Costa Rica

Despite having the same labour rights as Costa Rican citizens, migrants and refugees encounter barriers to a decent job. The program Vivir la Integración (Living the Integration) is thus developed to encourage companies to establish corporate social responsibility programs that  support the integration of refugees and those applying for refugee status.

Rutas de Integración (Routes of Integration) is a support program for migrant and refugee population in Costa Rica to have better access to the information of public institution services. It aims to facilitate the full integration of migrants into Costa Rican society and to strengthen the rule of law, including public services.

This project aims to promote the participation of migrants and refugees in the Boards of Development Associations, the recognition of local cultural diversity as a focus of integration, as well as the use of arts as a motivation for local awareness raising.

Established in 2006, the main objective of the Observatory is to promote transparent and reliable information on migration matters in Costa Rica and Central America and to serve as a primary source for consultation by private and public sectors, NGOs, mass media, academic and research institutions and civil society, among others. The Observatory is available on the Internet, and methodology is mainly through a comprehensive analysis of the information from a social, political and juridical viewpoint.

As Nicaraguan labor migrants have consolidated in specific economic niches, and as immigration levels have stabilized, the Costa Rican government has shifted its focus from enforcement to integration. Passage of the General Law on Migration and Foreigners in 2010 and subsequent executive decrees in 2011-13 have constituted the most recent steps toward creating a comprehensive policy framework on immigration, together with a action plan.

The Migration Information and Statistics System for Mesoamerica (SIEMMES by its Spanish acronym) is a system of migration information designed to capture and monitor the magnitude and characteristics of migratory movements from, to and between the Central American countries and Mexico, by coordinating and compatibilizing the data generated by different agencies in all those countries. 

Set up in 2001, it includes Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama.

Special programs to recruit health professionals from abroad, have been created in Portugal, who sees them as “an important answer to overcome the lack of doctors and nurses,” and filling urgent needs in the health system. The supply of qualified doctors in some Latin America countries has led to bilateral and multilateral agreements between the Portuguese government, sending countries (including Uruguay, Cuba, Colombia and Costa Rica), and health institutions.

This bi-national project aims at improving the impact and contribution of labour migration movements to the development process of both countries and improving social conditions in areas with large migrant populations and migrant-sending locations. The project seeks to regulate labour flows of Nicaraguan workers to Costa Rica, promote the integration of migrants in the labour market, improve the psychosocial state of migrants and their families as well as enhance their social integration.

The programme objective is to strengthen the capacity of policy makers and social partners to adopt and implement gender-sensitive labour migration policies, legislation and administration. This will be done by promoting:

i) the adoption and implementation of policies, legislation and administration for better regulation of labour migration flows;

ii) strategies to enhance social security coverage of migrant worker and their families, and;

iii) the improvement of skills’ matching between sending and receiving countries and reducing de-skilling.