Amid conflict, funding cuts and the rollback of women’s rights in Iraq, the need for locally driven, gender-responsive interventions has become increasingly urgent. The NISAAM (‘Nisaa wa Al Salam’) project, a UK-Government funded initiative delivered by Women for Women International (WfWI) in partnership with Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS), addresses this critical gap by partnering with 34 local-level women-led and civil society organisations (CSOs) across all 19 governorates of Iraq, including in both the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and Federal Iraq.

By providing a combination of direct funding, institutional support, network building and advocacy opportunities, NISAAM collaborates with women-led and women’s rights organisations (WROs) to design and implement their own priorities that fall under the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda – prioritising issues such as gender-based violence, economic support, political participation and climate resilience. In doing so, NISAAM shifts from top-down donor models to a sustainable, inclusive and locally owned approach to reinforce the essential role of civil society contributions to peace and security in Iraq.

A core element of the NISAAM project is its commitment to influencing the international community and decision makers to adopt meaningful approaches to partnering with civil society groups in Iraq. To support this, we produced a series of reports: this WPS policy paper and two accompanying Landscape Analysis papers (one for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and one for Federal Iraq). Together, these reports:

• Map the expertise of WROs contributing to the implementation of the WPS agenda in Iraq, including through the delivery of their own projects and programmes and holding relevant powerholders to account
• Identify the barriers to implementation
• Outline evidence-based, locally informed recommendations to strengthen programmes, service delivery and gender-transformative change for WPS in Iraq.

The consultation series employed a mixed-methods approach, engaging 51 individuals who are partners, decision-makers and civil society representatives through:

• 2 focus group discussions with 37 women’s rights organisation representatives across the 13 organisations engaged with the first year of the NISAAM project
• 21 key informant interviews virtually conducted in Kurdish, Arabic and English
• A survey distributed to both civil society organisations and WROs.

The reports are available in English, Arabic and Kurdish:

WPS Policy Paper: English, Arabic, Kurdish 

Federal Iraq Landscape Analysis: English, Arabic

Kurdistan Region of Iraq Landscape Analysis: English, Kurdish