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COVID-19 & Integration
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt around the world. For refugees, migrants and those working with them, the crisis created new challenges and intensified those that already existed. New approaches to respond to the rapidly changing context have been developed by integration actors and stakeholders across the EU.
Between October and December 2020, we conducted an online survey, in parallel with desk research and stakeholder interviews, to :
map the impact of the pandemic on welcome and integration for refugees and migrants across the EU;
map welcome and integration responses to COVID-19, and identify best practice that could be taken forward in the pandemic recovery. n EU-funded two-year project aiming at making integration policies at national, regional and local a more effective, more evidence-based, more innovative, more transferable, and more sustainable.
We received 224 individual responses from 16 EU countries:
40% were from civil society organisations, 16% from public authorities, and 15% from community, voluntary, and refugee/migrant-led organisations
44% of those who responded worked directly with refugees and migrants at the local level
Who responded to the survey?
What did we find out?
For refugees and migrants, COVID-19 caused major interruptions to education and training
For organisations working on integration, COVID-19 caused the closure or suspension of planned programmes and activities
COVID-19 has prompted better public awareness of the role of migrant labour in essential roles and sectors