High-Level Roundtable 6-7 July 2016: "Call to Action: Protection Needs in the Northern Triangle of Central America"

WHAT: International conference on regional responses to Central America forced displacement

WHEN: July 6 and 7, 2016

WHERE: Hotel Real Intercontinental, San José, Costa Rica

To Editors and Reporters:

On 6 and 7 July 2016, the Organization of American States and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, will convene in San José, Costa Rica, a high-level roundtable meeting on refugees and displaced people from the Northern Triangle of Central America and the urgent need to find solutions to this growing protection situation. 

The two-day event in San José, the first international meeting of its kind focused on current forced displacement in Central America, will bring together government representatives from the United States to Panama, UN organizations and key actors from both the humanitarian and development sectors at the national and regional level, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and leading NGOs.

Hosted by the Government of Costa Rica with support from the Central America Integration System, the San José meeting comes two weeks after the UN Refugee Agency released its annual Global Trends report showing another big rise in forced displacement in the Americas last year.

The number of refugees and asylum-seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras alone reached 109,800 in 2015 – a more than five-fold increase over three years – with most of them seeking safety in Mexico and the United States. Populations in those three countries, known collectively as the Northern Triangle of Central America, have been hard hit by widespread, life-threatening violence perpetrated by organized and well-armed transnational criminal groups. 

The Costa Rica meeting will also help set the agenda for the Americas region ahead of a special U.N. summit on refugees and migrants to be held at the General Assembly in September and a separate September summit on refugees to be convened by the United States.

The San José meeting will be opened by Costa Rica Vice-President Ms. Ana Helena Chacon Echeverria, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Mr. Filippo Grandi and OAS Secretary General Mr. Luis Almagro, and will be attended by delegations from 11 states and 14 international organizations along with UN sister agencies and leading NGOs and academic institutions, among others.

The gathering is inspired by the Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action which was signed in 2014 by 28 countries and three territories of Latin America and the Caribbean and stresses the central importance of international cooperation in addressing protection challenges in Central America today.

Media arrangements 

For correspondents interested in covering the event, the following media arrangements are in place:

• The opening session will be live-streamed at http://acnur.org/tnc from 09:00 until 09:45 CST (room Real I) and the press conference from 09:45 to 10:15 CST (room Jaracanda II) on July 6. Please note that the conference will be in Spanish, and the video will only become available once the conference starts.
• Due to limited places, please register your interest to attend in advance to Alejandra Romo, [email protected].

Additional information 

• Media page: video and text stories, photos, b-roll on the conference theme as well as photos from the event and on Central America refugees are available at http://www.unhcr.org/roundtable-on-protection-needs-in-the-northern-triangle-of-central-america.html .
• Background information and a draft agenda on the conference are available at http://www.unhcr.org/roundtable-on-protection-needs-in-the-northern-triangle-of-central-america.html

Media enquiries 

• San José, de Costa Rica : Francesca Fontanini +52 1 55 91972690, [email protected]
• Geneva: Nora Sturm:  +41 (79) 200 76 18, [email protected]
• Washington, DC: Chris Boian, +1 (202) 489 6884, [email protected]