On the 6th of October the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) organized a meeting with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and local NGOs from NCCI’s network. The meeting took place at NCCI’s Erbil office. SDC wanted to meet local organizations directly to better understand the humanitarian situation in Iraq as well as to get an idea of the perspective of local NGOs. First the meeting participants discussed issues related to the humanitarian response in general and the planning for Mosul in particular. They stressed that shelter, food, water and healthcare provision are critical elements of the Mosul response and stressed the importance of local NGOs for peace building efforts and reconciliation.   The attending NGOs then…

On 14 August 2016 NCCI launched its new job portal, which replaces the old vacancies section on its website. Here NCCI’s member NGOs can publish vacancies for staff throughout the country. The new job portal is designed to make it easier for job seekers to find a suitable job at one of NCCI’s member NGOs. The job portal contains a customizable search option, which allows job seekers to sort vacancies by location, job sector, closing date and NGO. At the same time the new system is more user-friendly for NCCI’s members, as it allows users to update the job description of their job postings or alter the closing date as needed.

In August 2016 new NGO representatives for the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) will be elected. As the prime NGO coordination body in Iraq, NCCI is tasked with organizing the elections on behalf of the NGO community in Iraq. The HCT is the strategic decision making body overseeing the humanitarian response in Iraq. Representatives from UN agencies, the ICRC, the donor community and the NGOs operating in Iraq take part in the HCT, which is chaired by the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC). The NGO representatives on the HCT do not only represent themselves at this forum, but are also tasked with voicing concerns of the wider NGO community in country. It is therefore important for all NGOs in Iraq that strong candidates…

With the pace of military operations around Mosul increasing, preparedness for imminent large-scale humanitarian operations is an urgent necessity. It is expected that up to one million people could be displaced following future operations to retake Mosul, and there remain major concerns about where and how to host these newly displaced persons. Responding to these concerns NCCI organized a country directors’ meeting on the 21st of July, followed by a meeting between NGOs and the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) on the 26th. At the country directors’ meeting several concerns were raised regarding the planning assumptions and funding available for the expected Mosul humanitarian response. As an NGO community, attendees also looked at how NCCI could add value as a forum to…

NCCI’s Advocacy Working Group compiled a joint NGO briefing statement for an Iraq Pledging Conference that will take place on July 20th in Washington DC. The meeting will be attended by foreign and defense ministers of several of the major Coalition actors involved in the fight against ISIS, and those supporting the humanitarian response in Iraq. This donor pledging conference in support of Iraq comes as the country faces some of the most profound challenges it has experienced in the last decade. Over 3.3 million Iraqis – half of whom are children - have fled violence since January 2014 and an additional quarter of a million refugees have arrived from neighbouring Syria fleeing their own country’s brutal conflict. By the…

In partnership with UNICEF NCCI is executing a capacity building project for staff members of ten Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Service Centers in the governorates of Anbar and Baghdad. The WASH Service Centers are operated by local NGOs, and through this project NCCI aims to train their staff members to improve WASH services and field coordination in their respective areas of operation. On 29-31 May 2016 NCCI organized the third of four training workshop of the project. 22 staff members from nine NGOs were trained on selecting water sources, water quality standards, performing water quality tests and operating reverse osmosis units. The workshop took place over a three day period. The classroom part of the training consisted of presentations…