The latest conflict in Iraq started after Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took over Mosul, the second largest city in June 2014. ISIL chased away the religiously minorities (Christians, Yazidis, Shia Muslims, etc.) from Mosul and other various districts of Ninewa. Furthermore, ISIL expanded territorial control in early 2015 in central part of Iraq. Since mid-2015, Iraqi government with support from international community has been able to retake some cities in central part of Iraq including Fallujah of Anbar province. However, Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq is still under the control of ISIL. On the 17th of October 2016, Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga with support from international community have started a military operation to retake the city of Mosul. The United Nations (UN) has qualified the situation in Iraq as becoming “the single most complex humanitarian operation in the world”.
Currently there are 3.3 million IDPs in Iraq who are in need of some form of humanitarian support in addition to approximately 225,000 Syrian refugees. Also, to further exacerbate the dire situation, it is estimated that there will be additional up to 1.5 million people displaced by the military action in Mosul to retake from ISIS control.
As part of the revision process of the ACT Alliances Humanitarian Response Mechanism, the ACT Secretariat is piloting new tools with selected Forums to identify how to improve the overall mechanism. In the near future, the “Preliminary Appeal” will be replaced by the “Concept Note”, a shorter more concise document which summarizes the proposed ACT response and emphasizes collaboration amongst the ACT members. The Iraq Forum has graciously accepted to pilot the draft version of the Concept Note so that we can draw lessons learned from its utilization and modify the template and process related to it accordingly.
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