The government of Japan has earmarked in 2017 a financial grant of 1,552,325 USD for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to support the IRCS in providing the urgent humanitarian and relief aid to the internally displaced people in Iraq and the effective contribution in returning the displaced and rebuild the local communities in a balanced manner in which opportunities are equal without discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex and ethnic or any other reasons. The IRCS has implemented the project activities together with IFRC -Iraqi office in harmony with movement humanitarian principles.
The project aims to provide the aid nearly 40,000 internal displaced, adding to support and returning more than 10,000 poor families in the north of Iraq areas such as (Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Dohuk) and the middle of Iraq (Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salah-din, Diyala, and Anbar).
In spite of the significant humanitarian response by the Iraqi Government and the non-governmental partners over years, the needs of the affected communities particularly the internally displaced people are still uncovered, the IRCS has been supported by a number of partners from the International Movement in order to respond to the needs of the displaced and refugees so that to enhance the livelihoods, the support for such programs is important in order to meet the needs of the communities, as the return of tens of thousands of internally displaced are unexpected to get back to their original home areas because of the lack of security as the main factor of unwillingness to return home.
The IRCS has a structure that enables it to enhance its humanitarian role according to the humanitarian principles of the International Movement of Red Cross and Red Crescent to implement the programs of enhancing the livelihoods in the presence of the International Movement partners who represents the supporter of these programs that would improve the livelihoods and strengthen the abilities to make living.
It is expected that the grant which provided by the Japanese Government contribute to enhancing the rapid and effectiveness of the immediate response to service the IDPs.
The most key achievements that support from the Japanese government:
1- Support the ability development for the IRCS.
Area of recovery: A team of NDRT has been established by setting a technical training seeks to upgrade the skills and tools of the IRCS- DM teams to ensure effective response in the field , teams have included 41 members (staff& volunteers ) were trained in Sulaymaniyah with practicing in the field of different types of disaster management tasks such as . (relief, evaluation, set of emergency shelter, cash transfer programming, construction, sanitation and water treatment, emergency health, response planning, Food/Nonfood distribution, monitoring and coordination with host communities and humanitarian actors), and this has strengthened the capacities of the DM teams in the field of effective humanitarian response.
2- Risk reduction and livelihood programs.
The IRCS has chosen four governorates to implement the program of reducing risk disasters which at (Sulaymaniyah, Diyala, Wasit, and Baghdad) that affected by the earthquakes during November 2017.
The IRCS has involved with a program of enhancing the livelihoods and returning the IDPs internally to their areas to meet the objectives of the Japanese government project on social reintegration of returnees. IFRC has organized in cooperation with the center of livelihoods sources induction workshop related to programs and mechanisms of income generating procedures to strengthen the background of the ( Staff & Volunteers ) in this area.
3- Water and Sanitation.
In order to decrees the suffering of lack of pure water to the most needed communities, IDPs and refugees, the IFRC has supported the NS with the following items:
10,000 health kit distributed in Basra.
water tanks:
– Eight Oxfam tanks capacity of 10000 liters.
– Eight Bladder tanks capacity of 5,000 liters.
Two water tanker trucks capacity of 6000-liter.
10000 personal hygiene awareness publications.
Water purification and sterilization unit DRRM5 was installed in Al-Shakhir camp – Al-Batha area / Dhi Qar governorate to meet the need for water shortage in the governorate.
16,000 water bottles distributed to the returnee families to Nineveh governorate (10,000 bottles) and those who returned to Diyala governorate (6000 bottles).
The outstanding balance has allocated to purchase two desalination and water purification units (RO) to be installed in Dhi Qar Governorate.
IEC tools and awareness
Supplying of ambulances to support health services during emergencies
4- The non-food security and health field.
The teams of the IRCS have distributed 18,000 blankets to the IDPs, two blankets on every family during the winter season in the north of Iraq areas (Erbil, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah) and the middle of Iraq (Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, Diyala and Anbar), adding to support the psychological support team, distributing first aid kits and providing the IRCS with five ambulances.
The support in the field of warehouses.
The IRCS has been supported in strengthening and developing its logistic system, where more than 5 warehouses have been rehabilitated in (Najaf, Diwaniyah, Baghdad, and Saladin).
The support in the field of evaluation and monitoring.
The IFRC planning, evaluating and monitoring and making reports department (PMER) in the Middle East and North Africa region has trained 30 staff and volunteer in gathering and analyzing the data in order to upgrade the skills of staff and volunteers about the newest tools and techniques used for data gathering, where a number of laptops and iPads were purchased and equipped with the necessary software to collect and analyze data.
