Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq is considering including displaced Yazidis in its one-million residential land plot project, Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi stated on Monday, placing one of the country’s most unresolved post-ISIS displacement files inside the government’s wider development plan through 2050.

The file was discussed during Al-Zaidi’s meeting with UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Arab States Abdallah Al-Dardari, alongside project financing mechanisms, social protection programs, the Development Fund, institutional modernization, and anti-corruption support.

The government is preparing a development plan for Iraq through 2050 as legislation to be submitted to parliament, with the one-million land plot project among its priorities, Al-Zaidi said. The housing initiative would be implemented across all provinces according to population size and poverty rates, in order to “support fairness in the distribution” of services and development opportunities.

On June 8, Al-Zaidi called on business leaders and companies involved in provincial projects to help develop infrastructure for the one-million land plot initiative, while encouraging local governments to expand self-financing projects. However, Iraq on Sunday paused approvals for new residential investment projects while authorities review the nationwide housing plan.

The Ministry of Construction, Housing and Municipalities estimates Iraq needs around five million additional housing units, while previous governments have launched residential complexes, housing loans, new city projects, serviced land distribution, and investment housing schemes without closing the gap.

For Yazidis, land and housing are tied to return. According to the International Organization for Migration, only 43% of more than 300,000 Yazidis displaced from Sinjar had returned by April 2024 after years of ISIS presence, with destroyed homes, wrecked infrastructure, armed groups, missing relatives, and competing Baghdad-Erbil authority over Sinjar continuing to obstruct return.

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