 Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening depending on where you're viewing this live stream My name is Mike Yaffe and I am the vice president of the Middle East North Africa Center at the US Institute of Peace And I have the pleasure of welcoming you to today's discussion on how Iraq is dealing with Reconstruction reform efforts and its recovery from conflict with ISIS We are pleased to be able to live stream today's efforts and event in both English and Arabic And on behalf of USIP I want to extend a very warm welcome to his Excellency the Minister of Planning of Iraq Dr. Khaled Najam and To her Excellency the Minister of Migration and Displacement Miss Edan Jabru Both are part of an Iraqi delegation that is visiting Washington this week And we are very grateful that they have been able to carve out time to join us today During what I am sure is a very very busy week for them USIP has a long relationship with Minister Jabru beginning with from our time working with her when she was a civil society leader Prior to her becoming Minister We also had the pleasure of what have hosting Minister Jabru last August for a public event at USIP So it's good seeing you again Minister And Minister Najam, it's great to host you at USIP for the first time I sincerely hope that this event will be followed by many more engagements together We are honored to have both of you with us today to share your insights on the priorities of the Iraqi government And your vision for peace and stability in Iraq And we would also like to express our deep gratitude to Ambassador Yasin and the Embassy of Iraq and Washington For the continued partnership on this event and many others There are many issues to discuss when looking at current events in Iraq And where the future and what the future holds for stabilization, reconstruction and reform efforts Displacement of people in Iraq is one of the biggest issues against the backdrop of economic, political, security and public health challenges The conflict with ISIS resulted in the displacement of over 5 million Iraqis close to 15% of the population The positive news is that through Iraqi and international efforts, millions have been able to return home or to their home provinces Despite many IDP camp closures occurring in recent months across Iraq Ensuring the safety and sustainability of displaced persons and their reintegration into local communities remains crucial Unfortunately, many of the displaced people returned to destroyed homes and neighborhoods And nearly 1.2 million people remain displaced, including many from ethnic and religious minorities Most are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance and other forms of support to ensure an stable and peaceful recovery And COVID-19 health crisis significantly complicated the risks faced by these displaced families We at USIP take pride in being part of the ongoing effort to help people go home We do this through our work with partners, including in the Iraq government and civil society groups To forge agreements, Iraqi negotiated agreements between local communities that reduce tensions, prevent violence, and support the safe and voluntary return for displaced Iraqis We help forge reconciliation agreements in Tikrit, Havazia and Talifah, resulting in a safe return of hundreds of thousands And today we're working in Nineveh, Ambar and Bazaar provinces We are especially focused on supporting religious and ethnic minorities communities as they recover from the devastation left behind by ISIS We are cognizant of the difficult challenges ahead, like how to deal with the tens of thousands of ISIS family members And those who are perceived of being affiliated with ISIS Including those being transferred to Iraq from the Ahal camp in Syria These are among the central issues that we'll be discussing today And I very much look forward to the thoughtful, productive conversation with both of you Minister Najem and Minister Jabru, as the Iraqi government continues its efforts to improve peace, security and governance I hope you know that you can count on USIP to be a partner in this effort And with that allow me to turn things over to our very capable director of Middle East programs Mr. Sarhang Hamasayid, to introduce and moderate the conversation with the ministers Before doing that, I want to thank Sarhang and the Middle East program team Lee Tucker, Youngna Hamley and Jenna Fisher for the work in bringing this event to fruition And I also want to thank the AV staff and the interpreters for their contributions too Now, over to you, Sarhang Thank you, Mike, for your remarks and your thoughtful insights Good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you are My name is Sarhang Hamasayid, I'm director of Middle East programs here at USIP It is an honor for me to moderate the discussion with our distinguished panelists His Excellency Minister Khaled Najem and Minister Ivan Jabru To start off, we will have remarks by both ministers followed by a moderated discussion Including questions from the audience So we invite you, or audience, to take part in this event by asking questions through the Questions and Answers box under the live stream on the USIP event page Or the live stream on Facebook You can also engage with us and each other on Twitter with hashtag Iraq ministers at USIP We'll do our best to get to as many of your questions as possible So, we'll start with Minister Najem, who was confirmed as Iraq's minister of planning in May 2020 Prior to his role, he was the president of Anbar University from March 2017 through September 2020 Minister Najem has also held a variety of positions, including a chairman and member of many advisory and consulting teams To oversee the implementation of infrastructure projects in various governors of Iraq Minister Najem, it is a pleasure to host you here at USIP Over to you Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us virtually. Good morning or good evening Wherever you are And I want to thank the USIP Who allowed for this virtual meeting to occur and we will give you a precision about the situation in Iraq First of all, when it comes to this place, my colleague, minister of migration and displacement Will mention these topics. I personally will talk about general issues relating to the displace security services health services education services And stability and all that having an impact on the return of the displaced and impacting the Iraqi society as a whole The current government, as you know, came after a lot of suffering And Difficult circumstances in Iraq following the protests of the population the youth who were asking for service jobs, and these are supposed to be rights So there shouldn't be demonstrations to ask for services and jobs with one Because of the many changes in Iraq since 2003 and the many problems and obstacles that we faced And if we want to be transparent and realistic We know that Iraq encountered very hard circumstances In 2004 5 7 violence was all over Iraq. No, probably that And we sometimes almost reached The bank of a civil war Then we had a transition area