With funding from Korea, sustaining services for women and girls during Iraq’s post-conflict recovery

A new commitment from the Republic of Korea will support UNFPA in strengthening services to address sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence in Iraq, to meet the complex needs of women and girls as the country recovers from three years of conflict.

The $700,000 commitment, signed on 16 August 2018, will fund UNFPA’s reproductive health interventions in camps for internally displaced people in Duhok and Sulimaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, and gender-based violence services across the country.

While military operations against ISIL ended over a year ago, 8.7 million of Iraq’s people, including the 1.9 million still internally displaced, remain in need of humanitarian assistance. Among them are women and girls in dire need of sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence prevention and response services.

The war devastated the country’s infrastructure and compromised institutional capacity to provide such services – making UNFPA’s continued humanitarian response as critical as ever. 

Throughout the years of conflict, UNFPA undertook a range of humanitarian response activities to meet these needs. From 2014 onward, the organization established over 94 reproductive health service delivery points and 147 women’s safe spaces and community centres offering gender-based violence response services.

During the current reconstruction stage, even as the need for humanitarian assistance persists, new challenges arise. Services established by UNFPA will need to be sustained, while new delivery points will need to be set up in areas serving returnees.

“The demand for health and protection services far exceeds supply in Iraq, despite the end of the conflict,” said Ramanathan Balakrishnan, UNFPA Representative in Iraq. “As humanitarian needs shift and become more complex, this new funding from Korea will support UNFPA in Iraq in ensuring the sustainability of services that address essential needs for women and girls.”

“A critical part of the task at hand,” he added, “is strengthening the capacity of government counterparts, so that they can take over service provision as the country continues its transition.”