Universal social protection schemes in forced displacement settings
Evidence from Colombia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21338409 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carlos Santiago Guzman Gutierrez (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford Oxford United Kingdom, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 79 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 43-68 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Social Security Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-871X • E-ISSN: 1468-246X |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/issr.70030 |
| OpenAlex | W7165118720 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 23 |
With forcibly displaced persons reaching 123.2 million people globally in 2024, host low‐ and middle‐income countries face a dual social protection coverage challenge: including new populations while their own systems cover less than a third of their citizens. Focusing on the case of Colombia, this article uses a mixed‐methods approach, combining tax‐benefit microsimulation and expert interviews, to assess the poverty impacts of universal‐like cash transfers for Colombians as well as for migrants and refugees from Venezuela resident in Colombia. While large UBI‐like transfers can dramatically reduce poverty (by up to 15 percentage points (pp) for Colombians and 27 pp for Venezuelans), budget‐neutral scenarios are detrimental to the poorest households. The qualitative evidence points to a gradual targeted universalism approach prioritizing specific life‐cycle risks as the most viable strategy in fiscally constrained, high‐informality contexts
Cash transfers · Cover (algebra) · Displaced person · Forced migration · Poverty · Refugee · Social Assistance · Social protection · Universalism · Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
Measuring Poverty in Forced Displacement Contexts
The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor
Universal Basic Income Programs
Exploring Universal Basic Income
A Multi-Country Analysis of Multidimensional Poverty in Contexts of Forced Displacement
Microsimulation as a tool for evaluating redistribution policies
Leaving no one behind
Universal Basic Incomes versus Targeted Transfers
Using Mixed-Methods Sequential Explanatory Design
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |