QCOSTARICA — The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved to grant US$20 million non-reimbursable to Costa Rica for the implementation of the Comprehensive Program for Citizen Security and Violence Prevention for the Inclusion of Vulnerable Migrant Groups.
The objective of the donation is to help reduce the vulnerability of the local and migrant population to violence, marginality, and discrimination.
Costa Rica is primarily a destination country for migrants and has a long tradition of inclusion, with receptive policies towards migrants and refugees.
Given the growing number of migrants entering the country, or transiting on their way north, with the United States as their final destination, new security challenges arise for this population: risks of becoming victims and/or perpetrators of crime and violence, limited institutional capacity to meet the needs of migrants, or the increase in attitudes against migration, among others.
In this context, the donation is possible thanks to the fact that Costa Rica is one of the countries eligible to access the resources of the Non-reimbursable Facility to Support Countries that Receive Sudden and Large-Magnitude Intraregional Migration Flows, which the IDB established in 2019 with rUS$100 million of its own resources.
The program will be executed by the Ministerio de Justicia y Paz (MJP) – Ministry of Justice and Peace – and consists of two components: social prevention of violence and strengthening of institutional capacities to deal with migratory flows.
The first will make it possible to expand the infrastructure and services aimed at preventing violence, benefiting both the migrant population and the host communities in various regions of the country. Through the second component, the institutional capacities of Costa Rica’s immigration service, the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería (DGME), strengthened to attend to migratory flows, with the aim of promoting the socioeconomic inclusion of the migrant population and thus reducing their levels of vulnerability and exposure to crime and violence.
The initiative will complement the work already being carried out in the country through the Programa de Seguridad Ciudadana y Prevención de Violencia (Citizen Security and Violence Prevention Program), financed by the IDB through a US$100 million loan, with specific objectives: (i) to improve the effectiveness of policing to prevent crime in the priority districts; and (ii) to reduce criminal behavior among adolescents and young people who are susceptible to violence in highly disadvantaged districts.
The Inter-American Development Bank, established in 1959, is a leading source of long-term financing for economic, social, and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
