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Ecuador: Rapid Assessment of Markets - Information Gathering Report

Countries
Ecuador
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Sources
World Vision
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Introduction

In recent years, Ecuador has experienced significant population growth, which is mainly due to the migration of citizens of other nationalities. According to figures from the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, Ecuador is the third country in the number of Venezuelan citizens in Latin America and the Caribbean (after Colombia and Peru). From 2015 until the end of 2018, around 262,000 Venezuelan people have settled in the country, which means 1.9% of the Ecuadorian population, of which 97,000 have managed to regularize their immigration status (they have a visa) according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility. In August 2018, there was a very high migratory flow, reaching more than 6,000 people per day.

This phenomenon allows makes that markets become a core scenario for the commercialization of basic products in a number of business, which are the income source for millions of people, and their main source of essential foods, hence their importance with regard to the livelihoods of people, since they make it possible for them to generate sufficient resources to cover their own needs and those of their home in order to continue living in a sustainable and dignified way.
The functioning of the systems and the market places can be significantly limited by a number of crises or disturbances, such as natural disasters or migratory conflicts, which affect the ability of people to access basic products that are essential for their lives.

Purpose

The Rapid Assessment of Markets (RAM) seeks to develop an overall and basic picture of the situation of the main markets in the wake of a crisis. The assessment helps to strengthen the analysis prior to the intervention because it provides data on the markets that, in turn, are essential for the adoption of informed decisions with regard to the most appropriate type of transfer mechanism in case of assistance (International Federation of Societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent).