Crisis Overview
Across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), migrants and refugees continue to face critical needs along every stage of their journey. As of 2025, an estimated 6.87 million Venezuelans were residing in host countries throughout the region, alongside increasing numbers of refugees and migrants of other nationalities in transit seeking safety, livelihoods, and stability. The continued absence of viable livelihoods and political uncertainty in Venezuela, combined with restrictive migration and visa regimes across the region, continue to push many into irregular and dangerous routes, heightening exposure to exploitation and other protection risks.
Regional mobility patterns are undergoing a structural shift. According to the latest Response for Venezuela/Issue-Based Coalition (R4V/IBC) Human Mobility analysis , northbound movements have sharply declined—notably a 93 per cent drop in U.S. border encounters— while southbound movements within South America have seen a marked increase. Many refugees and migrants who previously intended to reach the United States are now settling in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, and Chile, underscoring a re-regionalization of mobility. This evolving context requires sustained, nationally anchored responses that emphasize inclusion, protection and access to essential services.
Boa Vista, Brazil
Families and children celebrated Mother’s Day in the city park with games and activities organized for those in temporary shelters. The event aimed to foster inclusion and create moments of joy and belonging despite difficult circumstances.
IOM/Tamires FerreiraAmid a strained funding environment, R4V partners and host governments face growing challenges in maintaining assistance levels, with shortfalls threatening to erode hard-won gains in protection, education and essential services, and putting inclusion and social stability in host communities at risk. Gaps in health, food, and documentation support expose refugees and migrants to heightened vulnerability, including exploitation and gender-based violence.
The Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) 2026 estimates that 5.37 million refugees and migrants will require assistance. Priority needs include integration, protection, and access to essential services such as housing, food, water, and education. Nearly one in four children face education-related challenges, with barriers to enrolment and retention in schools threatening their long-term development.
Response priorities and financial requirements for 2026
In 2026, the RMRP will continue to address urgent humanitarian needs while advancing longer-term integration of migrants, refugees, and affected host communities across 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Building on lessons learned and aligned with global reform initiatives, the RMRP 2026 introduces a two-tier prioritization system to enhance efficiency and channel resources where they can make the greatest impact. The RMRP 2026 aims to assist 1.52 million people, including 1.38 million refugees and migrants and approximately 143,600 members of host communities. Of this total, 1.03 million people are prioritized under Tier 1, focusing on urgent life-saving needs, localization and national ownership, and integration measures. The regional plan requires $763.09 million in total, with $450.74 million dedicated to the prioritized Tier 1 priorities.
The response is framed around three strategic objectives that collectively bridge humanitarian and development interventions:
- Provide and improve safe and dignified access to essential goods and critical services, aligned with sustainable development assistance.
- Enhance prevention, mitigation, and response to protection risks by reinforcing the protection environment across affected countries.
- Increase resilience, socio-economic inclusion, fostering social cohesion and participatory processes that improve living standards for migrants, refugees, and host communities.
In 2026, the response will focus on those most in need — Venezuelan refugees and migrants, people in transit from diverse nationalities, and the host communities whose solidarity remains vital to the regional response. A total of 152 partner organizations, including UN agencies, international and national NGOs, civil society, faith-based organizations, and academia, will work jointly to deliver coordinated assistance, reflecting the RMRP’s inter-agency and multi-stakeholder character. Migrant- and refugee-led organizations make up for nearly one in five appealing partners in 2026, reaffirming their important role in the response.
Colombia
Girls participate in recreational activities while their parents are in entrepreneurship workshops.
World Vision/Barbara MeloIn 2026, the RMRP will deliver a comprehensive, people-centered response across key sectors — Integration, Protection, Shelter, WASH, Food Security, and Health — ensuring access to essential services, safety, and opportunities for those most in need. Integration and protection will remain at the heart of the response, driving access to rights, services, and sustainable livelihoods. Targeted education initiatives will help children enroll, stay in school, and thrive, while life-saving nutrition interventions will prevent and treat malnutrition among children under five. Together, these efforts aim to protect lives in the immediate and build the foundations for resilience and inclusion.
Recognizing the strained funding environment, R4V partners will concentrate on cost-efficient, high-impact interventions, while promoting localization and capacity-building where international presence has declined. Strengthening local systems, community-based protection, and government partnerships will be critical to sustaining essential services and ensuring continuity beyond the lifespan of the plan.
R4V will continue to champion cross-cutting priorities – the centrality of protection, gender equality, accountability to affected populations (AAP) and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) – across all stages of planning, implementation, and monitoring.
