From 2014, the rapid increase in arrivals of migrants and refugees brought to light previously existing deficits and accentuated the structural limitations of local public capacities to provide a migrant-inclusive access to basic services.
The pandemic exposed the vulnerability of migrants with limited access to social protection and highlighted barriers in access to public health information. Faced with many urgent and unprecedented challenges, many local authorities took social and economic emergency measures that left out migrants, who lacked information and support to access the new measures.
Reaching the most vulnerable groups remains challenging: social isolation is one of the main issues facing migrant women, together with low skills in host-country lan-guage and intersecting forms of discrimination. Public services and civil society organisations (CSOs) play a crucial role in facilitating ac-cess to services, as they can imple-ment complementary tasks: public service providers should deliver appropriate, culturally, linguistically and gender-responsive services and information, while local CSOs are able to communicate well with migrants and have capacities to engage with their communities.
A strong collaboration between local authorities and CSOs can lead to broad and complementary responses to integration challenges, capable of catering for the service needs of vulnerable groups while enhancing social cohesion in their communities.