Niko Kyriakou
UNITED NATIONS, May 13 (IPS) - Iraqis' living conditions have deteriorated
and pose challenges for development efforts two years after the U.S.-led
invasion, says a groundbreaking new joint Iraqi-U.N. report.
The Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), based data from 22,000 households and
released Thursday, 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 U.S.-led
invasion of 2003 somewhere between 18,000 and 29,000.
Of those deaths, 12 percent 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 eight percent have acute
malnourishment, or low weight for their height.
In some areas of the country, acute malnourishment reaches 17 percent and
stunting reaches 26 percent, 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 percent of young men with secondary or higher education are
unemployed and just 83 percent of boys and 79 percent 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 diarrhoea 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 percent of all rural
households and in provinces such as Sulaimaniya, 49 percent 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 percent of urban households but only three percent of rural ones have a
sewage connection. More than 80 percent of urban households are able to reach
secondary schools, health centres, pharmacies, and police stations within 30
minutes while only 60 percent 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 percent 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 percent of all households are on the electric grid, for example, but 78
percent 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 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 36 billion
dollars for reconstruction over four years.
The report is a joint effort involving the U.N. Development Programme (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 Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT). A team
from COSIT conducted the fieldwork. The Norwegian non-governmental organisation
Fafo-AIS trained the team and analysed 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 U.N. partner has 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 U.N. 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.
(END/2005)
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