with stability at the security level Also Fall in the oil prices has an impact on the services provided The citizens Then we had ISIS or Daesh and you know the story We started a war mainly of attrition because Iraq was financially Exhausted and many martyrs Were provided by Iraq to free the land and we still face security problems here and there Because of the fact that some terrorist group Groups remain Then in 2019 protests and demonstrations by you started and the government of Mr. Adel Abdel designed And Two respectable persons Mr. Allawi and Mr. Al-Zurbi were nominated to form a government, but eventually fade and with true Now the prime minister Mr. Al-Qazim And he was the last In fact when he was nominated to form a government So after selecting the ministers the government Prepared a plan that was by the parliament about The role of the government because it was an exceptional government that was formed Within security, political and economic circumstances that were very difficult So again the parliament voted on the plan Which first priority was closing the file of the displaced Organizing elections and bringing security and economic stability. Again, my colleague will talk about the displacement file as for the elections the government is serious And want to follow on its commitment to the people to the parliament and the international community by organizing the elections Prime minister Had a proposal about holding the elections last year in june But the high commission for the election was not ready We suggested October of the And now we are working In order to prepare the logistics for the elections the government carried on on all its promises You don't know in iraq we have an independent Commission for the election and the government does not interfere In the work of the commission unless the commission quests financial or logistic support And the government is providing all the support that requested from him and the commission is moving forward and hopefully we will have the elections In october 10 of this Second file was to work With a protest or successful through dialogue Conviction to end the protests the government only used force In very few cases because of individual clashes But as a whole Protesters understood The role and the obligations of the government and we were able to reach A convincing solution In order to keep moving forward Another file In the first meeting of government We discussed The means to pay the salaries to the government employees because When we came to power this was not possible neither paying the salaries of those working within the government or the pensions for the retired so Support for the agriculture Parallel to this regrettably we have the covid-19 pandemic and the sharp fall in all prices and the government until now Is not having a full schedule Attendance for the employees only 50 to 75 percent So the employees are not bad to the normal schedule and many programs have been reported because of the pandemic and many times ministries had to be completely closed Because of the number of covid cases and this is having a negative impact On the achievement of the government. How much time do I have mr. sarhan? One or Or two moments Well, I want also to talk about foreign relations and the achievements of the government At this level with the previous government the situation Of international relations was tense with many countries, but we were able to improve the situation to work out problems And at this point, iraq has balanced relations with the neighboring countries and the international community And we are also forward with our relations with our arab and non-arab neighbors And we will soon be having as a result a summit in Baghdad for arab Leaders, we also had visits by many Arab officials and we visited as well neighboring countries we opened up to the international community and international organizations present and working in iraq So because of daesh and isis As we know we inherited Six thousand program who had to be halted In 2020 despite the fact that we did not have a budget or financial allocations But Through credits we were able to restart These programs or projects because we know that During the demonstrations the protesters were Asking for services and these services Will not be available if not resume these projects that were halted in 2014 and 2015 because of the war with daesh And i will give you one example We had A commission order to restart the work Of the government hospitals we were able Out of 52 hospitals to start again the work in 30 hospitals And the ministry of health is operating these hospitals and we'll also Be contracting private company to manage these hospitals So since i'm running out of time, thank you very much for listening. That's it for me Thank you For our viewers For the live streams For the event in english live stream I wish to Listen English I'm going to repeat that in arabic just in case for those who are watching on this Viewers There is a live stream in english and arabic for this event On the website The website On the page of this event So if you like To participate in the discussion on the way the arabic stream exists and the english stream exists In different streams Thank you So now coming back to Her Excellency Minister Ivan Jabro She was confirmed as minister of migration and displacement in the caldome government in june 2020 As minister she also heads the high council for humanitarian affairs in the government which is an interagency body Working on displacement issues and more Mr. Jabro is no stranger to usip. We have had the pleasure of working with her in her capacity in civil society as mike also mentioned She also served as neneva governor advisor for minority affairs head of the caledon association basra member of neneva's Consultative women council and many more institutions Mr. Jabro it's really a pleasure to have you back at usip over to you I didn't say that Ladies and gentlemen Let me greet you all As The minister said there are many files that the government is concentrating on But the priority was given to the displacement And the government dealt with this file very seriously despite the many crises especially the economic crisis and the pandemic And the government moved forward on this file and wanted to allow all the displays to voluntarily go back to their places of origins So there was a plan that was set with our ministry that was adopted by the government and that we are implementing now Also the emergency plans that our ministry adopted following visits on the ground to the majority of the camps that existed at that time We carried a survey to know who is willing to return We had forms that all displaced living in camps had to fill And according to the results of the survey the majority of the displaced living in camps wanted to voluntarily go back to their places of origin But when the right circumstances were available in the places of origin so we worked with the different concerned ministries With the security forces more specifically that worked with us to provide security Because previously we