In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese Government has decided that all immigrants with residence permit applications that were pending at the Aliens and Borders Office (SEF) on 18th March will receive permission for temporary residence and have access to the same rights as all other citizens, including social support. The measure also includes asylum seekers.
This measure will remain in force until at least July 2020.
The overall objective of the project is to promote the extension of social protection for migrants in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in accordance with international social security standards, by promoting research, informing social dialogue and supporting reform efforts.
The project operates along three main axes:
In the context of return migration, Mexico also started to certify labour competencies, such as knowledge, abilities and skills, of Mexican returnees to facilitate their socio-economic reintegration.
Spain offers universal access to basic health services. Beyond the most favourable scheme enjoyed by EU nationals covered by EU common legislation, all migrants staying in Spain, irrespective of legal status, have access to the basic national health system. This measure has proved its utility during the pandemic.
The Italian government decided to relaunch the Decree-Law No. 34/2020, creating two separate pathways to regularize irregular migrant workers that lost their jobs in essential sectors, as a way to respond to labour shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several countries, such as Argentina and Peru, have eased the process of recognition of skills for foreign health workers to broaden the stock of professionals with the relevant skills and help fight the health crisis induced by the pandemic.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) designed a set of prevention practices including:
The Philippines with one of the largest populations of migrant workers in the world, repatriated over 200,000 distressed and stranded Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) and Overseas Filipinos (OFs) when the pandemic hit, and brought to life its approach of ‘high-tech, low-touch’. Existing tech platforms and databases were used as well as social media to share information with migrants in need of support across the world.
The Colombian Government’s Income Solidarity Programme provides financial support to those most in need to mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on households. Vulnerable Venezuelans have been enrolled in government assistance initiatives such as the "Solidarity Income Programme" and the "School-Feeding Programme", based on the delivery of food kits
Taking into account of the lessons learned and experiences gained from the implementation of National Strategy for Disaster Risk Management 2009, the learnings and experiences of the Gorkha earthquake 2015 and recent other disasters for reducing the existing disaster risks and preventing of new potential risks, this National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy 2018 has been prepared to build safer, adaptive and resilience nation from disaster risks.