Strategic Response Plan

This Strategic Response Plan is a nationwide document aiming at facing the consequences of the internal armed conflict in Iraq by offering urgent humanitarian assistance to the affected people. It establishes a series of strategic objectives as follows (i) respond to the protection needs of civilians, including those displaced and otherwise affected by the conflict, with due regard to human rights and international humanitarian law; (ii) provide life-saving assistance and ensure access to essential services for displaced and vulnerable individuals in a manner that supports the Government’s responsibility; (iii) improve the access of conflict affected people to livelihoods and durable solutions to enable them to restore their self-sufficiency and build resilience. Moreover, a section of the Plan is dedicated to the WASH cluster that will continue to focus on ensuring access to water of adequate quantity and quality and to sanitation facilities and services that are hygienic, culturally appropriate and meet the needs of woman, children and those with special needs; and improve hygiene practices through provision of hygiene items and promotion activities. Support will also be provided to ensure that municipal water supply systems and waste services are available to host communities.
To help eliminate hunger and food insecurity, the Plan has establishd the following objectives 1) improve the access of conflict-affected people to livelihoods and durable solutions to enable them to restore their self-sufficiency and build resilience through (i) Family Food Parcel distribution composed of wheat, flour, rice, oil, sugar, iodized salt and dry pulses; (ii) Immediate Response Rations (IRR) parcels composed of ready to eat foods enough for three days for a family of five; and (iii) Cash and Voucher, promoted after conducting feasibility and market assessments; 2) increase food availability and household incomes for at-risk groups by maintaining and diversifying urban and rural livelihood systems, strategies and assets and developing income-generating activities; (3) ensure an effective, accountable and coordinated food security response founded on evidence-based interventions that advocate for and take into consideration the needs of each segment of affected communities by age, gender and diversity through the coordination of food activities to ensure complementarity of activities by different food sector actors in order to minimize duplication and increase efficiency of assistance; and (4) plan nutrition assessments to detect vulnerable areas, address child nutritional needs, and the strengthening of the nutrition surveillance system.
In order to make agriculture more productiive and sustainable, the following measures are envisaged (i) distribution of agricultural inputs (wheat seeds, fertilizers) to vulnerable farmers; and (ii) provision of livestock health services and productivity such as vaccination programs, distribution of animal feed, training on restocking raring practices in livestock, provision of veterinary services and disease outbreak surveillance.
To combat rural poverty, the Plan provides for (i) programs of cash for work for rural communities; and (ii) establishment of vocational training centers, develop trainers, capacity building of beneficiaries on marketing linkage and development.
To enable more inclusive agricultural and food systems, the document proposes to ensure that 40% of participants in livelihoods projects are women.