BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug 28 (IPS) – Local weather change and water shortages pose main threats to Iraq’s stability, prosperity and other people’s well-being. The environmental challenges dealing with our nation are advanced and interrelated, requiring complete and coordinated responses.
In Iraq, underneath my management, the United Nations Nation Workforce (UNCT) has been on the forefront of addressing these important points, working tirelessly to construct a extra sustainable and resilient future for all Iraqis.
Via the Resident Coordinator’s Workplace (RCO), we intention to leverage the various experience and sources of various United Nations businesses to advertise a coordinated and built-in strategy to growth challenges.
Via this collaborative mannequin, we will maximize our impression and supply holistic options to handle the community of interconnected components that drive local weather change and water shortage.
This contains not solely mitigating the direct impacts of those environmental threats, but in addition addressing their underlying causes, reminiscent of unsustainable water administration practices and over-reliance on fossil fuels.
The United Nations Workplace in Iraq has had a long-lasting impression on Iraq by a collection of key measures. These embody:
1) Improve local weather adaptability
Iraq is extremely weak to the impacts of local weather change, together with rising temperatures, drought and desertification, which significantly have an effect on agricultural productiveness and social stability. To handle this subject, the United Nations nation workforce is working with the Iraqi authorities to prepare Iraq’s first local weather convention in Basra in 2023. Strengthening Iraq’s local weather resilience.
These efforts have elevated nationwide and worldwide consciousness and cooperation on local weather points and established a framework for future environmental and coverage planning, together with Nationwide Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Decided Contributions (NDCs).
The Basra Declaration goals to strengthen Iraq’s institutional, technical and monetary capability to deal with local weather change by mainstreaming medium- and long-term adaptation methods into nationwide and native planning.
2) Promote water safety
Iraq faces a extreme water disaster as a result of lowered rainfall and overuse of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Inefficient water administration and agricultural practices exacerbate these challenges.
Final yr, Iraq was the primary nation within the Center East to affix the United Nations Water Conference, underscoring the nation’s dedication to strengthening regional cooperation and making certain equitable water use, which is important to the area’s stability and prosperity.
To realize these nationwide objectives, the RCO is main a Water Working Group that brings collectively UN businesses in Iraq to strengthen water governance, improve agricultural resilience and enhance sustainable water use.
For instance, the United Nations Academic, Scientific and Cultural Group (UNESCO) and the Meals and Agriculture Group (FAO) are working collectively to mix conventional data with trendy expertise to optimize water use in agriculture – an vital step in the direction of strengthening meals safety in Iraq .
In the meantime, within the Sinjar area, a United Nations Workplace for Program Providers (UNOPS) initiative funded by the Italian authorities is altering native water provides to fulfill the necessity to guarantee secure water for all Iraqis. Equally, in Nineveh Governorate, the United Nations Youngsters’s Fund (UNICEF) put in desalination programs in seven villages, considerably bettering residing circumstances.
3) Shield the Mesopotamian swamps
The Mesopotamian swamps are a singular ecosystem and a UNESCO World Heritage website that’s threatened by local weather change, air pollution and unsustainable water administration practices, leading to extreme ecological and human impacts.
RCO coordinates the work of United Nations businesses to guard the marshes by growing environmental methods, supporting reforestation applications and selling community-based adaptation applications to enhance the livelihoods of native communities.
For instance, the World Meals Program (WFP) is conducting reforestation tasks in southern Iraq and the Kurdistan area to fulfill the federal government’s aim of planting 5 million timber by 2029. contribute.
As well as, the United Nations has led the development of laws for pure useful resource administration, together with by the Environmental Technique and the Nationwide Sustainable Land Administration Technique and Motion Plan, that are important for agriculture and wetland safety.
These initiatives have helped restore ecological steadiness, supported native livelihoods and elevated the lavatory’s resilience to environmental pressures, thus securing its standing as a UNESCO World Heritage Website.
4) Develop renewable power insurance policies
Iraq’s heavy dependence on fossil fuels not solely limits its financial stability but in addition ends in large greenhouse fuel emissions. The nation has large potential for renewable power growth however faces challenges in attracting funding and growing the mandatory infrastructure.
To handle this hole, the United Nations pushed for the revision and adoption of Iraq’s Renewable Power Regulation, a key measure to advertise renewable power funding and growth. The revised Renewable Power Regulation creates a extra favorable atmosphere for renewable power funding.
Likewise, a United Nations Improvement Program (UNDP) initiative is supporting Iraq’s transition away from oil by a nationwide motion plan that outlines efforts to scale back emissions and fight the results of local weather change. The United Nations can be helping Iraq in formulating its 2025 Nationally Decided Contribution, the nation’s dedication underneath the Paris Settlement to scale back emissions and adapt to local weather change.
These efforts create pathways to extend funding in renewable power, promote sustainable financial development, and scale back the nation’s carbon footprint.
A sustainable and resilient future for Iraq
The United Nations’ collective work in Iraq has put the nation on a vibrant trajectory for local weather sustainability and resilience. Our upcoming United Nations Sustainable Improvement Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2025-2029 will define our efforts to assist Iraq mitigate and adapt to local weather change, sustainably handle water sources, and shield its distinctive atmosphere and cultural heritage.
Trying forward, the United Nations Workplace in Iraq stays dedicated to supporting the Iraqi authorities and other people of their pursuit of a sustainable and resilient future.
Ghulam Isazai is the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Iraq. To study extra in regards to the United Nations’ work in Iraq, go to iraq.un.org.
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