Iraq: reflecting on one year of the humanitarian transition

Following the humanitarian transition in early 2023, the response in Iraq has effectively operated in a nexus seeking to align humanitarian, development and peacebuilding interventions. This has proved – predictably – to be easier said than done, and many of the challenges align with findings from the recently published independent review of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) response to internal displacement. Over one year since the transition was formalised, there are clear indications of progress alongside warning signs of how shifts in funding and focus may be pushing displaced Iraqis further to the margins.

In 2017, a record 11 million Iraqis – one third of the country – needed humanitarian assistance. Conflict had forced an estimated 4 million into camps, or besieged people without access to aid. Between 2014 and 2022, approximately $8 billion in funding was mobilised and channelled through traditional humanitarian architecture to respond to escalating need. Despite the usual inefficacies that plague humanitarian emergencies, the response in Iraq saw success. Today, the number of people in need of assistance has dropped to 2.2 million, and close to 5 million Iraqis have returned home. This progress is not attributable solely to humanitarian aid, but humanitarian action and advocacy had a significant part to play.

For Iraqis who have returned home, self-reliance is increasingly contingent on political, development and peacebuilding progress. Returns occurred in two ‘bursts’ in Iraq – spontaneously following the end of conflict in 2017, and in more ‘formalised’ fashion as camps were closed by federal authorities between 2020 and 2021. Returnees in Iraq still face vulnerabilities and climate change is increasingly undoing progress toward income and food security, but whether these vulnerabilities are linked directly to displacement status is debatable.

Access to livelihoods, for example, is a recurring concern. While most returnees report having civil documentation required for formal employment, multi-sector data indicates that 3 in 5 Iraqis who have returned struggle to earn an income. Humanitarian agencies have responded to this problem by focusing on skills building, technical and vocational training, and expanded access to start-up capital. Unfortunately, many of the youth supported by humanitarian programming still struggle to find jobs despite possessing the skills required, and many small businesses tend to fail after the first year. First-time entrepreneurs tell us local products are being undercut by cheaper exports, and access to finance is limited by high interest rates and institutional inefficacies within the banking system.

Joint research by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and International Trade Cooperation (ITC) links sustainable livelihoods pathways to three systemic issues: historical under-resourcing in areas of return, lack of job creation, and inadequate protection of local economies. In other words, the communities – and economies – where Iraqis have returned need development and government partners to step up investment.

Closing the displacement file: remaining barriers

As funding dissipates, a humanitarian response to these economic vulnerabilities is likely to come at the expense of support for the 1.12 million Iraqis still displaced in the Kurdistan Region (KRI), or in informal sites on the outskirts of cities in Federal Iraq. An estimated 630,000 live in the KRI; while a majority are assessed to have integrated with the local population, approximately 160,000 are still living in formal camps.

A recent government directive seeks to close these camps and effectively take another step to closing Iraq’s displacement file. But home – even when desired – is often insurmountably far away, and camp closures do not lead to automatic returns. Oula* is a single mother of eight who fled Sinjar in 2014. Over the past decade, Oula has been displaced three times, from Sinjar to a camp in Hamam al-Alil, to Erbil, and most recently to an informal site in West Mosul. Each relocation was a product of necessity, not of choice, and neither is Oula’s story an anomaly. The area where she lives is ‘home’ to at least 10,000 other displaced families, all living at the mercy of local authorities with little access to services and a near-constant threat of eviction. Because civil documentation is tied to paternal lineage in Iraq, Oula’s family does not have the documents necessary to access public services including food assistance, healthcare and education.

Despite being marginalised where they currently reside, 85% of IDPs like Oula do not see return as a viable option. Almost no IDPs in the KRI camps want to return in the next 12 months. For IDPs in both contexts, the barriers are similar: tenuous safety and lack of opportunities resulting from a situation of disputed rights. Indeed, 4% of those who returned to areas of origin from camps in the KRI over the past year were falling back into vulnerability and requiring renewed support from agencies and donors.

