Opportunities Without Borders - Pro Mujer's Economic Inclusion Programme for Venezuelan Migrant Women in Colombia

By August 2023, Colombia hosted roughly 2.88 million Venezuelan migrants, 52% of them women. Female migrants faced a 29.2% unemployment rate versus 14.9% for male migrants, alongside widespread informality: Thomson Reuters Foundation's Context reported that around 90% of Venezuelan migrants work informally, against 60% of Colombians.

"Opportunities Without Borders" ("Oportunidades Sin Fronteras"), a USAID-funded initiative implemented in part by Pro Mujer with Open Society Foundations support, targeted this gap with a package of training (costing and pricing, financial education, digital marketing, gender and social inclusion) plus access to capital and financial services. It operates in nine Colombian cities: Barranquilla, Bogota, Cali, Cucuta, Medellin, Riohacha, Bucaramanga, Cartagena and Santa Marta.

In its first year of operation (2022-2023), the programme reported reaching 566 Venezuelan migrant women with direct business capitalisation, 2,870 women with access to financial services (savings, credit, transfers), and 1,142 women who reached formal employment -- of whom 659 were heads of household and 453 had caregiving responsibilities. Capitalised businesses concentrated in Cartagena (22.4%), Bucaramanga (17.3%), Cali (15%) and Barranquilla (11%), mostly in food and beverages (38%), health and beauty (16.6%) and commerce (13.6%).

Independent confirmation comes from El Espectador, which reported the broader USAID "Oportunidades Sin Fronteras" initiative's national target of 100,000 jobs across 15 Colombian cities, and from Pro Mujer's subsequent 2023 partnership with Fundacion Belcorp and Latimpacto to extend training to migrant entrepreneurs via its "Emprende Pro Mujer" digital platform.

The reported figures are programme self-reported outputs rather than an independent randomised evaluation. Even with this support, a related characterisation survey of 10,759 migrant-led entrepreneurs by iNNpulsa Colombia found persistent socioeconomic vulnerability among migrant-led, women-headed businesses -- a reminder that capitalisation and training alone do not fully close the gap facing this population.

Read the full analysis: https://promujer.org/venezuelan-migrant-women-in-colombia-entrepreneurship-and-resilience-in-the-midst-of-challenges/