Latin America and the Caribbean are facing an unprecedented protection crisis. The regional context, marked by mixed migration flows, internal displacement, armed conflicts, and other situations of violence, has forced millions of people to seek protection outside their places of origin. In this scenario, the most vulnerable individuals are exposed to multiple protection risks and human rights violations in their country of origin, along migration routes, and in the destination countries. At the same time, the crisis is deepening due to the limited availability of regular migration pathways and barriers to obtaining international protection, which leads to negative coping mechanisms, including the decision to travel through the most dangerous migration routes. Despite the magnitude of the crisis, people in need face limited access to services and rights, while available humanitarian funding has been decreasing in recent years.
Given this situation, coordinated, efficient, and evidence-based regional and national responses are necessary. These responses must prioritize accurate protection analyses at the core of all humanitarian interventions to ensure appropriate humanitarian aid and durable solutions for affected populations.
The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) with the support of the European Union Humanitarian Aid, have joined forces to create the ProLAC Initiative. This regional protection information management initiative is open to other national and international humanitarian organizations and offers a harmonized protection monitoring system. This system facilitates the design of evidence-based protection analyses to enhance appropriate, effective, and efficient protection and humanitarian responses at the regional, national, and local levels. ProLAC’s harmonized protection monitoring system facilitates coordination by overcoming fragmented protection analyses and providing comparable data and information across countries.
The ProLAC Initiative identifies the protection risks (threats, vulnerabilities, and capacities) faced by the target population and the gaps in the response to foster joint analyses which provide evidence to duty-bearers and humanitarian organizations for taking appropriate actions aiming to achieve quality protection outcomes and effective humanitarian responses. The ProLAC Initiative seeks to produce regional, national, and local protection analyses using the Global Protection Cluster’s (GPC) Protection Analytical Framework (PAF) applied to qualitative and quantitative data collected in the field.
The ProLAC Initiative provides a harmonized protection monitoring system that allows for the comparison of data and information at local, national, and regional levels using globally standardized terminology. A harmonized system, therefore, enables accurate joint protection analyses using global analytical frameworks such as the Protection Analytical Framework (PAF) and the 15 protection risks defined and monitored by the Global Protection Cluster, thus facilitating evidence-based programming and coordinated advocacy among various stakeholders.
The ProLAC Initiative has developed quantitative and qualitative protection data collection tools that enable the production of protection analyses and the visualization of quantitative data in interactive dashboards (see interactive dashboard). The main tools of the ProLAC Initiative's harmonized protection monitoring are (1) the household survey, which provides quantitative data on persons in transit, at destination, in situations of internal displacement, and those affected by conflict and other situations of violence; and the qualitative tools designed to facilitate data collection through (2) direct observations, (3) key informant interviews, and (4) focus group discussions.
The ProLAC Initiative is currently composed by five humanitarian organizations: the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the Peruvian organization Encuentros SJM, the Costa Rican organization Alianza Vencer, and the Colombian organization Corporación Colectiva Justicia Mujer (CCJM). The ProLAC Initiative’ s membership is open to all international and national organizations responding to protection needs and willing to contribute to improving protection responses and humanitarian interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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This website includes protection data and analysis collected and produced by ProLAC Initiative partners with the financial assistance of the European Union. The opinions expressed herein should not be interpreted in any way as the official opinion of the European Union. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained on this website.
