중남미

Once the wealthiest country in Latin America, Venezuela is going through one of the region’s worst economic crises in recent history. It is now the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Migration accelerated rapidly in 2018, with some countries reporting twice as many migrants coming in as compared with a year earlier. After Syria the Venezuelan migration is the largest displacement crisis in the world. However, the Venezuelan exodus has mobilized just a fraction of the international support received by countries affected by comparable or even smaller crises. The global concessional financing facility (GCFF) is a financial intermediary fund created by World Bank specifically to help middle income countries impacted by the influx of refugees through the provision of concessional financing and improved coordination for development projects that benefit refugees and host communities. Under this mechanism, countries provide contributions to the GCFF to provide concessionality for projects that have a demonstrated objective of supporting impacted and vulnerable populations allowing benefitting countries to access affordable and more sustainable financing to address refugee crises. Two Latin American countries have approached the GCFF, expressing their interest in joining the facility as benefitting countries given the significant number of migrants and refugees they are hosting.