had problems to deal with security forces but at this point we moved forward as quickly as possible Previously this was a problem for the return of the refugees because it took lots of time To allow for the return but ever since we worked this situation many have been returning despite problems And we also worked with international organizations and the current government And the prime minister through special committees like the tribes community Worked with the USIP to work out the problems in the camps in the places of origin and to allow for the displaced to go back We also allowed for dialogues with the head of tribes and clans We also have many problems relating to the infrastructures that many governments worked on in order to rehabilitate the infrastructures Rebuild destroyed houses we also worked with an international organization that supported our ministry And that approves of the plan of the ministries We have only two remaining camps one in Nineveh and one in Al-Anbar at Ameriyat Al-Fallujah And people also from these two camps are starting to return to their homes This is Al-Jadah center social rehabilitation for those who are coming back from the Al-Hul refugee camps And this is temporary they would need to be rehabilitated and then reintegrated in their local community We still have also 26 camps in the Kurdish province the majority of which are minorities But it is the key RJ that is responsible for these camps Our ministry is only providing support to the provinces government the Kurdish provinces government And their administration are in charge of the camps we only provide support because we have no decision to make at this point So we coordinate with the RJ That's it for me thank you Thank you Your Excellencies I think Dr Khalid you laid out three important priorities for the government That the first one was the issues of internally displaced persons A big challenge for the government of Iraq and the international community as it tries to help Iraq And thank you Minister Jabru for talking about the national plan that the Council of Ministers adopted in March of this year It is an important document that provides an assessment of the type of issues security, economic, social, infrastructure, etc And the type of necessary solutions and recognizing the importance of community involvement and participation And that implementation takes place at the local level and it will require efforts from different government, non-government and international agencies It's really a good document What I want to ask both of you can you speak about the challenge of implementation So now you have a plan and Iraq passed a national budget So budget was paying for these things have been a challenge for the government of Iraq Can you talk a little bit more about who is leading the coordination of the implementation of this plan How is this plan paid for and how are you monitoring the success of the plan Thank you very much The plan of course clearly showed the commitment of the government as you said yourself and all ministries dealing with services have a part to play So the plan starts with projects And then according to the plan there was a division of different areas with the needs of each area For instance, tinjar and what it needs in the plane of Minawa, Anbar, Salah, Heddin, Diyala, Nursh, Baghdad, etc So each region with the needs that are typical to this region And then since the budget was adopted for 2021 was an allocation of 25 billion Iraqi dinars to start importing our projects We have either the council for the rebuilding process or the government of the local provinces who will be in charge of implementing these projects And of course we are cooperating with the local government but also with the ministry of migration and displacement in order to start the implementations Now when it comes to the displacement we have the allocation, financial allocation provided by the government But we also worked with the local government especially in the provinces where the displaced yet did not return to start implementing important projects But this of course needs time, that's for the project Now after the projects are implemented, for instance if we are building a school, when the school is built we will hand over the school to the ministry of education Which will provide the teachers, the cadres and so on If we have a project that is completed we also hand it over to the ministry in charge For instance a police headquarters that will be handed over to the ministry of interior So our ministry, of course the projects are completed and then hand over the rest of the projects to the services ministries I hope my question is Minister if I may ask Minister Ivan to comment on the cooperation with the international community on the implementation Is your ministry coordinating this effort, do you receive the support that you need from the international community or do you have areas where you need support from the international community Of course we need a huge support from the international community because we are facing any financial crisis within the ministry and in the government as a whole Now the current government has a vision, it wants to close the file, it wants a voluntarily return of the displaced It also wants international and regional and local organizations to concentrate on the places of return and not on the camps So we have lots of support but we need more support, we need more coordination for operation with the government, with the ministries In order for us to be able to allow for all the displaced to return and close the file definitely Thank you, thank you, so I have two related questions, I will get to Al Hall in a second but as you know the government of Iraq takes pride that it put together this implementation plan And it had made progress on closing down the camps, so there is a positive story that the government of Iraq sees that the political leader sees But also there is some comments from the international community that they say okay while it's positive news to close the camps But the circumstances were not ready for those people to return and that the government of Iraq stresses that return is voluntary, should be voluntary But those people did not have a choice in closing the camps and some of them have challenges in returning to their areas of return I saw some answers to this issue in the national plan but I would like to give you the opportunity to comment about how do you understand the issue of voluntary return And can you speak to that? Well, as we said we supported the voluntary return, nothing is imposed or forced when it comes to the closing of the camp as well So we close the camp and we work on the reintegration of the displaced Now we still have the two camps in Anandbaran also and those two camps were facing very intricate problems That's why they are still open but we are working with the government, with the international community to find a solution to all the problems and allow for the displaced to voluntarily and securely go back to their homes Now there are lots of misleading information