Colombia

Colombia is facing multiple crises with the largest influx of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in the region, while already grappling with internal armed conflict and increasing violence leading to massive internal displacements. These crises, within a context of growing climate risks and heightened vulnerabilities post pandemic, impose significant challenges on the education system that is heavily underfunded and over-stretched. The number of out of school children are concerning both among host communities and refugee, migrant and internally displaced children and adolescents. Refugee and migrant children and those internally displaced are also at the higher risk of drop-out.

Colombia has maintained an open-door policy, allowing children from Venezuela to access the education system, including a series of explicit measures to guarantee the right to education regardless of the legal status of the child. Despite these efforts, economical constraints, discrimination, and violence, including gender-based violence, xenophobia, and bullying, as well as vulnerabilities caused by intersectionalities of age, gender, (dis)ability and migration status, among other factors, keep them behind in accessing education and learning.

A holistic response to this context requires addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by armed conflict, massive internal displacements, and the Venezuelan migration crisis, while also supporting the country’s education system and its actors to be able to respond to the longer term impacts of this complex crises and to build resilience towards emerging challenges in light of the instabilities and climate risks within Colombia’s borders and beyond. With this aim, ECW builds on the impact of its First Emergency Response (FER) investments in Colombia and continues its support through two rounds of Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) fundings.