BOGOTA, Colombia _ The Venezuelan exodus is already having a deep impact on the economy of neighboring Colombia, with the arrival of more than a million new people, but it could also be a long-term boon for the nation, according to a new report.
In one of the most comprehensive studies of the Venezuelan migrant crisis, the World Bank on Thursday said Colombia _ home to more than 1 million recently arrived Venezuelans _ needs to act fast to ensure that the migrants are assimilated and can be productive members of society.
In the short term, the arrival is putting "significant pressure" on Colombia's economy, the study found. In particular, "the increased demand for jobs affects the level of employment, its quality and wages," and that is leading to "tension between the local population and migrants due to the competition for resources which are already scarce."
In the long term, however, "Colombia could see greater economic growth due to the migration," as long as it incorporates the migrants into the labor force and quickly mitigates problems "that could turn into poverty traps" for them, the study found.
The World Bank's model suggests that half a million working-age Venezuelans could boost national GDP by 0.2 percentage points.
While Colombia has offered hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans temporary work permits, not all migrants have had access to them. The study found that Venezuelan migrants were twice as likely to be unemployed compared to locals and about half of them are living under the poverty line. In addition, 40 percent of migrant children are not going to school _ twice the percentage of Colombian children.
Venezuela's dramatic economic, political and social collapse has generated one of the largest mass migrations in Latin America's recent history. Complicating the scenario are U.S. financial sanctions that are hampering the country's ability to import food and medicine. The United Nations estimates that more than 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled the country in recent years _ many of them to neighboring countries in South America.
The wave of newcomers has overwhelmed hospitals, schools and even basic infrastructure. The World Bank report, titled "Migration from Venezuela to Colombia," found that sewer and water systems in some Colombian border towns needed to be upgraded to handle the increased population. While local hospitals treated 125 Venezuelan migrants in 2014, in 2017 that number had spiked to 25,000.
Colombian President Ivan Duque said the government has been "proactive" amid the crisis, "but the dimension of this migration requires more effort and more backing from the international community."
The vast majority of Venezuelans are leaving for economic reasons, but their exodus "shares key characteristics with refugee crises seen in other countries," the report found.
And there are no signs of it slowing. Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo has said that Colombia may ultimately receive as many as 4 million Venezuelans.
And the World Bank said there were signs that rate of immigration "will stay stable or even accelerate in coming months" as Venezuela's crisis deepens and migrants that have already settled in Colombia bring family members.
For decades, it was Colombians who were fleeing abroad, often to escape their own nation's half-century conflict. In response, the nation's migration policies have been geared toward encouraging the Colombian diaspora to return to the country.
Now the country has had to pivot to confront the new reality but the "unexpected" influx has "in many aspects, overwhelmed Colombia's institutions," the study found.
As Venezuelans _ many of them penniless _ flow across the border, they're sometimes recruited by Colombian guerrilla groups or forced into prostitution. The World Bank said the country needs to address these issues urgently "to avoid irreversible damages and greater costs in the medium term."
The study comes as the entire region is grappling with the Venezuelan migration issue. This week, Peru announced it will quit issuing temporary work permits to Venezuelans, saying the nation no longer has the capacity to absorb more people.
The Venezuelan government has accused Colombia and the region of exaggerating the scale of the migration as part of a broad-based campaign to discredit, and ultimately topple, the Nicolas Maduro administration.
