Japan donates over $4 million to support children, women in Iraq

In two separate contributions, the government of Japan recently donated a total of $4.7 million in humanitarian aid to support children and women in the oil-rich country of Iraq.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In two separate contributions, the government of Japan recently donated a total of $4.7 million in humanitarian aid to support children and women in the oil-rich country of Iraq.

The UN’s Children Fund on Monday announced that Japan had donated $3.4 million to provide lifesaving health and nutrition assistance for vulnerable children in conflict-affected areas in Iraq.

Most of the six million displaced Iraqis have returned to liberated areas after they were forced to leave their homes as the Islamic State emerged in 2014. However, their towns were substantially damaged or destroyed, and public services, including essential health ones, were dismantled.

“Across all conflict affected governorates, hospitals have been destroyed and those that are functioning are overwhelmed and struggling to meet health and nutrition needs, placing the lives of the most vulnerable children at risk of deadly diseases, including polio and measles,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative to Iraq.

“Japan has recently decided on a new assistance package for Iraq amounting to 63 million US dollars, including this project as contribution in health and nutrition sectors. With this package, the total amount of Japan’s assistance to the people affected by the crisis in Iraq reaches 500 million US Dollars,” said Naofumi Hashimoto, Ambassador of Japan to Iraq.

The UN’s Children Fund stated that the aid will be used for building the capacity of health workers, strengthening health systems in conflict affected governorates as well as providing immunization and nutrition services to nearly 1 million children and breastfeeding mothers in areas of returns, as well as in the camps for displaced people.

On Sunday, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) stated that Japan had donated $1.3 million to support women in the country to increase access to reproductive health services and strengthen the response to gender-based violence across Iraq.

The contribution will ensure increased access to emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC) as well as regular reproductive health services through the financing of 21 reproductive health clinics across the country, according to the UNFPA.

It also mentioned that the funding would go toward providing survivor-centered case management and psychosocial support to gender-based violence survivors at the UNFPA-supported women centers, capacity-building of service providers as well as community mobilization for gender-based violence prevention.

“A timely intervention is critical for preventing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity,” said Oluremi Sogunro, UNFPA Representative to Iraq, acknowledging the contribution from Japan.

“This new funding will enable UNFPA to provide timely and quality response to the reproductive health needs and gender-based violence-related issues in six governorates across Iraq.”

As of Feb. 1, 2019, UNFPA had only received 29 percent of the required funding, a total of $6.4 million out of the $22 million required for its humanitarian interventions in the country targeting 700,000 individuals through reproductive health services and 400,000 persons with the gender-based violence response.

Iraq is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) second-largest oil producer and currently has an output below its maximum capacity of nearly 5 million barrels per day (bpd).

Editing by Nadia Riva