The numerous social, economic, political, and environmental challenges facing Iraq after the conflicts and their constrained effects on human development highlight the necessity of making the Sustainable Development Plan for 2030 a national priority. Recognizing these challenges, the Iraqi government adopted this plan and began implementing it in 2018 by signing a project document with the United Nations Development Programme titled “Supporting the Iraqi Government in Implementing and Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals”.

This initiative is based on consultations with relevant Iraqi entities to find ways to advance the 2030 plan and the Sustainable Development Goals in Iraq, which were identified according to a prioritization scale in the National Development Plan for the years 2018-2022. In response to the government’s request, this project was designed to support the implementation, monitoring, and integration of the 2030 plan and the Sustainable Development Goals by improving the technical and institutional capacities of sectoral ministries, local governments, and civil society organizations.

Through the project “Supporting the Iraqi Government in Implementing and Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals”, support will be provided in the following areas:

– Providing coordination and advisory support to the Ministry of Planning and the National Committee for Sustainable Development to mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals and their indicators in national development plans and other national strategic frameworks.

– Providing coordination and advisory support to the Ministry of Planning and the National Committee for Sustainable Development (NCSD) to mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals, targets, and indicators in the national development plan and other national strategic frameworks.

– Supporting the government in localizing the Sustainable Development Goals.

– Enhancing integrated approaches to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, starting with mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment, environmental issues, governance, participation, peacebuilding, and relevant Sustainable Development Goals in national planning and monitoring frameworks, and building capacities to adopt sectoral and integrated approaches in Sustainable Development Goals-based planning.

– Supporting the capacity to collect, manage, and disseminate data related to the Sustainable Development Goals, and emphasizing the need for an integrated monitoring and reporting framework for these goals within the national development plan, including supporting the preparation of a national report and four provincial-level reports as a policy advocacy program for the goals and the plan.

What we have achieved so far:

– Aligning national and regional strategic documents with the goals and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals and prioritizing them: The Iraq Vision 2030 was aligned with the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals, based on the country’s needs using the Rapid Integrated Assessment tool. The national development plan (2018-2022), the poverty reduction strategy, and the Kurdistan Region Vision 2020 were evaluated using the mentioned tool to determine the level of alignment between the goals and indicators of these goals and the national priorities in both national and local policy and planning frameworks.

– Prioritizing the environmental dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals in Iraq and linking them: The national priorities were identified with the environmental dimensions as Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), Goal 6 (Water), Goal 7 (Energy), Goal 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production), and Goal 13 (Climate Action). The selection was based on current data, environmental risks and trends, as well as synergies and trade-offs with other Sustainable Development Goals, in line with the implementation of the Environmental Dimensions Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals in the Arab region, adopted by the League of Arab States at the consultative meeting in September 2017. The United Nations Development Programme in Iraq will use the interactive matrix prepared by the experts of the Regional Centre for the United Nations Development Programme in Amman.

– The first voluntary national reviews presented and showcased at the High-Level Political Forum in 2019: The first voluntary national report was presented, including achievements and lessons learned from the implementation of the 2030 plan in Iraq, derived from an analysis of the Qatari strategic documents submitted on the Sustainable Development Goals and their targets. National, local, and regional online consultations were held to validate the inputs of the voluntary national reviews.

– Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals in three leading governorates (Anbar, Karbala, and Basra): Localizing the goals is a crucial process in accelerating their implementation while ensuring “no one is left behind”. This was done in the second half of 2019 with the participation and support of local academic experts. The concerned governments prepared local reports on sustainable development that reflect the actual needs of the governorates for sustainable transition.

– Preparing reports on Goal 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and Goal 16 (Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development): As Goals 5 and 16 are two comprehensive and fundamental goals for 2030, reports were prepared to help stimulate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals in Iraq without leaving any of them behind.

– Ensuring commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq: A memorandum of understanding was signed in February 2020 between the United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Planning in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to prepare a vision for 2030 regarding the Sustainable Development Goals for the Kurdistan Region. Both parties committed to formulating the Kurdistan Region Vision 2030 during 2020.

Innovation to achieve sustainable development goals: A group of local non-governmental organizations received support to implement innovative monitoring operations for civil society and sustainable development goals, and to extract unofficial data related to four indicators for goal 16 using social media platforms. This was the first global event presented in the Global Alliance report on goal 16 in 2019 and in the voluntary national report in Iraq.