Member States

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of making health services accessible to all and many Member States have decided to provide access to healthcare to all residents. Canada has updated pre-departure medical services for resettled refugees including testing and isolation and provided coverage for telemedical and virtual health services for beneficiaries of the Interim Federal Health Programme providing temporary health coverage for refugee claimants and other specific categories of migrants.

Ecuador has implemented social protection programmes, regularization and integration processes, as well as plans to attend the requests for refugee status to face the Venezuelan migration phenomenon. The “Comprehensive Plan for the Attention and Protection of the Venezuelan Population in Situation of Human Mobility 2020-2021” constitutes the roadmap for actions of national institutions and the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry in relation to Venezuelan migration.

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.