Individual Consultant At UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Office: UNHCR Regional Bureau for the Americas
Title of project: Comparative analysis of regularization processes for refugees and migrants from Venezuela in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Purpose of project: Develop a comparative analysis, identification of good practices and protection gaps on existing regularization processes in the region to improve advocacy actions to strengthen implementation and design phase.
Location: Home-based
Duration of the assignment: 3 months
Condition: Full-time (40 hours per week)

General Background of Project or Assignment:
Several countries in the region, including Peru, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Chile , Bolivia , Brazil, Uruguay and Trinidad and Tobago, have made progress in introducing measures to regulate the migratory status of refugees and migrants from Venezuela, thus promoting opportunities for access to national protection systems and the enjoyment of durable solutions. In other cases, countries such as Uruguay and Argentina have legislative developments that, without being exceptional regularization measures for Venezuelans, include positive practices of migration regularization.

Within the framework of the Quito Process, the Joint Declaration of the VI International Technical Meeting on Human Mobility of 24 September 2020 ratified the commitment of governments in the region to ensure safe, orderly and regular migration as well as international protection . In addition, the current Pro Témpore Presidency of the Government of Peru, has prioritized the approach of migration and asylum systems within its strategic agenda; on 20 February 2021, the National Human Rights Institutions of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, grouped in the RINDHCA , issued a pronouncement calling for “promoting exceptional and accessible migration regularization processes to grant temporary or permanent status to those they face within our countries”, in the same way the Sector has identified regularization as a priority within their action plan by 2021.
As noted in the Chapter of the Regional Protection Sector of the Refugee and Migrant Response Plan 2021 (RMRP), the absence of immigration status, regular alternatives to permanence and access to asylum systems, remains one of the most urgent needs of protection of refugees and migrants from Venezuela in the region; especially in the context of increased irregular entries due to border closures.

The absence of alternatives for immigration regularization is one of the main barriers that refugees and migrants in Venezuela find to access decent housing and work, state assistance and protection services (including the refugee status recognition procedure) and to justice, among other rights; thus raising their levels of exposure to protection risks (labor exploitation, sexual and commercial exploitation, human trafficking and smuggling networks, forced linkage to illicit economies/activities, homelessness, family separation, detention and deportation, among others); and decreasing their resilience.

The design of these processes requires political will, flexible legal frameworks and adequate assistance systems; these measures should also have an appropriate implementation strategy considering institutional capacities, budgeting and techniques of States in order to ensure effective access to protection and avoid obstacles linked to the lack of effective protection systems and public policies that include combating situations of xenophobia and discrimination against refugees and migrants from Venezuela, as well as barriers to access to international protection and national asylum systems.

At the same time, current immigration regularization processes must be accompanied by the maintenance and strengthening of asylum systems in the region to maintain a comprehensive protection area for Venezuela¿s refugee and migrant population.
The Regional Protection Sector, in coordination with the IACHR, will develop a comparative analysis of these processes in the region, in order to influence both the design phase (for countries that are currently developing policy proposals), as well as the subsequent phase of implementation and guiding the international community in concrete actions of resource mobilization, complementarity to the efforts of States and adequate strategies for an articulated and sustainable response.

Overall Purpose and Scope of Assignment:

Concise and detailed description of activities, including measurable outputs and delivery dates, impact indicators (what qualitative and quantitative results would be achieved upon completion of individual contract), performance indicators (time lines, value of the service rendered in relation to the cost, timeliness) and work plan:
Develop a comparative analysis based on an approach to the protection of the rights of refugees and migrants that it considers, first, as assisting States in endowing effective social and economic rights that are affected due to lack of regular migratory status, and which according to international standards, are inherent to human beings regardless of their immigration status. The relationship between the measure and its impact on identified needs, effective and sustainable access to national protection systems, which allows identifying good policy-development practices, existing gaps and the development of recommendations to States and the international community related to the sustainability of such proposals at the implementation stage.

The consultant will deliver the following products: i) Comparative analysis table of regularization processes (level of development, approval, implementation), existing in the region (countries prioritized in this consultant) and its link to existing national tools to measure the impact and access to regularization processes; as well as compliance with existing international standards in this field, ii) Regional report on the main gaps and good practices identified in the design of existing policies including recommendations to States, the international community and civil society in coordination with national sectors, on the design and implementation phase of regularization processes and their sustainability, iii) Updating the matrix of good practices of States in the development of legislative tools developed by the Sector in 2020.

Qualification and experience required (degree required, years of work experience, field of expertise, language required):

(i) Degree required: The consultant must have a bachelor’s degree in law and postgraduate studies (master’s) in social sciences/ international affairs/law.
(ii) Years of experience: A minimum of 10 years work experience with national and / or international organizations, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) related to the subject. The persons must have research and training experience in the field of human rights and international/domestic law.
(iii) Field of expertise: specific needs, human rights and international law.
(iv) Language: Excellent level of Spanish essential.