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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In order to better define the magnitude and geographic prevalence of issues pertaining to environmental degradation, climate-induced migration, economic insecurity, developmental neglect, tribal conflict, criminal and political violence, and civic mistrust and unrest in southern Iraq, IOM and Social Inquiry designed this profiling of Basra, Thi-Qar, and Missan governorates to serve as go-to sources of evidence to shape further in-depth research, analysis, and advocacy on specific issues, geographical areas, and/or population groups and guide the design, monitoring, and evaluation of interventions and policies to best meet the needs of people in these fragile environments.

The specifically designed indicators framework for this profiling focuses on a breadth of topics including demographics, housing, access to services, socio-economic situation, agriculture, migration, wellbeing, governance, security, and social cohesion and divided into three levels: household characteristics, individual perceptions and attitudes, and roster of household members.

A total of 3,904 surveys were collected across all 18 districts in these three governorates between December 2021 and January 2022. This sample size guarantees the standard 5% margin of error for data for each governorate and an 8% margin of error at district level. In addition, for each district, the sampling was also stratified by urbanicity and gender, thus generating a representative sample for urban and rural areas as well as for male and female respondents that can be analyzed at different levels of disaggregation.

The profiling findings presented herein serve as an updated baseline of dynamics in Basra, Thi-Qar, and Missan governorates delineating the scale and scope of issues that span the humanitarian-development-peace nexus in a setting that while not emerging from conflict per se is mired in significant violence, neglect, poverty, and inequality. While the analysis shows variation in prominence and impact of different indicators by governorate and location type, by far, the starkest difference in outcomes relates most to age.

Specifically, the youngest populations already or will grow to bear the brunt of this increasingly unstable and insecure environment and uncertain future if drastic changes to the status quo are not enacted and soon.Some key overarching findings emerge from the analysis that may serve as guideposts in developing, implementing, and monitoring coherent interventions and strategies to address this fragility and in seeking to identify where more nuance and detail from further research and analysis is needed for such purposes.

THESE TAKEAWAYS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

The existence of weak and unequal public service provision, with dissatisfaction particularly high in Thi-Qar Governorate overall and most pronounced in rural areas across governorates.

The presence of extended relative poverty overall, concentrated among non-educated, social support reliant, female-headed, and rural households and within Faw, Zubair, and Basra districts in Basra Governorate,Chibaysh district in Thi-Qar Governorate, and Qalat Saleh and Kahlaa districts in Missan Governorate.

Rapid urbanization and population growth is posing a challenge to formal land rights as almost half of residents experience some form of housing, land, and property informality with those in irregular housing either building on agricultural land or settling on public land without official permission to do so.

The role of agriculture is diminishing in rural livelihoods due to environmental degradation, namely lack of water supply and related yield loss or livestock deaths, with less than half of rural households engaging in farming, livestock, or fishing for revenue and even fewer whose sole income source comes from these activities.

There is very localized (and contained) migration among urban populations, primarily related to a lack of good living conditions in place of origin; unemployment; and securing a new job in the destination location prior to moving there. The prospect of migration nevertheless shapes public consciousness as depopulation is cited as a main social concern among rural residents while a sizeable proportion of residents overall, and the young in particular, express a preference to move from their current location to somewhere else in the governorate at some point in the future.

New and looming unemployment, especially among the young, is stemming from a weak private sector that does not offer growth, a diminished agricultural sector, and a public sector unable to absorb the growing numbers entering the labor market as it previously had. This leaves those youth who are working less well paid and in less steady employment than their older counterparts, despite being just as or more educated overall. The situation is especially acute among young women who are barely present in the workforce even though they are completing higher levels of education and who face significantly higher likelihood of unemployment if they do enter the labor market.

A safe daily life exists within a violent environment that is marked by a high visibility of firearms among the civilian population, so-called tribal conflicts pertaining to social disputes and increasingly political ones as various tribes, security actors, political parties, and criminal networks overlap and compete for power, and relatedly, an emerging drug trade. In this context, substance abuse and addiction are criminalized rather than treated as a growing public health concern.

The priority grievances people want to see resolved are structural in nature and encourage young men to publicly express their views, and reportedly call for systemic rather than individual solutions to resolve, though a non-negligible proportion believe there is no way to resolve grievances related to corruption and behavior of local political parties. Grievances pertain to state neglect, lack of opportunities, and corruption overall while young men also cite a lack of justice, behavior of political parties, and targeting after 2019 as issues they are most upset about as well. Furthermore, while public 1 Iraq Central Statistics Office and World Bank, Iraq Household Socio-Economic Survey (2012). expression of grievances is relatively high among young men, confidence in electoral processes is exceedingly low across all population groups.

The overall social environment is characterized by low institutional trust in formal and customary actors, where even the top-rated among them, religious leaders, tribal leaders, and security forces, generate only moderate support; low inter-personal trust in others in the community; and high levels of marginalization felt as citizens, particularly by the state, indicating an eroding social cohesion. Once again, a generational divide emerges where young men and women tend to exhibit a greater tendency toward mistrust of others in the community than their older counterparts. Specific gender differences are also seen in that women have significantly less trust in religious leaders, tribal leaders, and security forces than men and a relatively substantial proportion of women also report feeling marginalized as citizens by the rest of society as well as by the state.

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A Climate of Fragility: Household Profiling in the South of Iraq: Basra, Thi-Qar and Missan - Iraq - ReliefWeb