CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY
Roughly two years after the end of major military operations in Iraq against the socalled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Iraq is shifting from a state of emergency to a recovery phase. As of November 2019, 4.5 million returns have been reported, while 1.44 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain displaced of whom 1.09 million reside outside of formal camps.
With ongoing camp closures,
IDPs are increasingly moving to non-camp locations or returning to their area of origin. In 2020, 1.2 million returnees and 285,000 IDPs are estimated to remain in need of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) assistance.
On behalf of the Iraq WASH Cluster, REACH conducted an assessment to provide an evidence-based overview of needs, gaps and priorities in WASH for populations residing out-of-camp. The survey covered 57 Iraqi districts which host at least 200 returnee or IDP families according to data from the International Organization for Migration's Displacement Tracking Matrix (IOM-DTM) as of July 2019. Nationwide, 9,080 household (HH) surveys have been conducted with out-of-camp populations from 22 September to 31 December 2019, resulting in findings which are statistically representative with a 90% confidence level and 10% margin of error for each population group at district level. Of these, 4,956 HHs with school-going children have been interviewed to report on the standard of WASH facilities in the school which their child, or majority of their children, attend. This data was supplemented with secondary data from the assessment conducted by the World Food Programme (WFP) carried out from October 2019 to February 2020, which also focused on the standard of WASH facilities at schools. It consisted of interviews with headmasters, teachers and students and observations at schools, covering 760 primary schools falling under the system of the federal government of Iraq, in 580 school buildings located in 10 districts across 10 governorates. As all data derives from either the school-going subset of the total number of HHs assessed (REACH) or key informant interviews and observations (WFP), findings are indicative only.