Through this collective, region-wide effort, the RMRP 2026 reaffirms the commitment of 152 partners and 17 host governments to deliver a coherent, inclusive, and sustainable response that safeguards rights, strengthens resilience, and advances the socio-economic inclusion of refugees and migrants throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
2025 in review: Response highlights and consequences of inaction
Response highlights
In 2025, R4V partners reached 493,400 people with some form of assistance across the 17 countries covered by the RMRP — representing 21 per cent of the total target population. Key sectoral highlights include:
Education
R4V partners reached 23,600 children and adolescents with education support to improve school access and retention.
Food Security
244,100 migrants, refugees and affected host populations were reached with food assistance, including hot meals, food kits and cash and voucher support.
Health
R4V partners reached 168,800 people with interventions such as direct access to basic health services and mental health and psychosocial support.
Humanitarian Transportation
R4V partners reached 16,400 refugees, migrants and affected host community members with humanitarian transportation activities, enabling access to essential services, such as health, education and regularization support. Partners also supported family reunification efforts through transportation services between cities and provinces within specific countries.
Integration
R4V partners reached 29,800 people with integration assistance, enabling access to the formal labour market, economic opportunities, and entrepreneurship support.
Nutrition
Nutrition partners provided crucial nutrition prevention and response support, such as screenings and consultations, to 13,100 individuals, including children under five and pregnant and lactating women.
Protection
168,900 migrants, refugees and affected host community members were reached with protection support during the first nine months of the year. Activities included legal counseling for accessing asylum and regularization procedures, information sharing on access to rights as well as urgent case management and specialized protection services.
Child Protection
Despite impacts on operational capacities, child protection partners reached 29,200 children with services to prevent violence, abuse and exploitation, such as psychosocial support, family reunification and case management.
Gender-Based Violence
Prioritizing life-saving services, partners reached 14,100 people through interventions such as GBV case management and individual psychosocial support.
Human Trafficking and Smuggling
R4V partners reached approximately 300 people, including refugees, migrants and affected host community members, primarily through promotion and dissemination of information on the prevention of trafficking and assistance to victims.
Shelter
36,200 people were reached with shelter and housing support, focusing on those who are the most vulnerable. This also included temporary and emergency shelter for populations in-transit.
WASH
WASH partners reached around 59,600 migrants, refugees and affected host community members, to access safe water, sanitation and waste management services and distribution of hygiene items, including menstrual hygiene items.
Consequences of funding cuts
As of end-November, less than 10 per cent of the required funding for the RMRP 2025 had been received. This severe underfunding has had far-reaching implications across the 17 countries in LAC, leaving a considerable gap in access to basic needs, life-saving protection, and integration efforts.
Essential services, including food assistance, shelter, documentation, education, and protection, have been reduced or suspended, exposing migrants, refugees and host communities to heightened risks of exploitation, GBV, and human trafficking. Protection monitoring confirms that unmet humanitarian needs are increasingly translating into harmful coping mechanisms, irregular movements, and social tensions in host communities. By end of September 2025, only 21 per cent of the target population - around 493,400 people – had been reached, a significant decrease from the 1.14 million during the same period in 2024. This decline underscores a widening gap between humanitarian needs and available resources, leaving hundreds of thousands without essential support.
Without timely assistance, today’s gaps risk deepening and escalating. Limited access to basic needs and protection services may push more people into irregular situations, exposing them to exploitation, violence and trafficking. The erosion of integration and regularization programmes could reverse important gains made in self-reliance and social cohesion, while placing additional pressure on overstretched host communities and fuelling xenophobia. Underfunding also weakens the capacity of national and local institutions, key partners in sustaining inclusive services, and stalls localization efforts essential for long-term sustainability. If unaddressed, these compounding risks may trigger renewed humanitarian needs, reduce resilience, and undermine socio-economic inclusion, ultimately jeopardizing the stability and progress achieved across the region. Preventing such setbacks requires urgent, predictable, and collective action to safeguard protection, sustain essential services, and promote sustainable solutions for refugees, migrants, and affected host communities alike.
References
- R4V, Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, May 2025, https://www.r4v.info/en/refugeeandmigrants
- R4V and IBC-HM, Regional Movement Trends and Patterns, Q2, https://www.r4v.info/index.php/en/movements-report-q2-2025
- At a regional level, 60% of all RMRP 2026 activities fall under Tier 1. As per the RMRP 2026 Planning Instructions, Tier 1 activities focus on a) emergency and protection needs; b) localization and national ownership; c) stabilization and integration and; d) operational feasibility and impact. Other activities that directly respond to the needs identified for the migrant and refugee population but are not included under these four thematic axes, are characterized as Tier 2.
- According to FTS data, $116.9 million were received by 24 November 2025 against the total requirement $1.40 billion, representing 8.1% of the appeal.