Iraq: 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan (January - December 2019)

FOREWORD BY THE HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR

Two-thousand-and-eighteen was a year of transition for Iraq. As the country gradually transformed from a nation gripped by the armed conflict against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to one where normal life was slowly but surely resuming, the humanitarian community in Iraq had to evolve as well. Whereas the response in recent years had been focused on the immediate lifesaving needs of those fleeing ISIL, in 2018, vulnerable Iraqis began to show differentiated needs: those in protracted displacement with no immediate prospects of returning home; those who had returned home but found there was a lack of security or services; and those who wanted to return home but found they could not for a variety of reasons. Humanitarian actors were required to respond accordingly. In parallel, political and ethnosectarian changes were also underway in the country, adding an additional level of uncertainty to humanitarian programming.