Women and young people are benefiting from the Economic Inclusion Project, according to a new led by the World Council of Credit Unions (Woccu), a report reveals.
USAID and Woccu established the Economic Inclusion Project (EIP) to improve the economic wellbeing of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Peru and Ecuador, to facilitate their integration in both countries.
Launched in 2020 and renewed by USAID for a further three years in 2023, the EIP has supported over 160,000 Venezuelan migrants, refugees and local residents with access to financial services and education, entrepreneurship or employment opportunities, and provided help with revalidating their professional qualifications.
Now, a report on the EIP shows that the average monthly income of those who have participated in the EIP initiatives ($399), is around double the income received by their counterparts who did not participate ($182).
When broken down by age, Venezuelans aged 18 to 29 see the greatest benefits from the EIP in comparison to their non EIP counterparts, with a monthly income of $487 per month, almost four times more than the control group.
Oscar Guzman, the EIP’s chief of party, who presented the results during a webinar, said: “What we are seeing is that young people are taking more advantage of all the opportunities EIP has to offer, including degree revalidation, job skills training and entrepreneurship programs, and enrollment in formal financial services.”
The EIP report also shows the programme’s impact on the gender pay gap. Men in the EIP group earn up to 29% more than women, compared with 54% in the non-EIP group.
When it comes to overall income, women involved in the EIP, who make up 76% of the programme’s beneficiaries, earn $364 per month versus $150 for Venezuelan women outside the programme. Men outside of the EIP earn $325 per month.
“One of the reasons we focused on assisting women originally was due to the structural challenges they faced in acquiring job training and launching entrepreneurial projects. EIP will continue to make further strides to level the playing field for women moving forward,” said Guzman.
The study also looked at the relationship between income and how well integrated Venezuelan migrants are in their new home countries, finding that as income increases, so does the integration score, indicating that migrants with greater economic resources tend to integrate better in the host country. This correlation suggests that access to financial resources is a key factor in the integration process, the report argues.
Danielle Spinard, director of the regional Migration and Health Office for USAID Peru, who also spoke at the webinar, said: “Facilitating access to financial services [is] essential for migrants to have a stable process of economic and social integration in the host country.”
