Science Summit at United Nations General Assembly (UNGA78)

While in 1990 Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) welcomed 7 million migrants, in 2020 this figure doubled, reaching 15 million, making it one of the fastest growing regions in the world in terms of human mobility. The high vulnerability of refugees and migrants to health and socioeconomic repercussions responds to a repetitive pattern of factors that reinforce each other, which in turn can influence current health policies and practices applied to migrant populations. The COVID19 pandemic further strained support systems for migrant populations in the region. In this panel, we discuss the approach based on the right to health for immigrants in four countries located in the Andean region in Latin America: Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. In order to analyze the practical applications of rights-based approaches to health, field work was carried out that, beyond offering a national perspective, analyzed the results in 10 borders of the four countries mentioned above. In this context, we intend to address the following research questions: what are the policies and programs implemented, at the regional, national and local level, and what is the impact of the pandemic of these policies on the practices? What initiatives are unknown in border regions, how do they relate to human rights-based policies and standards, and what is the impact of the pandemic on these initiatives? What are the previous experiences with human rights-based approaches in response to COVID19, both in regards to the general population and migrants? Lastly, what are the local experiences, perceived gaps, and the impact of rights-based approaches on migrants during the pandemic at selected border sites in the Andean region