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In Iraq, living conditions 'tragic'
By Niko Kyriakou
NEW
YORK - Iraqis' living conditions have deteriorated
and pose challenges for development efforts two
years after the US-led invasion, says a
groundbreaking new joint Iraqi-United Nations
report.
The Iraq Living Conditions Survey
(ILCS), based on data from 22,000 households and
released last week, is the first comprehensive
statistical description of living standards in the
country produced in years and is expected to steer
future reconstruction and development assistance,
officials said.
"This survey shows a
rather tragic situation of the quality of life in
Iraq," Barham Salih, Iraq's minister of planning,
said in a statement.
Household surveys
were conducted last year and measured indicators
ranging from health to employment, housing, status
of and access to public services, education,
income and war-related deaths.
The report
estimates the number of Iraqis who have died since
the US-led invasion of 2003 somewhere between
18,000 and 29,000. Of those deaths, 12% were
children under 18 years of age, meaning that
between 2,100 and 3,500 children have been killed
in the war thus far, according to ILCS data.
In a country where almost half the
population of 27.1 million people is less than 18
years old, some of the most startling findings
relate to youth.
Nearly one-fourth of
Iraqi children aged between six months and five
years are chronically malnourished, meaning they
have stunted growth, the report says. Among all
Iraqi children, more than one in 10 suffer from
general malnutrition, meaning they have a low
weight for their age. Another 8% have acute
malnourishment, or low weight for their height.
In some areas of the country, acute
malnourishment reaches 17% and stunting reaches
26%, the report says. Both infant and child
mortality rates appear to have been steadily
increasing over the past 15 years. At present, 32
babies out of every 1,000 born alive die before
reaching their first birthday.
In
addition, 37% of young men with secondary or
higher education are unemployed and just 83% of
boys and 79% of school-age girls are enrolled in
primary school.
The infant mortality and
malnutrition findings make clear that "the
suffering of children due to war and conflict in
Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or
killed by military activities", the report says.
For example, researchers found that
diarrhea killed two out of every 10 children
before the 1991 Gulf War and four in 10 after the
war.
Homes also took a major hit from the
latest war, the study says. Military damage to
dwellings in the north of the country averages 25%
of all rural households and in provinces such as
Sulaimaniya, 49% of all rural homes were damaged.
The report also highlights disparities in
access to and supply of services and
infrastructure between town and countryside.
Some 47% of urban households but only 3%
of rural ones have a sewage connection. More than
80% of urban households are able to reach
secondary schools, health centers, pharmacies and
police stations within 30 minutes while only 60%
of urban households can reach a pharmacy or police
station in that time.
Rural households
tend to be more overcrowded and more frequently
have open sewage nearby.
Overall, about
eight out of every 10 Iraqis get water piped to
their dwelling but in rural areas, only 43% of
households have that service, according to the
report. Piped water is widely available, but much
of it is unsanitary and one-third of all Iraqi
households receive an unstable supply.
This is part of a wider trend of
infrastructure existing but not working, the
report says.
While the regime of Saddam
Hussein built up many of the country's service
networks, like electricity grids, sewage systems
and water, the systems are widely in disrepair,
the report says.
Some 98% of all
households are on the electric grid, for example,
but 78% of them say the electricity supply is
unstable.
Key
facilities have been neglected
for years under economic policies described
as misguided and as a result of international
sanctions, which cut Iraq off from most
trade throughout the 1990s. Infrastructure has
also been damaged by three wars, the most recent
of which was followed by severe looting and
vandalism. The report concludes that refurbishing
these systems is one of the biggest challenges to
rebuilding Iraq.
The World Bank and United
Nations have estimated that Iraq needs US$36 billion
for reconstruction over four years.
The
report is a joint effort involving the UN
Development Program (UNDP) and the Iraqi
government. No other report has covered all of
Iraq's provinces, or governorates, and previous
data on the Kurdish region was particularly
sparse, said Mehdi al-Hafidh, who served as
planning minister in Iraq's interim government.
The ministry oversees the government
agency that conducted the surveys, the Central
Organization for Statistics and Information
Technology (COSIT). A team from COSIT conducted
the fieldwork. The Norwegian non-governmental
organization Fafo-AIS trained the team and
analyzed its data.
"After a 10-year period
during which the living conditions of the Iraqi
individuals and families could not be
statistically monitored, the Iraqi government and
its UN partner have finally taken a large survey
of living conditions in Iraq," he said. "Despite
the difficult security situation in the country,
COSIT was determined to implement the survey."
A UNDP spokesman said it was stunning that
the report was even completed. "The most
noteworthy thing about the survey is that it was
done," said the spokesman, Dan Shepard. "Iraq has
not been listed in UNDP reports in some 15 years
because there is no reliable data. That they were
even able to do this with the security situation,
it's quite an undertaking."
Staffan de
Mistura, the UN secretary general's deputy special
representative in Iraq, said the study "not only
provides a better understanding of socio-economic
conditions in Iraq, but it will certainly benefit
the development and reconstruction processes".
The document would help "address the grave
disparities between urban and rural [areas] and
between governorates in a more targeted fashion,"
Mistura added.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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