Regional Ministerial Meeting on Mass Migration and Health

Migration has always existed and will continue to exist in the Americas. Most countries in the Region have been, at some point in time, territories of origin, transit, destination, and return. However, sudden mass migration that disrupts systems and infrastructures in an abrupt way is a new and expanding reality in the Region that has quickly moved up the priority ladder in national agendas of Member States. The intensification of two concomitant mass migratory phenomena have recently been observed in the Americas: migration from Mesoamerica towards Mexico, the United States and Canada, and the migration from Venezuela to South American and Caribbean neighboring countries. These new migratory flows have placed the issue of migration at the center of the attention of the countries of the Western Hemisphere. Migration northward from countries within the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) continues as a predominant trend. On the other hand, as of 31 October 2018, three million Venezuelans were living outside their country of origin and 2.4 million of them were hosted by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.1 Colombia, Peru and Ecuador bear the heaviest burden of migration, with over 1.7 million of Venezuelan migrants (70%) currently being hosted in those three countries. The following key points were raised throughout the different sessions.