Nearly 30 years of economic decline and conflict have had severe humanitarian consequences in Iraq. In particular, education and health services have been severely affected hitting hard women, children, the elderly and the chronically ill.
Iraq is now at a crossroads to political stability and socio-economic recovery. Although the food security situation in Iraq is improving, the latest WFP/Government of Iraq Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA), published in November 2008 shows that there are still 930,000 people in need of food assistance and an additional 6.4 million who are extremely vulnerable and would become food insecure were it not for the Public Distribution System (PDS). The survey also shows that female-headed houses and those in rural areas are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity.
In response to these findings, WFP is shifting its strategy in Iraq from food aid to food assistance and supporting the Government in finding durable solutions to food insecurity.
WFP has been working in Iraq since 1991. With the large-scale displacement of people seen in 2006 and 2007, food emerged as a priority need for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Iraq. In response to this need, on 1 January 2008 WFP launched an emergency operation to feed up to 750,000 people inside Iraq. This operation is a stop-gap measure, providing vulnerable IDPs, who have crossed governorate lines, with a complementary food ration until they are absorbed into the Public Distribution System (PDS) in the area of their displacement. This emergency operation is scheduled to end on December 31, 2009. In line with the recent survey findings identifying pockets of vulnerability, WFP is expanding the scope of its assistance from April 1, 2009 until December 31, 2009, to include other vulnerable groups. During this period, WFP aims to assist 1.4 million vulnerable people in Iraq including IDPs, malnourished children under 5 years, pregnant and lactating women, tuberculosis patients, primary school children, female-headed households, and small farmers in the most food insecure areas of Iraq.
This period in 2009 will also include innovative pilots in school feeding as a safety net, targeted nutrition interventions and capacity building in Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping and food security monitoring. This will lay the groundwork for a relief and recovery operation beginning in 2010 to address the needs of vulnerable groups and build the capacity of the Government at the institutional and local level to design and implement effective safety net programmes to protect vulnerable groups and integrate them into society and the economy at large.
The Government of Iraq released a draft ‘road map’ for reforming the Public Distribution System (PDS) in August 2008. This draft proposes phasing out the PDS from its current practise of providing a blanket food ration to all citizens of Iraq to targeted assistance to the vulnerable. WFP leads the interagency Baghdad-based Task Force that was set up to advise the Government on PDS reform.
This Operation has been modified and extended in time until 31 March 2010 as per Budget revision 009 (see below).
Violence and conflict in Iraq have led to the widespread displacement of people both within the country and to neighboring countries in the region. It is now estimated that there are some 2.2 million people displaced within the country and approximately 2 million in neighboring states in the Middle East. Of those displaced outside of the country, there are an estimated 1.4 to 1.5 million in Syria, 500,000 in Jordan and smaller numbers in Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and Iran.