and inaccurate information that the government is hearing and also lots of international community I mean many donor organizations they said would want to keep the camps open because it is some sort of a business And also some local activists or local workers working with international organizations are providing misleading information And some say that if the displaced leave the camps they will lose their livelihoods so lots of misinformation is going on And we are in the era of technology, of social bias And there are lots of things that we hear on the social media are inaccurate so I would request the international organization to visit the government, the families that went back to their homes And to ask them if their lives was better in the camps despite the fact that no dignified life is possible in the camps or if its life is better in the places of origins to where they return Now again some families because of many problems were not able to return to their home places so we allowed them to choose any other place they were willing to go to And we are following on the situation of these families thanks to the committee that were formed by the ministry and the government and also with the support of the international community Thank you Your Excellency, we have some questions coming up that would be directed to the minister of planning but I will hold off on that for now Because I want to address a couple of other angles about the issues of displacement then go back to elections and the economic stability of the country Just staying with the IDPs and the displacement and refugees, a key concern that the international community and Iraqi leaders have been talking about is the future of the Iraqis in that whole camp in northeast Syria There are an estimated amount of 30,000 people there So my question to you Excellencies is that what is the status of the return of the Iraqis in that whole and what are the future direction of that plan? Well, we had started in the beginning the process of return but we had to stop because of the COVID-19 pandemic Now the National Security Advisory Committee is working on the security aspect and our ministry want to transfer them first to the Jeddah Center for Social Rehabilitation And then they will be reintegrated in their communities of origin, more than 5,000 families were registered These families want to go back to the places of origin and also for the majority of these families there was a vetting process and it appeared that they have no relations with Daesh The majority of the people returning are women and children who were the victims of Daesh A few of these displaced were members of Daesh, either the father of a member of the family But of course we cannot condemn the wife and the children for the crimes of the father or the husband Because traditionally the woman follows the husband and has no choice at this point So it is the duty of the Iraqi government to take care of its citizens anywhere Of course, as long as they had no part in any terrorist attack or had no relations with Daesh So we started bringing back family to the Jeddah Center for Rehabilitation And we are working also with USIP at this level, the majority of the tribes want their members to be back In the local communities, so there are no insurmountable problems But some political exploitations on the social media because the elections are getting closed So many are playing on sensitive topics to exploit the topic for election purposes But for us it is only a humanitarian file, it has nothing to do with politics But again, no one who was involved with Daesh can come to the Jeddah Rehabilitation Center A quick follow-up on that, so with that big number, what is the timeline? Obviously your government is also busy with the big elections coming up at an important milestone What is possible before the elections and what do you think will be more after the elections for the next government? Well first we had 94 families, we also had a committee by our ministry and the Ministry of Planning and the National Security Advisory Committee, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Humanitarian Affairs in order to set a strategic plan on the long term for social rehabilitation And we have six national organizations with the Ministry of Planning Different organizations are working in the Jeddah Center to determine who is ready to be going back to places of origins after settling the problems in the region of origins Now there is no time frame about how long any person stays in the rehabilitation center, it depends on the cases But following visits to the camp or the center, it appears that the situation is different from what we see in the media Now the people in the al-Hul camps were victims of Daesh, they faced lots of violence, exploitation of women and children So it is the duty of the Iraqi government to support all Iraqis in Iraq and abroad Thank you, thank you for your excellency So we have a question if I may ask also Dr Khaled if he wants to comment on this, it's about reintegration Obviously there is the people who are returning from al-Hul There are people who are displaced inside Iraq and also going back to their community And Minister Ivan spoke about reintegration a little bit but I want to also in your capacity as minister if you have any views you want to weigh in on about how to reintegrate these returnees Yes of course as my colleague said setting a time frame for the return is very difficult Because there are lots of circumstances that have an impact on the time frame But yesterday and before we talked with different organizations working in Iraq And with a specialised centre in Iraq University and we seek the support of the international community and of organizations working on both social and psychological rehabilitation Because we have a social and psychological problem with displaced returning from the al-Hul camp aside from the security problems So if a member of the family was fighting with Daesh, the rest of the family is not responsible for that fact And we cannot also punish people for their ideas So we need a social and psychological rehabilitation and reintegration in the local communities And this is why we need to work with the national centres who deal with these kind of problems or rehabilitation We want to benefit the experience of countries that witnessed similar situations of course not necessarily Daesh but something similar How to deal with the psychological rehabilitation with victims and children One more point about returning willingly or being forced to turn There is no government in the world that can provide for the needs of everyone Now if we have a camp with 5,000 families and 5 or 6 families only do not want to leave the camp or go back to the places of origins Do not want to be integrated in another camp So it doesn't make sense to keep a camp open because 4, 5, 15, 20 families out of 5,000 want to stay Because the camps also need services, needs support, needs financing and so on So if some people do not want to go back to the places of origins, do not want to be integrated