Executive Summary:

The reporting period (01 January to 31 March 2023) continued to present operational challenges. Movement restrictions, persisting logistical bottlenecks, and security related difficulties in accessing and implementing activities in target areas impacted the speed of FFS implementation. 

Despite these challenges, FFS made good progress in each of the five liberated governorates and by the end of the reporting period, completed 3,590 projects across the five governorates at a total cost of US$976,255,468 generating multiple benefits accruing to men and women of target area, in particular for basic services of electricity and water. At the end of the reporting period, 158 projects were under implementation and another 132 projects were under various stages of tendering. The pipeline projects, which are assessed and updated periodically, await resource mobilization. 

Together with the focus on rehabilitation of priority infrastructure for basic services, FFS acknowledges that the ability of IDPs to return remains linked with conditions of security in their areas of origin. As of December 2022, approximately 1.16 million people are still displaced from Iraq’s liberated areas. FFS coordinates with IOM to ensure that FFS has up-to-date information about remaining caseloads and insight into their motivational factors to plan for appropriate interventions to address the challenge of facilitating continuous returns. 

The IOM assessment of March 2023 regarding “Areas of No Return” reported that reasons for no return fall into two main categories: (a) security reasons, including instability or inaccessibility; and (b) housing damage and lack of services and infrastructure. 

To this end, FFS is prioritizing an integrated approach that necessitates the scaling up of critical soft stabilization programming initiatives such as capacity support, social cohesion, security sector reform, job creation, gender, environmental sustainability, and conflict sensitivity, while maintaining a focus on addressing the most critical stabilization (access to basic services for the most vulnerable) needs in return areas. In that context, FFS leverages all efforts to foster peace and stability in Iraq’s liberated areas. It leverages UNDP’s Security Sector Reform programming initiatives aiming at reforming security and justice sectors and restoring trust in government capacities, to support the transition towards long-term stability, peace, and recovery, as well as UNDP’s Social Cohesion programming activities addressing, among other issues, the prevention of violent extremism and social cohesion to enhance peace, reintegration and ensure the sustainability of stabilization efforts. 

Strengthening government capacities to ensure that stabilization gains are sustained remains a key priority for the FFS. This is planned to be achieved through the restoration of public assets critical for performing core government functions and the provision of training for public servants at the local level. Therefore, a critical focus area for FFS has been to strengthen government capacities to sustain gains achieved by the FFS and for authorities to take over the stabilization agenda. 

The need for strengthening government capacities is dovetailed into FFS Transition Strategy which includes advocating for the government to allocate the necessary technical and financial resources for the local authorities to be able to i) carry out operation and maintenance work of rehabilitated services, and ii) invest in the development and rehabilitation of priority basic services projects necessary for the sustainability of stabilization gains. To this end, COMSEC approved on January 9th, 2023, the Safe Transition Strategy of the FFS where the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers will supervise the implementation of the strategy through periodic meetings. 

Further, COMSEC instructed Governor’s Offices of the liberated governorates to form a Task Team headed by the Deputy Governor for Projects’ Affairs to coordinate with the Secretariat at COMSEC to follow-up the implementation of the Transition Strategy in the form of preparing periodic reports on the status of projects, besides preparing a report on the unmet needs of projects required for the year beyond 2023.