Guayaquil, Ecuador: Municipal Center of Integration

About

In 2023, the City of Guayaquil, Ecuador, was selected as a grantee of the Global Cities Fund for Migrants and Refugees (GCF), the MMC’s instrument to channel international funding directly to cities to implement inclusive projects of their own design. 

With support from the GCF, the City of Guayaquil is building a center for inclusion in its busiest transit center to welcome new arrivals and provide coordinated services such as legal assistance and psychological support to migrants, refugees, and Ecuadorian returnees coming into the city, including children and adolescents.  

Context

Guayaquil is home to Ecuador’s second largest population of Venezuelan migrants and refugees, who number more than 500,000 across the country. Migrant communities in Guayaquil, especially children and adolescents, often lack access to educational and health services, experience food insecurity, and live in unsafe housing conditions. 

Simultaneously, there is a gap in public and non-governmental service provision focused on the unique needs of refugee and migrant children and caregivers, and existing service-providers face coordination challenges.

Action

Through its GCF project, the City of Guayaquil built a center for inclusion in its busiest transit center to welcome new arrivals and provide coordinated services such as legal assistance and psychological support to migrants, refugees, and Ecuadorian returnees coming into the city, including children and adolescents.  

The city’s Terrestrial Terminal is one of the first points of arrival and access to services for migrant communities. In partnership with an international NGO, COOPI, Guayaquil refurbished a physical space in the terminal to establish an Integrated Municipal Center where migrants and refugees are able to access a comprehensive suite of support services. Direct services provided by the center include medical care, legal counseling, and psychosocial assistance. The center also makes referrals to partner organizations for individuals experiencing gender-based violence, substance use, and mental health challenges. Guayaquil furnished the center with an age- and gender-responsive childcare space that promotes healthy social and cognitive development. 

In addition, the Integrated Municipal Center developed a management model to coordinate service provision for migrants and refugees across governmental and non-governmental entities.

Impact

By opening a migrant reception center in Guayaquil’s bus terminal, the primary point of entry into the city, Guayaquil has provided direct inclusion services and referrals to over 500 newly arrived migrants and refugees while strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of social service coordination in the city. 

To date, the Centro Municipal Ciudadanos Integrados has delivered medical, psychological, legal, and other essential socioeconomic services to 541 migrants, refugees, and Ecuadorian returnees. The center is open five days a week and hosts seven migrant-facing NGOs and INGOs on a rotating basis. By concentrating otherwise dispersed services in a one-stop shop, the center is lowering barriers for migrants and refugees to access key pathways to inclusion. 

Additionally, the center’s management model, endorsed by 40 local and international partners, has created a standard procedure for intake and referral that helps clients effectively navigate Guayaquil’s wide-reaching network of social services. The municipality’s leadership role under the management model has also lowered coordination and administrative costs for migrant-facing organizations, building local capacity and improving the quality of services for migrants and refugees. So far, the center has made 780 successful referrals to partner organizations.  Guayaquil hopes its GCF project, a flagship effort to welcome migrants and refugees, will anchor new projects and services related to longer-term socioeconomic inclusion, such as entrepreneurship programs.

Stay tuned for more impact updates at the end of Guayaquil’s GCF grant term!