in another camp So the government has no options, we cannot keep the whole camp open because a few families wants it And as the minister said, once again we are calling on all those who are willing to come with us to go to the places of origins to visit displaced families who are able to return We will organize the logistics and they will ask these families if they decided to go back or were forced to go back And they will be asked also about the situation that they face in the camp and the situation they are facing in their local country We have to be realistic, not only talk about theories, we are talking about practical realistic situations We have an example in the province that were freed from Daesh and most specifically Al-Anbar When Al-Ramadi was liberated, the families wanted to go back immediately The central government and the local government were hesitant and I was the dean of the University of Al-Anbar and I was reluctant But then we decided to go back despite the fact that in some area the security was not 100%, there were also mines or other problems But again, the central government does not have the economic means to rebuild all the liberated areas within months and the same applies to the international community So it is not easy to start returning this place The inhabitants of the social communities do much more than the government or the international community So in some areas the families went back but if they don't go back and start rebuilding themselves Because the situation in Iraq is very clear at the security level, financial level, economic level, social level and so on The government now does not have the capabilities to rebuild all the houses in the best possible way and then tell the displaced to come back, everything is fine I mean many Iraqis also were martyred or suffered and are in their own places And do not have all the services that need to be requested and this is my case too, I come from a difficult area But the displaced need to know that they are better placed than anybody to find solutions to their problems Now for instance a family of five men shouldn't stay in the camp, they need to go back to their places and start working and start providing for their families And the government allows for the displaced if they do not want to go to their places of origins to go to another city or another place Five men can of course provide for the families instead of waiting for the support provided by the Iraqi government or international organizations Because as we know also the number of people in the camps is increasing Women are pregnant, women are having children, this is why the government was very realistic And it's doing its job, we know that we have responsibilities, we do not wait for voices or contract them to different organizations to tell us what to do With all due respect to the efforts of the international community and international organizations that have been supporting us and still are especially for the displaced But we concentrate on the main problem and we know what our people need more than anyone So we have received a good number of questions from the different platforms where our viewers are watching I just wanted to flag for Ahmed who asked on the USIP website about housing and reconstruction His Excellency Dr Khaled answered that earlier in his answer to another question that his ministry and the Ministry of Migration and Displacement of later policies Then the specialized ministries are responsible for the implementation of those projects and it requires budget allocation And by the government and at the federal and the provincial levels and also to Spencer McMaster to ask on LinkedIn that I put your question to the minister about reintegration and he answered that I want to go to another question from Oday who is asking a question to Miss Ivan and he's asking how many Iraqis are displaced outside Iraq Can you assess the situation of the Iraqi refugees in Syria and I would like also to add the Iraqi refugees in Turkey Well we have huge numbers of Iraqis displaced abroad and they are in different countries And there is an ongoing process of return especially in Turkey where it is easier Because we had a delegate of our ministry working in our embassy in Turkey So during the last year 800 refugees were able to return from Turkey and we provided transportation By land or by air through the Iraqi means From Syria we have fewer numbers returning many do not want to return 30 families went back so far But we are providing all the means to bring back those who are willing to return And anybody who wants to return can get in touch Our ministry and international organization also can help registering the names of the families willing to return And the ministry is committed to returning them immediately to the places of origin to provide the transportation free Thank you So one thing that minister Najin mentioned that I think that's very important about ideology and about people's thinking That the law is not barring the ideologies about freedom and about a number of things And in the international community and people are trying to help Iraq The issue of ISIS's ideology has been talked about a lot And there are two key concepts that people are grappling with One talks about de-radicalization which research and experts say it's very difficult to get people out of people's heads And the most important and practical thing is to talk about disengagement from violence Is that how not to let people to act or people not acting on their ideology So they may have strong views or extreme views but not acting on this violently through terrorist acts Is the important thing and measurable thing to work on The other thing that you refer to in different ways is that you are trying not to put a stigma On innocent people who have been displaced because of the conflict And that's why you are calling it Jeddah center and not the Jeddah camp That's why you are not using certain terminologies And I understand the issue of perception to be ISIS is a big problem in the Iraqi society It's a security concern And it requires probably a change in attitude And it's a sensitive topic where it's an election season Many leaders may not want to talk about that publicly Can you offer any thoughts about how to go about this issue of stigma? How can that be prevented so that the community and the society can have a healthy discussion about this And address this problem so that it does not become a long-term problem Thank you very much. A very important question Let me go back to what I said previously Those who adopt a radical ideology in specific circumstances can be rehabilitated This is what we are trying to do And we have a specific program called al-monasaha in Saudi Arabia Which is about providing advices back and forth And I visited Saudi Arabia and we talked about that This happens when a person is arrested We're talking about adults And the Saudis said that this program was quite successful in the kingdom Because they were able to change the life of radicalized people that were integrated in the society We have