DISTRICT ACCESS SEVERITY AS PERCEIVED BY HUMANITARIAN ACTORS
In October 2020, OCHA conducted an Access Severity monitoring exercise consisting of focus groups discussions (FGDs) with UN agencies, and international and national non-government organizations (NGOs). The monitoring exercise aimed to determine humanitarian actors’ perceptions of access constraints in all districts in central and northern Iraqi governorates. The focus group discussions found that 47 per cent of districts covered by the HRP had moderate to high levels of access difficulties. The districts with the highest access restrictions (28 of 60) mostly fall within the central and northern governorates of Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa and Salah Al-Din.
Although the access environment in Iraq remains difficult, discussion participants indicated a general improvement in district-level access conditions compared to April 2020. Previously, in April, humanitarian access had significantly deteriorated in Iraq compared to access conditions at the end of 2019. However, district-level humanitarian access has generally improved since then, as COVID-19 restrictions such as curfews were lifted or relaxed and the government reestablished the access authorization mechanism for granting access to NGOs operating in federal areas in September 2020.
