Costa Rica

 

Operation: Opération: Costa Rica

Location

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Latest update of camps and office locations 21  Nov  2016. By clicking on the icons on the map, additional information is displayed.

Key Figures

2016 end-year results
4,050 people of concern receied legal asisstance
4,360 people of concern received cash assistance
640 people of concern received livelihoods training
510 people of concern were enrolled in job integration programmes
2017 planning figures
2,000 people of concern will be provided with guidance on labor market opportunities
500 people of concern will be provided with guidance on business market opportunities
480 people of concern will be registered in job placement services
120 people of concern will be receiving cash-grants for business start-up
100% of capacity support will be provided to Government refugee status determination staff 
90 the average number of days from first instance interview to notification of first instance decision is reduced to 90 days by the end of 2017
100% of profiling methodology will be defined and available (for the eradication of statelessness)
2,000 people of concern can obtain identity documents

People of Concern Personnes relevant de la compétence du HCR

9%
Decrease in
2016
2016 7,953
2015 8,705
2014 23,718

 

[["Refugees",4180],["Asylum-seekers",3646],["Stateless",127]]
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Costa Rica

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2016 {"categories":[2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017],"budget":[2.83239045,2.05651441,2.88287074,3.028757242,4.77087632,6.45543112],"expenditure":[2.01193045,1.77834604,1.9659955,2.50565576,3.45812078,null]} {"categories":[2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017],"p1":[2.83239045,2.05651441,2.88287074,3.028757242,4.52223732,6.04544802],"p2":[null,null,null,null,0.248639,0.4099831],"p3":[null,null,null,null,null,null],"p4":[null,null,null,null,null,null]} {"categories":[2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017],"p1":[2.01193045,1.77834604,1.9659955,2.50565576,3.21075754,null],"p2":[null,null,null,null,0.24736324,null],"p3":[null,null,null,null,null,null],"p4":[null,null,null,null,null,null]}
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  • 2015
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Year-end Overview

Working environment

Costa Rica received increasing numbers of asylum-seekers from the North of Central America countries (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala), as well as Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The country also served as place of transit for Cubans, Haitians and other Caribbean nationals, Africans and Asians.
 
The limited capacity of the Government of Costa Rica to carry out refugee status determination (RSD) and an increasing number of applications have created a backlog and curtailed timely decision-making. 

Population trends

  • Asylum claimants in 2016 reached a total of 4,470, a 103 per cent increase from 2015. The number of nationals from the Northern Triangle of Central America and Venezuela has risen exponentially during the last two years.
  • Costa Rica hosts a considerable number of people born in the country to foreign parents with barriers to access nationality documentation.

Achievements and impact

  • The waiting time for first-instance RSD was reduced from 10 to 4 months. This was done through the provision of necessary human resources appointed temporarily and requested by the National Council on Migration through their contingency plan to eradicate excessive backlogs and waiting times.
  • The Protection Transfer Arrangement (PTA) project was made operational. Through PTA heightened-risk cases from NCA countries are provided with accommodation and basic services upon arrival in Costa Rica, which served as a transit country while the resettlement process is pending.
  • Through mobile brigades theChiriticos” project verified the nationality of some 5,000 people of concern who lived and worked in remote locations and were not able to prove their nationality in the absence of a birth certificate. 

Unmet needs

  • As part of the implementation of the Protection Transfer Arrangement, UNHCR planned to meet the financial needs of 400 individuals but only 1 case was referred to Costa Rica from countries of origin.

Plan Overview