On 12 January 2014, the Iraqi Al-Amal Association and Hivos started a Train-the-Trainer workshop in Erbil for Iraqi women candidates running in the upcoming federal parliamentary elections in April. This training is being conducted within the framework of a new project on “Women’s Power in Politics”, implemented by Al-Amal and Hivos through March 2015. The project aims at enabling female candidates to run successful election campaigns and provides post-election support to the new MPs to perform effectively in the House of Representatives.27 trainers from all Iraqi provinces are participating in the six-day workshop, receiving training in gender concepts, the political and electoral system in Iraq, the development of women's political participation, communication skills with community and media, and how to…

HSAD is continuing its efforts to raise the productivity and incomes of Iraq's smallholder farmers. HSAD - or Harmonized Support for Agriculture Development - is a partnership between ICARDA and Iraq's Ministry of Agriculture, supported by USAID. Progress highlights from HSAD include: Improving extension services The HSAD Program recently initiated a series of training sessions to equip extension agents with the knowledge and skills to produce informative instructional 'farmer to farmer' videos. Identifying sustainable livestock feed By comparing the performance of four species of grass, scientists hope to identify long-term forage options that are capable of withstanding drought and salinity. Raising date palm productivity A new low-risk insecticide is demonstrating significant progress in the fight against pests - one of…

Last month, Muslim Aid planned to distribute food packages to Syrian Refugees in KRG. Muslim Aid informs us that it has distributed food packages as follows: 1- Akre camp/Dohuk 320 family/1476 individual 2-Arbat camp/Sulaimaniya 432 family/2042 individual 3-Non-Camp/Sulaimaniya 43 family/190 individual 4-Non-camp/Erbil 105 family/455 individual Each food-package contains: Borgol(5kg) + Sugar(5kg) + Oil(3lt.) + Meat(3cans) +Vegetables(5cans) + Pasta(2kg) + Milk(1kg) + Cheese(3sets) + Tea(0.5kg)

A combined event, observing 10 years of DRC and DDG in Iraq and the successful completion of the second phase of technical vocational training, took place on 16th December in Baghdad."I am glad we can gather again for another occasion like this because the desire to transform the lives of vulnerable families, which began with enhancing their skills, is gradually coming to fruition", says Michael Bates, Danish Refugee Council, Country Director, Iraq. Michael Bates adds that the day is also important because it gives a perfect time to illustrate some of the excellent programming both DRC and DDG have done in Iraq over the past 10 years.Four months ago, DRC in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social…

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), and UNICEF have started airlifting urgently needed humanitarian aid from Erbil, Iraq, to Qamishly in northeast Syria as displaced families start to face one of the harshest winters ever as winter storm “Alexa” dumped large amounts of snow and brought cold temperatures to the region. The first WFP-chartered flight landed today in Qamishly airport from Erbil with almost 40 metric tons of food including wheat flour, pasta, oil, sugar, salt, rice, canned beans and bulgur wheat. Over the next few days, WFP plans to use 11 more airlifts to move enough food to feed over 30,000 people for one month. People across the Middle East have come face-to-face…

On February 1-2 and March 8-9, the US Institute of Peace will be hosting an event called the PeaceTech Camp in Iraq. PeaceTech Camps are two day, interactive conferences through which we pair local and international leaders in the technology community with local and regional civil society organizations to provide training, resources and assistance that enable participants to harness low cost, easy to implement technologies to build their capacity and better meet their mission. The primary point of contact for NGOs seeking to apply to attend the PeaceTech Camps is local coordinator Afrah Aljezari. () See attached documents for more details.