practical examples And I said that I am from these areas We had people who were radicalized between 2005-2007 And they were imprisoned But now they are reintegrated in their society in a very good way Those who get over the stigma is the person who was radicalized Because this person abandoned its ideology and is very candid about it And speaks freely about it And they would say, for instance, I was convinced wrongly that this was the right ideology But now I'm free from the ideology and I'm facing it and I'm fighting it So we need to provide a platform for these people to talk about their experience locally And potentially internationally Because allowing them to speak freely is the best defense for them He will talk to the people freely He would say, I used to adopt these extreme ideas but now I need to state that I was wrong And there will be a positive impact not only on the person herself But also on other people who adopted radical ideologies And this will discourage people who are lured by radical ideologies to change their minds Because they have the experience of someone who followed the ideologies and then came back to reason So we need to concentrate on these examples I don't want to give names because it's an open meeting But some people adopted radical ideologies in 2005-2006 Today they are political analysts They are in Iraq, they have posts in the government And they clearly recognize that at some point they were radicalized And that they now recognize that they were mistaken Thank you Your Excellency, I think this is a very important point that you are raising That people who may have had an idea at a certain point They can change their thinking, they can change their behavior There are things that they can do on themselves to show that they have changed But also there is some work for the community to accept them To help them in that process of change And I can speak to that from the work of the US Institute of Peace in Iraq Working with the tribal leaders They are playing an important role with the religious leaders, with civil society leaders They have been playing an important role in helping the community to accept them And that's a challenge that I think both the government of Iraq and the other stakeholders Could continue to work on I have more questions from our viewers I think we have some questions focused on the Iraqi minorities From Julian Dare or Daria, I apologize if I am mispronouncing your name The question says, basically the comment says Minority communities in Iraq, in northern Iraq, tell us that there has been no improvement in security And also they are not benefiting from the government of Iraq or international community assistance Why is this? And they also say, ask will you implement Article 140 in disputed territories which is crucial for the returnees Well to the contrary, we moved forward a lot, lots of progress Especially in Nenawa, I am talking about the Christians Many displaced were back in the Gaza of Hamdania for instance In Karakor as well In Pell Cave, many Christian families are back But there are lots of challenges In some areas that were destroyed But we know that the committee for reconstruction is rebuilding the area In Sinjar, so far the return remains very slow For the Yazidis, because Sinjar was destroyed to almost 80% Now we have the reconstruction committee, many organizations, the national organizations are supporting Reconstruction process and the return process in Sinjar Now we have an improved security situation With some clashes between some parties and this is the case in Dahuk as well and to the north of Dahuk But I visited Sinjar myself more than once The Iraqi army is present and nobody else But the services are not systematically available, so we need support But we need to be in the minority We need from the minorities also not to be victimized all the time And feeling that they are victims and they need to be part of the whole state So everyone knows that I was in Mosul on the Daesh And I had to sleep in the streets for many days and we faced dire situations We tried to fight this ideology But we also contributed in the rebuilding of the country in fighting this radical ideology So I need to be part of the rebuilding of the country I need to be part of fighting the extreme ideology We know that the minorities faced absolutely horrendous situation, especially Yazidis But they also proved their resilience and they proved that they are an integrated part of Iraq today Whether the Christians or the Yazidis or the Shabbat or others need to be supportive of one another And to work together and to move beyond our internal differences We need to be a unified force, need to have a common vision We know we need to avoid any politicization to reject any attempt at dividing us We need to preserve our identity in our country Thank you I have some specific questions again from Chilean and from Intisar One is related to psychosocial support to this place people, especially in the areas of the minorities What more can you do in terms of providing psychosocial support to those groups? And then there is the other question related to this Sorry, it's in Arabic so I'm translating in my mind as I answer the question Which says Halimun organization is working on training and vocational skills and free illiteracy programs, etc. So who would be the right agency to work with if there are organizations who want to help? Do they come to the ministry? Do they go to the provincial governments, to the governor? Who do they go to coordinate and offer those support programs? When it comes to social and psychological rehabilitation We know that this is a fundamental concept in the camps or the centers abroad And this is what I witnessed when I visited these camps We need this rehabilitation at this point, the camps This is very important But we do not of course interfere in these decisions The decision goes back to the ministry of interior But again, we requested international organizations and provincial government to prepare programs in the camps For social and psychological rehabilitation that is dispensable As for the central government, federal government Through the ministry of migration, the ministry of work and social security And the ministry of social affairs and the ministry of health We worked on social rehabilitation on providing medical support Especially for the survivors And we are preparing also the cadres in order to move forward We already welcomed 25 surviving women two months ago And now 10 more And we are concentrating on the psychological rehabilitations For the Christians, the Yazidis, the Shabaks or anyone Such support or the rehabilitation, psychological or social As a government, as a whole and as a ministry as well I need to confirm that there is social and psychological rehabilitation And regretfully Many of these programs were not available for the displaced in the camps Despite the fact that they needed this kind of rehabilitation Not only for those who are radicalized, but because of their sufferings from the radical ideas Because they were persecuted because they