Chile - IOM Chile is working to ensure vulnerable migrants have the best tools available to set up innovative micro businesses with the aim of reducing poverty and inequality.

Recently awarded a USD 30,000 grant from Chile’s Social Investment and Solidarity Fund (FOSIS) to complete a review of its efforts with migrant populations, IOM Chile is working to promote inclusion of vulnerable migrant populations by recognising their specific needs and identifying ways to help.

As part of the grant, IOM Chile will review seven programmes in the northern, southern and metropolitan regions - Tarapacá, Antofagasta, Metropolitana, Valparaíso and Magallanes.  

The project will evaluate FOSIS’s work with migrant populations in 2014-2015 under such programmes as: Acción (which focuses on families in vulnerable situations), Yo Emprendo Semilla, (the development of micro-businesses), and Fondo IDEAS, (which funds non-governmental organizations, businesses or foundations involved in innovative poverty-fighting projects). 

The review’s findings will contribute towards strengthening FOSIS’s work with vulnerable migrant populations in Chile, according to Norberto Giron, IOM Chile Chief of Mission.

FOSIS is tasked with alleviating poverty among vulnerable individuals, families and communities, in order to contribute to the reduction of inequalities in Chilean society.

“Cooperation between IOM and the FOSIS has, thanks to specialized technical assistance, contributed to improve national policies and strategies of intervention with migrant population of this institution. That has impacted the standard of living and the inclusion of vulnerable groups in the country. This is an important step,” said Giron.

The number of international migrants resident in Chile has risen in the past 30 years from around 83,000 persons in 1982 to over 477,500 migrants in 2016.

Currently the percentage of migrants in Chile’s population is around 2.7 percent, according to Chile’s national statistics agency.

Although these numbers are quite low compared to the average percentage of resident migrants in developed countries (11.3 percent, according to UNFPA for 2015), this does represent a significant increase in the migrant population in Chile.

A majority of migrants in Chile are from neighbouring countries—Peru (31.7 percent), Argentina (16.3 percent) and Bolivia (8.8 percent). The proportion of Colombian migrants in Chile has nearly tripled over the last ten years, rising from 2.4 percent to 6.1 percent in 2014.

For further information, please contact Sebastián Mathews at IOM Chile, Tel: +56 02 9633710, Email: iomsantiagopress@iom.int