National Area Coordinator - Sulaymaniyah

Iraq is at a turning point and is facing its most severe crisis in years, with the country on the brink of break-up amid lightning offensives by armed groups.  Several key Iraqi cities, most notably Mosul,  fell  under full control of the armed groups, led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) - an al-Qaeda breakaway. This has unleashed widespread violence across the country, especially in the disputed territories of Iraq, resulting in huge displacement of populations and a humanitarian crisis. In addition to over 500,000 IDPs from Anbar, OCHA figures from September 2014 indicate that an estimated 1.8M Iraqis is displaced. Both Syrian refugees and displaced Iraqis are highly concentrated in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and within Kurdistan, the majority of the IDP’s and refugees are hosted in Dohuk Governorate in Kurdistan. However, Erbil and Suleymaniya also have substantial number of IDPs and refugees. The burden on the local government, as well as the UN and international community, to provide assistance for the displaced population has increased dramatically, but the capacity of aid-providing bodies (government, NGOs, UN) has already been stretched to the limit. The current UNDP support provided to the Syrian refugees requires continuity and more support for the host government and the communities to ensure institutional sustainability for the provision of the emerging assistance needs.

In order to respond to this situation, UNDP has formulated the Iraqi Crisis Response and Resilience Program complementing the humanitarian response which is composed of 5 areas of support:

Improved Crisis Response coordination, management, structures and mechanismsImproved participatory decentralized basic service delivery, , institutional responsiveness and accountabilityImproved livelihoods opportunities for crisis-affected communitiesProtection mechanisms strengthened for vulnerable communities, specifically women and youthStrengthened Social Cohesion through dialogue and capacity development of local and national stakeholders

UNDP’s support takes into consideration the situation of the IDPs, refugees as well as the highly stretched capacities of the host communities and has been framed from a resilience lens, looking at longer term durable solutions.

Sulaymaniyah Governorate is one of the three governorates of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Sulaymaniyah governorate has been hosting around 95,000 IDPs as well as over 23,000 Syrian Refugees. A number of local and international organizations are based in Sulaymaniyah governorate, implementing various activities for the refugees and displaced population. UNDP has been implementing its support for SGBV projection for Syrian refugees and is planning to launch more activities both for Syrian refugees and IDPs in Sulaymaniyah, specifically for livelihoods enhancement and resilience based activities. To this end, UNDP Iraq wishes to strengthen its coordination and liaison capacity in Sulaymaniyah to implement UNDP’s activities in an effective manner. 

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