lost their dignified life So they need to be rehabilitated psychologically And I need to insist this is very important for women and children And now we are working as a national organization to work with those who returned as well Meaning not only in the camps because the people who returned Sinjar for instance, there is a huge need for these programs And I asked you, Sir Hank And you said that USIP do not work on psychological rehabilitation But rather on dialogue and plans and studies So through the USIP, I asked all organizations working in the camps in the Kurdish province And more specifically on the hook to concentrate on this kind of rehabilitation That's very important As for your second question about civil society organization, the national organization They can deal with NGOs, the Ministry of Planning And if they work on development, they can work also with the Ministry of Planning Because we have in the ministries also teams in charge of working with these NGOs They just have to be in touch with the Ministry of Interior to be registered in order to be able to move freely And we do not interfere with their jobs We facilitate their work and of course we make sure that their programs do not interfere with some projects or programs implemented by the government I will come to you next about, I have a question about elections, then about economic stability But just one quick question that I have here from Salah Abdu Rahman for the Minister Ifan Where the question says, what is the Ministry of Migration doing for the situation of the children born out of rape by ISIS fighters during the conflict Especially with regard to the challenges their families encounter to register them Yes, first we are working on providing them all their needs But when it comes to ideas, we have a committee in the Ministry of Interior working on this file I think they work with the registration process and they coordinate with the Ministry of Justice Thank you. So I have a question, I think it is from Odeu He's asking, will the elections take place in October as planned Do you think the biometric registration for all the voters will be complete by then? Yes indeed, the government will let me give you some details The government suggested a date for the elections and its job is to provide the logistic support, the financing And there are already allocation for the independent high commission And it also provides the logistic support, but the decisions otherwise go back to the high commission And according to Zolo, the government cannot interfere in the job of the high commission So yes, the elections will happen on October 10th and we will have international observers We had a clear decision in the government requesting an international observer Because we want the elections to be fair and credible and we want the results to be accepted by the Iraqi people and the international community Because these are important elections As for the biometrics card from a legal perspective, the election law is clear We have electronic non biometric cards that will be accepted because we do not have enough time to provide biometric cards to all So because we need to modernize the data And we cannot force the citizens to vote or to request a voter ID But we are working on encouraging people, especially those working in the government to request the voter ID And this is very important Because we do not want some cards to be used illegally and this of course will impact the credibility of the elections Thank you, Your Excellency So when most people talk about stability in Iraq, usually Iran, Turkey, ISIS, armed groups, all these kind of issues come up But not many people like you, Minister, see some of the internal challenges We had the opportunity to discuss with you in other conversations about the challenge of population growth to Iraq's government and Iraq's stability And also the challenge of poverty So can you please speak about how do you see the issue of population growth? What are the numbers and how is that creating a challenge for the government of Iraq? Yes, first when it comes to stability and security, let me be very candid with you The government was very wise, say, in dealing with the internal situation and with international relations Because as I said, this government had duties We wanted to be very cautious or wise in dealing with the problems to have a minimum stability and to be able to organize the elections And to have a new government following elections that are acceptable to all Iraqis And the new government will make decisions concerning the security situation Now about the growth, population growth There are more than 40 million people in Iraq We have one new million every year and this number is increasing, of course And the problem that shouldn't be theoretically a problem but is a problem in Iraq is about the age distribution of the population 65% of the Iraqis are less than 30 years old And we have a huge workforce aged 15 to 65 So the government is facing many challenges in providing job opportunities, for instance On the other hand, is there a solution to the problem? As you know, you have religious beliefs Because many Iraqis believe and we respect this belief that we cannot support or deny But many Iraqis are against family planning Sometimes it's even taboo to talk about this issue So we are trying to deal with the problem in a very wise way Not to anger some religious leaders or some rural communities Especially some beliefs that a family with limited children has a problem And we have the problem of marrying many women in order to have a boy or more boys instead of having only girls So these are social traditions that we cannot ignore when we talk about the government decisions It's not only about making decisions, it's about being able to implement them So in Iraq, an average family has 7.7 members which is huge compared with the capabilities of Iraq At the geographic level and talking average In the most four areas, the number of children is higher or the highest compared to four areas In the southern province, for example, in Nassiriya, we have a high average in Ninawa 37 poverty And in Baghdad 12, this is for the average When it comes to numbers, we have some 9 million people living in poverty in Baghdad compared to the Ninawa province Because what's important is not the average, but the real figures In Al-Muthanna, we have 52% of four people but of course the total number of inhabitants is 2 million In Baghdad, 12% out of 9 million inhabitants means that 1 million people are poor in Baghdad So how do we deal with the problem? We first need to have accurate statistics and this is important But we expect to have a population census soon in order to better understand the geographical distribution, the gender distribution, ages and so on So we can be able to integrate these data in our plan So the population survey is very important At this point, our figures are the results of partial census or surveys and predictions as well as happened in many countries in the world Since 1987, we did not have a general census or survey of the