INTRODUCTION
As the context in Iraq shifts from a humanitarian emergency to a protracted displacement crisis, more than 1.4 million people remain displaced throughout the country as of December 2019.
Further information is required to better understand the underlying causes of protracted displacement and the actions needed to enable durable solutions – whether to return to areas of origin (AoO), integrate into areas of displacement (AoD), or move to a third location. IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), the Returns Working Group (RWG) and Social Inquiry (SI) have been working toward this objective, producing in November 2018 the first report “Reasons to Remain: Categorizing Protracted Displacement in Iraq,” which established a categorization framework for protracted displacement to enable future study. This report was followed by a number of publications on this topic, aiming among other things to identify the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) that fall into each category, where they can be found, and most importantly, where they are from. Nonetheless, information gaps remain in terms of understanding displacement in urban contexts where a large proportion of IDP families are concentrated throughout the country.
To address this gap, DTM now aims to establish a breakdown of the remaining out-of-camp IDP caseload in the main urban centres of displacement to better understand the potential for durable solutions. Ten urban locations across eight of the main governorates of displacement have been selected for the assessment: Erbil city, Mosul city, Kirkuk city, Sulaymaniyah metropolitan, Baghdad city + Abu Graib, Zakho town, Dahuk city, Tooz Khormatu town, Tikrit city and Baquba city.
The assessment will take into consideration geographic linkages to areas of origin; obstacles to return including demographic changes; the presence of armed actors and ethno-religious tensions; and the potential for durable solutions to displacement, including local integration. The findings generated from this project will assist both the government and the international community to better identify and target IDPs for appropriate assistance, as well as to better advocate for recognizing IDPs’ preferred durable solutions to long-term displacement.
The project is divided into two stages: 1) an in-depth analysis of available data to examine existing knowledge at the location level (concentrating on urban centres) and establishment of a baseline for comparison, and 2) a representative household-level survey of ten urban centres hosting significant numbers of out-of-camp IDPs. These factsheets include the first stage’s outputs, while the second stage will start in February 2020 and aim at generating actionable data for future evidence-based planning. Based on the different methodologies used in both stages, the findings in these factsheets should be read as an indicative baseline only. Another project will be conducted concurrently with this research to examine attitudes of IDP-hosting communities toward IDPs in protracted displacement in their areas. This assessment will include both IDPs and host community members across a larger cross-section of urban locations, allowing for a broader country-wide look at the potential for durable solutions to displacement.