Fiscal and public investment expenditure strengthening program for municipalities: Strategies for rapid socio-urban integration of migrants in Colombian cities
Technical Assistance
The objective of the program is to improve the infrastructure and institutional capability of beneficiary municipalities to help both migrants and their host communities through the implementation of performance-based management systems.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) loan operation contributes to improve fiscal and urban sustainability in 5 metropolitan areas through investments in institutional strengthening and infrastructure. The complementary LACIF grant enhances this objective by strengthening the capacity of Colombian metropolitan areas that receive Venezuelan migrants to integrate newcomers effectively. Moreover, the Korean Poverty Reduction Fund (KPRF) also provides grants to design an integrated migrant assistance model (MAM) based on baseline and diagnostic studies of existing management systems utilized by subnational governments to support migrant integration.
Specifically, the program finances the consolidation of single-window systems for qualifying cities to promote migrants’ integration and regularization processes and to facilitate user access to urban services. It also assesses urban social integration progress indicators in selected cities, which help quantify the effects of migration on local economic development.
In addition, the operation promotes economic integration in these communities through the creation or enhancement of workshop schools and increased access to affordable home renting. Five workshop schools are being constructed or renovated and salary-based grants are provided to some 1,500 local and migrant beneficiaries between 16 and 39 years of age, helping to offer theoretical-practical training to apprentices in trades with good income-generation prospects.
Lastly, a new Rent Guarantee Fund helps vulnerable families meet the conditions required to rent decent housing. This component helps some 13,500 migrants access housing by subsidizing their rental payments over a six-month period. The program complements other efforts being undertaken by the government of Colombia that target exclusively local populations.
Due to the magnitude of the migration inflows to those areas, the operation is focusing at this initial phase on the cities and metropolitan areas of Cúcuta and Villa del Rosario; Riohacha and Maicao; Barranquilla; Medellín and Rionegro. Other cities whose populations include at least 2 percent of migrants could also be eventually incorporated, subject to the dynamics of Colombia’s immigration flows.
- Subnational governments and other relevant actors with the capacity to attend the migration phenomenon through a sustainable and integrated approach.
- More migrants and local communities integrated into the economic sector, earning a better and sustainable income, while contributing to strengthen local economic development.
- Increased supply of affordable housing for migrants and other vulnerable groups which means greater opportunities for migrants to access safe, quality housing conditions and establish stable pathways for their urban and social insertion. In turn, this will have an impact on the reduction of diseases associated with overcrowding and unsanitary, precarious housing conditions.
- Urban areas with increased planning and investment capacity to absorb migrants and stem the occupation of informal neighborhoods and public spaces.
- Additionally, potential scalability of this pilot project to other regions may result in balanced absorption of migrant population, contributing to the desaturation of other receiving areas within the country.
