Costa Rica

Jointly implemented with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the project involves the development of a policy-benchmarking framework to assess the extent to which national migration policies facilitate orderly, safe and well managed migration, as laid out in SDG Target 10.7.

The Regional Conference on Migration (RCM or Puebla Process) is a multilateral regional forum on international migration which involves countries that, from different perspectives, share a common problem, based on experiences relating situations of origin, transit and destination for migration. 

RCM member countries includes Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Dominican Republic. 

The Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI) is a global inter-agency programme funded by the European Union and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. It focuses on the local dimension of migrants’ contribution to development and aims to maximize the potential of migration for local development. To achieve this, the JMDI provides technical and financial support to up-scale existing locally-led migration and development initiatives across 15 projects in eight target countries: Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Morocco, Nepal, Philippines, Senegal and Tunisia.

The local authorities of Upala, in Costa Rica, have a key role in managing unique local migratory contexts. Upala is an immigration and transit zone at the border with Nicaragua, home to many Nicaraguan migrants in search of employment opportunities, access to social services and better living conditions or workplace of many Nicaraguans who cross the border each day to make a living, thus living in a ´cross border´context.

The National Council for Migration has been established on a plural basis, and the different sectors get together in order to develop the National Plan for Development. One fundamental component of the Council is the social organizations, since there are two places for the civil society. Thus, the public policies and the different programs can be applied always bearing in mind the logics of the migrant people. 

This policy reflects the Costa Rican Government's commitments for the next 10 years (2013- 2023) to manage and control migration flows, ensure adequate integration of migrants and promote national development through regulation and coordination of inter-agency actions on migration.

The goal of the project is to improve the human security of Ngöbe and Buglé migrant populations.

Costa Rica, as a receiving country, has been an option for improving the living conditions of thousands of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

In January 2013, the OECD launched a project on the Interrelations between public policies, migration and development, which aims at enhancing the capacity of the project’s ten partner countries in incorporating migration into the design and implementation of their development strategies through case studies. The project seeks to better understand how international migration affects non-migration related public policies, and conversely, how these policies affect migration.

In January 2013, the OECD launched the project, “Interrelations between Public Policies, Migration and Development: case studies and policy recommendations”, which aims to enhance partner countries’ capacity to incorporate migration into the design and implementation of their development strategies. The project seeks to better understand how international migration affects non-migration related public policies, and conversely, how these affect migration.