Japan’s New Grant Assistance to Iraq

On 1 February 2018, the Diet of Japan has approved a new package of humanitarian and stabilization support to Iraq amounting to approximately 100 million US dollars, which was proposed by the Government of Japan as part of its supplementary budget of FY 2017. This comes as Japan’s new initiative when the International Conference for Reconstruction of Iraq is scheduled in the period between 12-14 February in Kuwait.
 
This new support, in response to the dire humanitarian situation in Iraq even after the declaration of the full liberation from the ISIL on 9 December 2017, will be widely implemented in various fields including food security, water, sanitation, hygiene, health, nutrition, shelter, non-food items, livelihood, social cohesion, vocational training, protection, gender-based violence, mine action, and rehabilitation/construction of infrastructure through UN agencies, international humanitarian organizations and Japanese NGOs.
 
Japan’s contribution aims to alleviate the plight of Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs), Syrian Refugees and the host communities in Mosul, its adjacent areas and IDPs/Refugees concentrated areas as well as to facilitate IDP’s return to liberated areas from ISIL.
 
It is worth mentioning that this assistance is part of Japan’s commitment made in the Pledging Conference in Support of Iraq in Washington D.C. held in July 2016, where Japan expressed its intention to maintain the same level of assistance extended to Iraq in 2016 throughout 2017 and 2018, with the recognition that seamless assistance is vital to the stabilization of Iraq. Japan has provided grant assistance to Iraq, amounting approximately 460 million US dollars for IDPs, refugees and host communities affected by ISIL.
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