Page 22 - Preliminary Report on the Venezuelan Migrant and Refugee Crisis in the Region

The linear projection assumes that the flow will remain the same and is not based on any

determinant of emigration. However, in the case of Syria the annual growth in the number of

refugees and people with refugee-like status was quite similar year after year (see Figure 2),
and therefore it could be a fair approximation. The BI projection is based on economic

fundamentals but is simplistic in the sense that it leaves out many elements that influence the

migrant and refugee numbers aside from the issue of food, including, for example, health care
and aspects of the political crisis that adversely affect the lives of average Venezuelans.

BI also does not provide an explicit timeframe for its projection. However, it has one advantage

over a straightforward linear projection. In particular, given that the humanitarian crisis could

continue to worsen at an increasingly rapid rate, a simple linear projection might not reflect the
possibility of an acceleration in the rate at which Venezuelans emigrate, and therefore the BI

projection, based as it is on economic fundamentals, could be more accurate.

Whatever the case, our conjecture is that the number

…the economic, political, and
of Venezuelan migrants and refugees will be
social crisis in Venezuela, the
total number of migrants and somewhere between those two forecasts. Unless
refugees could reach between there is a significant shift that could revert the
5.39 million and 5.75 million by
economic, political, and social crisis in Venezuela, the
the end of 2019, and between
7.5 million and 8.2 million by total number of migrants and refugees could reach
the end of 2020. between 5.39 million and 5.75 million by the end of
2019, and between 7.5 million and 8.2 million by the

end of 2020. However, whatever the eventual number over the next year or two, the

Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis stands out for its magnitude, as Figure 2 shows.

Another important aspect to consider when one analyzes and compares this migrant and

refugee crisis with others is the modest amount of financial assistance offered by the
international donor community.

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