As NRC has highlighted before, until vulnerabilities linked to displacement status are resolved, families like Oula’s are unlikely to benefit from large-scale development projects. This includes, as a first step, restoration of legal identity, and resolving disputed housing, land and property rights. At the same time, while humanitarian programming can expand access to legal safety, system-wide solutions are needed to ensure social protection for IDPs. In theory, Iraq possesses the foundation of a strong social safety net with grants and compensation support available for IDPs; in practice, the system lacks efficiency and often hardwires exclusion. Eligibility hinges on civil documentation, and even with legal representation, cases often take up to 12 months to resolve. While grants for damaged or destroyed property are available on paper, internal sectoral documents indicate that only 1% of IDPs who have applied have received compensation. In other words, bureaucratic inefficiency and under-resourcing within state systems may be protracting displacement.

Government policies that pertain to durable solutions for IDPs need to respond to this reality. As of now, an oversized focus on returns has directed a disproportionate amount of funding to a solution that is costly, fraught with protection risks, and arguably unachievable for many. As of April 2024, IOM estimates there are still 305 locations of no return in Iraq, largely because returns are being blocked by sub-national authorities and/or armed actors in control of territories. Ameliorating these barriers requires political interventions, not humanitarian or development programming.

Until these issues are addressed, a large majority of the Iraqis who are still displaced simply do not have a viable path to home. Recognition of this reality must translate into pathways for IDPs to either integrate into the communities where they are currently residing, or relocation to other areas of the country where federal and development funding is being directed. Importantly, these processes must recognise and support informed decision-making by IDPs themselves. Despite generating momentum around these conversations, the recent solutions process led by the Office of the Special Adviser on Solutions to Internal Displacement resulted in little material change and, in a coordination vacuum, has been largely centralised with the UN.

What are the essential steps for the nexus approach in Iraq?

In many ways, the ‘nexus’ is being put to the test in Iraq. As funding declines, humanitarian agencies are reassessing the relevance of current programmes and areas of focus. Meanwhile, development partners, though in a somewhat ad hoc manner, are participating in discussions around principled targeting and the importance of protection in proposed solutions. The government, too, has recently formed a high-level committee to assess the viability of return for IDPs in camps in the Kurdistan Region. These conversations present an opportunity to strengthen state responsibility for IDPs in ways that recognise and support individual agency and choice.

There are several steps that can be taken to increase chances of success.

First, a delineation of responsibility is needed. The nexus is not a relay race, but rather a gradual handing over of resources and responsibility that recognises shifting needs of communities themselves. While targeted humanitarian support to IDPs is still required in Iraq, it is development partners who must lead initiatives that enable sustainable return, resettlement and integration. This leadership comes with the responsibility to ensure inclusion of IDPs in development programming, and the task of system strengthening to facilitate durable solutions. Without this baseline clarity, IDPs are increasingly likely to be stuck in the grey space between development and humanitarian assistance, fall deeper into poverty, and move further from self-reliance.

Second, the potential success or failure of the nexus in Iraq hinges on the willingness of donors and agencies to coordinate. The silos in which aid agencies often operate is reinforced by the silos between (and within) donors. Funding streams from the same donor country are often earmarked so rigidly they are impossible to align at a programmatic level, and it is not surprising for humanitarian agencies to have to bring together representatives working under the same embassy.

And lastly, an independent review is necessary to evaluate the humanitarian response to internal displacement in Iraq. While there are isolated instances of achievements and failures, we do not necessarily have a full accounting of what was achieved, what failed, and why. A review will not just go a long way to fostering sectoral accountability, it may also serve as a rubric for other contexts in the region going through similar transitions.

All this might change quickly, and the days of conflict and displacement return to Iraq. But, for now, that pessimism so familiar to humanitarians has little place in a country eager to move forward. On the contrary, sticking to despair devalues the impact of what humanitarian assistance has achieved, distracts from the need to consolidate and focus remaining funding to those who need it most, and obfuscates the urgency of handing over responsibility to others more relevant to lead.

*Name has been changed to protect identity.

Imrul Islam is the outgoing Advocacy Manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Iraq.