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WFP Iraq Country Brief, December 2020

Pays
Irak
+ 1
Sources
WFP
Date de publication

In Numbers

366,517 people assisted in December 2020

43.98 MT of in-kind assistance distributed

USD 3.16 million distributed through cash-based transfers

USD 36.1 million six months net funding requirements (January – June 2021)

Operational Update & COVID-19 Response

• In December, WFP reached 227,105 IDPs and 70,796 refugees; and 68,616 returnees and people from vulnerable communities through Food for Assets (FFA), Urban Livelihoods, EMPACT, and monthly food and cash assistance programmes, in 12 governorates.

• As of 31 December, up to 15 IDP camps and informal sites were closed, consolidated or re-classified as informal settlements, with 34,694 individuals departing from these sites. Four IDP camps remained open in federal Iraq at the end of December in Anbar and Ninewa, in addition to the IDP camps in Kurdistan Region. WFP continues to closely monitor the closure of camps and will work in coordination with government and other partners to ensure continued support to IDPs and returnees affected by the closures.

• WFP maintains a stock of locally procured contingency readyto-eat food packages (Immediate Response Rations) prepositioned in Erbil to help respond to families’ emergency food needs when required. Part of the stock will be prepositioned in strategic locations for use when required.

• On 19 December 2020, the Iraqi central bank devalued its currency by about 22% against the US dollar. The central bank reduced the official rate to IQD 1,450 (Iraqi dinar) per US dollar. WFP VAM analyses observed a 14% increase in prices during the first week following the devaluation, while the price of the food basket was 16% higher during the second week in comparison to the week before devaluation.

• WFP’s urban livelihoods projects, responding to the loss of employment caused by the COVID-19 crisis, drew to completion in Baghdad, Basra, Ninewa and Wassit. The project assisted more than 11,700 head of households with temporary income and supported the community infrastructure in the targeted areas where hundreds of roads were cleaned, public parks rehabilitated, 100 schools revamped, and service buildings including health centers, an orphanage, a public library and a center for the disabled renewed. WFP continues its work with cooperating partners to complete the ongoing rural livelihoods activities and hand over assets created to the local government and the community members. A call for partnerships for 2021 was launched to select the cooperating partners to scale up and complement FFA interventions.