Iraq Watching Briefs - Overview Report

Shortly after the end of the most recent war in Iraq, UNICEF and the World Bank discussed the idea of preparing a series of “Watching Briefs” covering key social sectors namely health, education, water and environmental sanitation and child protection.

The purpose of this social sector watching brief is to establish a baseline that tracks the trends in the indicators of social development and social sectors in the past two decades in Iraq, particularly from 1990 onwards. It briefly analyses the existing institutional capacities for social service delivery within Iraq, as well as the institutional and policy frameworks that guided Iraq’s social sectors in the past. It further analyses the baseline information on the pre 2003 war situation and the situation caused by the 2003 war and its aftermath within Iraq, in order to recommend certain key areas of action for the short term and medium term. It also proposes areas of focus for future detailed assessments. While the watching brief generalizes for Iraq as a whole, social and security situations vary in different parts of Iraq. Hence, to ensure that the issue of vulnerability and regional equity is addressed more fully, disaggregated analysis will be required in future assessments.