Iraq

Iraq has requested a five-year extension to its Article 4 deadline until November 2028, which will be considered by States Parties at the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in September 2023. Iraq makes clear in its extension request that it would need to expand clearance capacity from 15 to 34 fully equipped and trained clearance teams to complete in five years but with the resources available at the time of the request it would need 16 years. In Iraq’s extension request work plan based on current clearance capacity (15 teams), Federal Iraq will complete clearance of six governorates within the five year extension period, leaving the remaining three most heavily contaminated provinces still to clear under subsequent extension requests. For the second successive year, in 2022 Iraq identified more previously unrecorded cluster munition-contaminated area than it cleared. 

• The Iraqi government should provide the Directorate of Mine Action (DMA) with the legal authority, funding, human resources, and training to strengthen its effectiveness as the national mine action authority. 
• The Iraqi government should help to implement its national strategy by increasing national financial support for mine action, including creating funding mechanisms to support national and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to offset the diversion of international donor funds to other humanitarian emergencies.
• Federal Iraq should clarify the funding it plans for mine action in general and fulfilment of its CCM obligations in particular and when it will provide it.
• Federal Iraq should streamline its mine action information management procedures and accelerate the transition to electronic uploading of data to its Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) database.

Click here to download the full "Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2023" report for Iraq.