities to assist returnees and promote local development in the medium and long term.

Short and medium-term solutions to strengthen institutional and community-level capacities are urgently needed to ensure effective migration governance, with a human rights and development focus. In order to achieve this, the project will focus on two key components:

a) The identification of short, medium and long-term actions necessary to provide assistance to vulnerable returning Colombian migrants, in line with the principles of protection and durable solutions, and taking into account individualized needs related to gender and ethnicity.

b) The improvement of operational mechanisms to provide protection and assistance to returnees in conditions of extreme vulnerability.

All actions – research, development and participatory validation of tools for migration management, training, and the social and institutional mobilization – will be in line with national migration governance policies. As a result the project will adapt the strategies of the models such as the Migrant Network and the Migrant Assistance Centers which are part of longstanding cooperation between IOM and the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.