Iraq — Drivers of Marginalization and Neglect Among Citizens in the South of Iraq (December 2020 — January 2021)

While the north of Iraq was gripped by the ISIL conflict, social movements, and popular demands for change to the status quo were growing in the center and south of the country. The recurrence of protests and demonstrations trended upwards after 2017,1 feeding a negative drift in the social and political environment in these areas. Frustration over poor governance and stalled living conditions formed the base of the population’s demands for change. The lack of (efficient) responses contributed to growing distrust in institutions.2 Underlying this trend is a sense of marginalization, especially in the southern governorates of Iraq, which this brief aims to analyze in more detail. This brief is part of a larger research project, A Climate of Fragility, carried out by IOM Iraq and Social Inquiry, that provides the first detailed profiling of southern governorates in Iraq in a decade, exploring population demographics, housing, access to services, socio-economic situation, agriculture, migration, wellbeing, governance, security, and social cohesion. The profiling is based on a large-scale household survey. The survey included a household module (applicable to the overall household situation), a personal module (gathering perceptions of the respondent), and a roster module (collecting personal characteristics of each household member). A total of 3,904 respondents were surveyed between December 2020 and January 2021 across the 18 districts in Basra, Thi-Qar, and Missan governorates. Thus, the sample is statistically representative at the governorate and district level, with district-level sampling stratified by urbanicity and gender, generating a representative sample for urban and rural respondents and male and female respondents. The outputs of this project also include a household profiling report of Basra, Thi-Qar, and Missan governorates, two additional thematic briefs on various forms of capital and employment, and an online portal that includes all reports and analysis, key findings, a dashboard, and public datasets for use.