COVID-19 as a tipping point for Latin America’s sustainable development goals: the case of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia

ABSTRACT

Colombia has been a global leader in its embrace and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In recent years, Colombia has advanced its peace initiatives with armed actors, leading to partial resolution of 52 years of armed insurgency. Exemplary progress has been made in the achievement of multiple SDG benchmarks. However, progress has been challenged (and potentially interrupted) by two intersecting developments. First, Colombia has been on the receiving end of a massive influx of Venezuelan mixed migrants who are fleeing the collapse of democratic governance and economic catastrophe leading to poverty, hunger, and disruption of health services. Colombia has been the major receptor nation for the Venezuelan emigration with more than 2 million migrants dwelling in Colombia in 2020. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic is surging throughout Latin America, with the World Health Organization declaring Latin America as the epicenter of the global outbreak in May 2020, bringing life to standstill due to the strict mitigation measures in place. These synchronous shocks – mass migration and pandemic – are challenging Colombia’s progress toward SDG benchmarks and threatening to create a decisive tipping point that may derail the country’s stellar progress to date.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Colombia
• Latin America
• sustainable development goals

Acknowledgements

Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Moreover, leading COVID-19 policy trackers such as Oxford University’s (Hale et al. 2020). Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, Blavatnik School of Government) reveal that these two factors have not been sufficiently included in public policy crisis response and mitigation measures.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan C. Berg

Ryan C. Berg, PhD, MPhil, MSc, is a Research Fellow in Latin America Studies at the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Foreign and Defense Policy Department and an Adjunct Professor of International Relations at the Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he was a research consultant at the World Bank, a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil, and a visiting doctoral fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland. His research interests are in foreign and defense policy, Latin America, national security, economic development, armed conflict and organized crime groups, authoritarianism, and sanctions.

Andreas Rechkemmer

Andreas Rechkemmer, PhD, is a Professor of Global Policy and Governance in the College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Doha, Qatar. He is the Founding Director of the College’s Program on Governance, Resilience & Sustainability (PROGRESS). Prior to joining HBKU, he was a tenured full professor and held the American Humane Endowed Chair at the University of Denver. His research interests include the public and global policy dimensions of global sustainable development, climate change, and social-ecological systems; interdisciplinary perspectives on resilience and disaster risk reduction; the interface of sustainability, social development and human security; and the “One Health” paradigm connecting the health and well-being of humans with that of animals and the environment.

Zelde Espinel

Zelde Espinel, MD, MA, MPH, is an attending psycho-oncologist, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She is currently applying disaster psychiatry principles to provide psychiatric support to cancer patients who are concurrently attempting to cope with COVID-19. She was previously the Co-Director of the Center for Disaster and Extreme Event Preparedness (DEEP Center) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Espinel is also a licensed psychiatrist in Colombia, South America, where she did her medical training. Dr. Espinel has conducted mental health and psychosocial support research with victims of the armed conflict, including internally displaced persons, in Colombia.

James M. Shultz

James M. Shultz, PhD, MS is a population health scientist and the Director of the Center for Disaster and Extreme Event Preparedness (DEEP Center), Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He teaches public health courses and advises MD/MPH students in the Department of Public Health Sciences. He is publishing and conducting research on themes of population health science, disaster behavioral health, climate change impacts on population health, complex disaster risks and resilience, global mental health, and structural violence. Dr. Shultz is lead author on a popular textbook, Public Health: An Introduction to the Science and Practice of Population Health, along with Drs. Lisa Sullivan and Sandro Galea. Dr. Shultz holds a PhD in behavioral epidemiology and a Master of Science degree in health behavior research and from the University of Minnesota Division of Epidemiology and Community Health.