Towards Risk-Informed Response to Natural Disasters in Conflict-affected Communities in Iraq

31/10/2021

District Hamdaniya, Ninewa Governorate, Iraq

April 1, 2021 – October 31, 2021

Introduction

The Near East and North Africa (NENA) region is confronted with serious challenges that exacerbate fragility and threaten resilience, food security, and nutrition in the region. These include conflicts, slow and rapid onset disasters, and degradation of already scarce natural resources, which are further aggravated by inappropriate policies and high population growth in a changing climate. In the region of NENA, more than 50 percent of people affected by ‘natural’ disasters during the period 2005–2009 lived in fragile and conflict-affected states. Food insecurity and malnutrition are prevalent in fragile and conflict-affected communities in the region. The compounded effect of conflict and the increase of various natural hazards in recent years has led to a significant increase in the number of hungry people in countries affected by conflicts globally and particularly in the NENA region.  This may further force food-insecure communities towards advanced stages of hunger and food deprivation. For example, in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, slow and rapid onset disasters such as flash floods, forest fires, and droughts, have already pushed conflict-affected people beyond their ability to cope leading to additional stresses for vulnerable communities, especially those affected by conflict.

Key Facts

Location: District Hamdaniya, Ninewa, Iraq

Multi stakeholders: ZOA, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Donor: FAO & State of Japan

Target Group: 45 women

Challenge

Iraq is facing different forms of natural and human-induced hazards, especially since the country is vulnerable to natural hazards such as drought, desertification, and the salinization of fertile lands. Besides these natural hazards, the impact of the war over decades exposed the population to human-induced hazards such as unexploded land mines, military scrap yards, surface water contamination from damaged oil pipelines, and land contamination. These hazards – including a sharp rise in population growth – led to increased levels of poverty and displacement waves followed by the economic fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic increasing the suffering of the Iraqi people.

Drought may be the determining risk to livelihoods in urban and rural areas since the salinization of water and soils, desertification, and the disappearance of arable land are nothing less than existential concerns. Water scarcity is a direct threat that affects all consumers and farmers, who are dependent on irrigation, and increases the risk of incidence of poverty and leads to greater social strife. The project area of Hamdaniya in Ninevah Governorate is suffering the most in Iraq and the region, especially due to the local farmers facing crop failures or below-average yields, especially in barley and wheat. In addition, farmers and herders were selling their weak livestock to use its prices for buying food needs for their families.

Project objectives and methodological approach

The FAO Regional Office in Cairo and FAO Iraq have contracted ZOA to help with undertaking fieldwork to review the early warning practices and drought risk and response mechanisms in the field. FAO Iraq has conducted vulnerability risks and capacity assessments in the district, which focused on the socio-economic conditions of the region’s locals, and who are more likely to be affected by hazards and capacity to risk reduction at the community level. Also, disaster risk reduction (DRR) management was assessed alongside current and future risks, which are expected from both conflict and climate change situations in the area in more detail.

The main objective of the project was to understand DRR vulnerability to the local community and develop an effective DRR model for communities that are affected by drought in Hamdaniyyah.

The project team engaged further with local communities to learn about their practices on drought risk and their response mechanisms. Mitigating measures were also discussed. One of the ideas implemented in partnership with local authorities in the district was the establishment of “kitchen gardens,”, where local communities are encouraged to grow their own food to mitigate the impact of drought. This also built on the vulnerability assessment conducted that found that women used to have kitchen gardens and livestock in their backyards before the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) crisis, but since this conflict, they are not practising this anymore. The project team selected in cooperation with Mukhtars, 54 women to participate in the activity. The project provided the participants with training on the importance of house gardens. The training also illustrated the benefits of planting in house gardens especially vegetables and the needed requirements and conditions for succeeding in house gardens, soil, planting timeline, new irrigation techniques (hydroponics), use of fertilizers, disease prevention, harvesting, storage, and marketing.

The kitchen gardening kit distributed consists of onion, tomato, rocca, swiss chard, parsley, radish and leek seeds. Also, the kit contains a shovel, hoe, trowel, metal rake, gloves, 25 meters of fence, 35 kilograms of urea, 320 litters water tank, and two sprinklers.   

Results

Women participating in the project were found to be very motivated to enhance their food availability after practicing homegrown food according to the DRR community mapping and evaluation that was done. They also diversified their income by selling homegrown vegetables in their village.

The review also established that all stakeholders in the project including community elders, religious leaders, line-department officials, and participants, had established very good ties among them, a critical success factor for which the project can only take partial credit. The engagement in DRR and the support provided could result in further opportunities for future engagement and capacity development around DRR, and could be critical in the face of any future disaster.

According to one of the beneficiaries, Ms. Faeza Ahmad, who had to flee with her family during the ISIL occupation in 2014, “Due to the drought in Iraq, many people who depend for their livelihoods on agriculture and animal husbandry suffer with securing their basic needs and taking care of their assets.”

She found that she was eligible for the project and received training in climate-smart agriculture and kitchen gardening. She also received the kitchen garden kit and expressed her happiness in trying a new agriculture tool which is hydroponics and the way of planting without soil but directly in nutrient-rich water.

Sustainability

The project provided an opportunity for women to learn and improve their socio-economic status by providing food for their families on a regular basis. In addition, the distribution of equipment with garden kits to beneficiaries allowed them to use these in the future either for a kitchen garden or for other purposes such as providing fresh feed for their livestock. This will all help see results beyond the end of the project.

Local authorities as represented by the Mayor’s Office and the Water Resource Department were fully involved in community discussions about their lack of access to potable water. High levels of salinity prevailed. The local authorities took the project seriously and contributed technical expertise and material at no cost for installing equipment to help farmers in the village. In addition, the Water Resource Department provided new potable water fixtures from sources to houses in the village, which were formerly non-existent. The positive stakeholder consultations with all parties are a good indicator that DRR is a suitable concept to engage the communities and local government. Another lesson is that communities really appreciate concrete inputs and training that put them clearly in a better state. Combining the need for potable water and the need for fodder crops has been useful in creating enthusiasm. A comprehensive approach to addressing community needs (need for portable water, food and animal feed as part of the community access to basic services) was key to its success. The project has therefore lessons for applying the DRR concept in areas in the region that face similar difficulties, such as drought as a slow-onset disaster. Finally, we can find that the achievements of this project will not only benefit its direct beneficiaries and the targeted conflicted countries but will also enable FAO and governments of the NENA region to implement future DRR interventions and policies based on the multitude of evidence that the project provided.