The announcement comes after the first meeting between both sides after the dialogue in Mexico City was interrupted in October 2021 due to the annoyance of the government of Nicolás Maduro for the extradition to the United States of the businessman of Colombian origin Alex Saab, accused of money laundering.
The “social protection” fund could prevent Venezuelans from fleeing their country by improving their living conditions through better access to food, medicine and medical care, and by financing infrastructure projects to repair the once-buoyant oil country’s electricity grid. .
The agreement was cataloged by Dag Nylander, representative of Norway, as a “historic milestone” that brings the parties together, although he assured that a solution to the persistent crisis is exclusively in the hands of the Venezuelans themselves.
The UN estimated this year that more than 7.1 million Venezuelans left their country due to high inflation, shortages of food and medicine, and a constant crisis in public services. More than half of Venezuelan migrants and refugees do not have access to three meals a day.
At home, things are no better: 94% of Venezuelans lived in poverty last year and more than half experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, according to a National Survey of Living Conditions (ENCOVI), conducted by Venezuelan universities.
Venezuelan migration is an issue that concerns the entire region. In Colombia there are 2.4 million Venezuelan migrants; in Peru, almost 1.5 million and, in the United States and Ecuador, half a million respectively.
Faced with the growing number of the Venezuelan diaspora, the United States announced in October a joint plan with Mexico to allow entry only to asylum seekers with relatives already living legally in the northern country.