Iraqi Boys – Credit: Christian Briggs (CC license)
Iraq is steaming forward with its development after years of strife and war.
Just recently, the long-running UN Assistance Mission for Iraq ended its mandate after 22 years, and the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the country told journalists that the country has transformed itself.
“For those who lived through the troubled early years of the transition, today Iraq is unrecognizable and remarkable,” the coordinator, Ghulam Isaczai, said in New York City.
Even before the American invasion and occupation, the subsequent chaos of the insurgent resistance, and the pillaging of ISIS, the Iraqi people had suffered a decade of crippling sanctions. Before that, Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade neighboring Kuwait over a slant-drilling violation saw the country endure wartime conditions again, having then only lately ended them after the debilitating 8 years of the Iran-Iraq War, which started a decade before the sanctions.
It’s fair enough to say that few alive today will remember a time when Iraq was prosperous and at peace.
Now, the nation’s poverty rate has fallen around 3% in the last 7 years, while more than 5 million internal refugees have returned to their homes now that security in most of the country has stabilized.
Iraq has enjoyed an upward trajectory on the UN’s Human Development Index, and in 2023 had a score of 6.95 out of 10, with a 72-year life expectancy at birth, and 12 expected years of schooling per child.
Recent elections saw voter turnout reach 56% and one-third of the parliamentary candidates were women.
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Perhaps the most symbolically impressive of all these improvements is the sheer fact that as the UN Assistance Mission evolves into a 5-year UN Development Project partnership, Iraq will be the donor, rather than the aid recipient.
“That shows increasing partnership and ownership by the Government of Iraq to become a donor after being a recipient for many years of humanitarian and development aid,” said Mr. Isaczai.
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