Newsletter 2

EMERGENCY UPON EMERGENCY

During 2020 and 2021, the COVID pandemic generated a more severe situation of overlapping emergencies that intensified its impacts on the lives of people, their homes and communities. The context remains highly complex due to the political, institutional and economic factors that caused the emergency and limits the humanitarian response.

Photo by Tairy Gamboa

THIS SECOND HUMVENEZUELA NEWSLETTER is specially dedicated to presenting the data updated until June 2021 of the measurements on the impacts of the Complex Humanitarian Emergency on the needs and human rights of the Venezuelan population.

Collected in tables, graphical analysis sheets and a new report, these data are the result of the monitoring and research work of the Venezuelan civil society that is part of the HumVenezuela information platform. On this occasion, the data highlights the changes that occurred between the past measurements, until March 2020 (before the COVID-19 pandemic), and the new measurements, until June 2021 (during the COVID-19 pandemic).

The results show a greater intensification of the severe and multiple deprivations that people suffer in their needs and rights to food, water and sanitation, health, basic education and living conditions, as a result of 16 months of pandemic that caused an overload of extreme adversities by overlapping emergencies to the detriment of the life, integrity and security of the Venezuelan population.

The report addresses the sectors of food, water and sanitation, health, basic education and living conditions, with emphasis on the most relevant areas and indicators, where complex humanitarian emergency has generated the most critical and pressing impacts on people’s lives, requiring the greatest attention from actors who make decisions in the responses and carry out humanitarian assistance and protection work.

The data update in each of these sectors is done at national level and, for the first time, in 16 federal entities, which together represent 86% of the entire population of the country.

The challenge of having sufficient and timely information on the impacts, response and complexity of the complez humanitarian emergency in Venezuela has required greater involvement of actors and joint efforts because the emergency is the product of an extensive drop in capacities in essential sectors for the population, which occurred over years of deterioration and destructuring, which also affected the weakening of national and local information systems, many of which have considerable underreporting. At the same time, publications of statistics and government documents have disappeared in Venezuela for several years and there is censorship and veto of information from independent sources, thus restricting the right of access to public information.

For this reason HumVenezuela has developed a work methodology that consists of monitoring existing information and generating data from its own research to measure standardized categories and indicators of the humanitarian situation.

The information collected goes through a rigorous process of review and verification of quality, consistency and coherence. The data are recorded in each dimension and category according to aggregation criteria, and then disaggregated according to the levels of deterioration or severity that the same data show.

Available sectoral records and statistics: more than 8,000 sources of local, national and international actors, both official and independent, were reviewed.

Consultations with informed actors in specific sectors or areas: during the investigation processes, 25 of the organizations that participate in HumVenezuela consulted with actors, who know the situation directly by their work.

Community diagnostics in the framework of HumVenezuela: data collection in the field, in 16 states of the country between the months of May and June 2021, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a single instrument. 4,489 respondents collected data from a total of 15,175 members of their family groups. The sample included women, children and adolescents, the elderly, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, LGBTI people, producers and peasants, and people with chronic and acute health problems, including COVID-19.

Demographic information: HumVenezuela uses CELADE estimations, since the country’s census projections do not consider the migratory impacts on changes in the size and composition of the Venezuelan population and households. <<Read the full report>>

HumVenezuela newsletters present research work on priority issues of the Complex Humanitarian Emergency in Venezuela and report on the latest data, measurements and analysis published on our platform. If you wish to recive this information in your email, subscribe here.