In 2018, Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, granted the legal right to work, as well as access to basic public services to over 400,000 undocumented Venezuelan immigrants. Research on the program’s impact in 2018 reassured policymakers that it had a negligible effect on host communities and this paved the way to grant temporary protected status to all Venezuelans on Colombian territory for ten years. For this reason, the Colombian government is a leader in evidence-based policymaking for forcibly displaced populations and their success underlines the need for policymakers to work closely with researchers and national statistics offices. 

On January 28, Dany Bahar, Associate Professor of Practice of International and Public Affairs at Brown University and a representative from the Colombian Government, will give an overview of the situation of forcibly displaced people in the labor market in Colombia and discuss how data and evidence can inform an effective response. 

This was followed by a discussion between the World Bank, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and government and academic experts led by Björn Gillsäter, Head, JDC and Kyle Holloway, Country Director, IPA Colombia.