From the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Any opinions expressed are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
Operationalizing the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus in Iraq
Iraq is a middle-income country emerging from decades of conflict and large-scale displacement, with over one million IDPs still affected amid declining humanitarian funding and a planned humanitarian phase-out. The challenge has been to shift from emergency aid to development without leaving vulnerable groups behind.
The HDP Nexus has functioned primarily as a transition mechanism, helping the country move from humanitarian response toward government-led development and peace efforts. By anchoring coordination and programming around stabilization and durable solutions to displacement, the Nexus enabled continuity where funding, coordination structures, and humanitarian presence were shrinking.
Stabilization and Solutions for displacement served as the main operational entry points for the Nexus. UNDP's Stabilization Programme restored basic services, infrastructure, livelihoods, and security in liberated areas, allowing nearly five million displaced Iraqis to return sustainably and therefore reducing humanitarian needs. The Durable Solutions architecture provided a coordination platform linking humanitarian, development, and peace actors, while area-based approaches supported reintegration, social cohesion, and local recovery.
The humanitarian-to-development transition has been strained by sharply declining international funding, limited government capacity to absorb responsibilities, and political and administrative fragmentation between federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. Coordination has been under-resourced and would need more investment at the local levels.
Iraq illustrates how the Nexus becomes most critical when humanitarian aid recedes but needs persist. Without a practical, well-resourced Nexus approach, humanitarian phase-out can deepen vulnerabilities, fuel social tensions, and undermine returns and reintegration.
UNDP has been a central driver of the HDP Nexus in Iraq by sequencing stabilization, development, and peacebuilding efforts around displacement solutions. Through the Funding Facility for Stabilization, social cohesion programming, and co-leadership of the Durable Solutions architecture, UNDP helped reduce humanitarian needs, support returns and reintegration, and restore state presence and legitimacy.
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