population Had a partial one We expected to have a survey or a census in 2020 but because of the pandemics, we had to postpone This applies also to this year After the pandemics, when the health situation will stabilize, maybe in 2022, we will have a survey Thank you very much, Your Excellency Definitely a million people a year, 2.5% of the population growing adds a lot of pressure and burden to the government that is challenged already with many difficult portfolios There has been a lot of talk about diversifying the Iraqi economy as a way of creating job opportunities There has been talk about how reconstruction in the liberate areas could help with facilitating the return of the displaced population and finding job opportunities there and help those areas grow And a key component of talking about reform has been the white paper of the government of Iraq Can you please talk a little bit about the progress of the implementation of the white paper and some general lines of the paper Yes indeed, the white paper as you know and as your viewers or listeners know was adopted by the government It's about a series of policies that needs implementation programs So we created a high commission to be in charge of those programs and we have implementation committee or an executive committee And each ministry has team in charge of the implementation and we started by the nomination of as in charge of the implementation three weeks ago And we will be opening all the economic files in all ministries, they are already being discussed The idea is not about making decisions, the idea is about implementing the decisions we need to have practical results to make a decision We need tools to be able to implement and these tools should be positive And of course we will be facing main obstacles on the road, down the road So we decided to work at the lower level in the ministries to convince those working on these paper or white document or paper That this is absolutely indispensable, we have excellent paper that we are prepared with the support of experts of international organizations For instance the policy for the private sector, the global national development plan or the sustainable development plan The population policies, many policies, the problem again is so going back to the white paper Some programs are already available and some are being written but if I want to be clear and fair and candid This is also about the economic situation, we have this document to reform the economic situation but we also depend on the economic situation in Iraq That is dependent on the oil prices, if the oil prices are low there will be a problem and will have an impact on all levels And if the oil prices are good every single move, so hopefully we will have acceptable oil prices next two years so that we will be able to diversify our revenues And the government has been in charge for less than a year but already the nine oil revenues increased But we need to increase them to 18% in the 2021 budget but now we moved from 3% to 12% from customs and taxes and exports and so on But what we need chiefly is ability and quite frankly as well we need that next government, we need the next government to trust this paper or white document in order to be able to move forward Only just less than five minutes to end, I would like to use a couple of minutes of that to ask minister Ivan and follow up on something you said that how the Iraqi government has good plans And I have read in the national development plan about the importance of women participation in the labor force and the economy and all matters of life So many specialized organizations including the World Bank commented the government of Iraq on the white paper but they also mentioned that it is not addressing sufficiently the importance of women participation So minister Ivan as minister how do you assess the participation of women in the government and in economic life in Iraq Well I'm going to talk especially about displaced women in the camps Part of the white paper concentrate on this aspect as well What we saw in the camps is that women are more exploited than able to produce We worked with women organization, we worked with different agencies because we wanted to concentrate on displaced women, they play no role within the camps They cannot provide anything for the families, they cannot support their children The only thing they do is get the financial support and the food and so on So women were hugely dependent on the government and international organizations This is why we work on programs with international organizations to allow women to be in charge of some projects that may bring revenue to the families but not in the camp More than 30% of all programs are concentrating on women and empowering women in economic perspective And some other organizations working with our ministry are not only empowering women from an economic perspective but at all levels including the political participation and this is very important And one comment if I may, women in Iraq are empowered, they don't need empowerment, they control the houses, the families and we have four women ministry in the government Women ministry of reconstruction, ministry of state and also women in charge of investments This is an average Iraqi ministry, I mean I don't have accurate figures, as a whole women are very well represented For instance in the planning ministry we have 48% of women in our global employees This is something we do not find in any country elsewhere, we have four women director general and also deputy ministers We also have a department for empowering women and we also have the consultative committee to empower women From an economic perspective we need more time to empower women but I quite confidently say that women are very well represented in the government and in the business circles in the private sector We are in the council working on the private sector, one thing I need to add, we are three women in the government and Miss Suha let's say four We have a total freedom of expression and all the ministers understand our decisions and Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Qazimi providing us with his total support to empower women He is allowing women to participate at many levels to express their opinions and we benefited a lot from this in our ministries In the ministry of migration and displacement also we worked on providing women with the right posts And we moved beyond some quotas that were in place in order to concentrate on the efficiency of men in different posts And we also sent a letter thanking the Prime Minister for his support for women empowerment and this is very important for us Thank you Your Excellencies, we have come to the end of our time, I'm glad that we got to a good number of questions, thank you for answering those I apologize to those who we did not have the chance to get to their questions I think in closing it's important to recognize some points Iraq continues to face a complex set of problems, political, security, socio-economic, health, environmental and geopolitical ones But as we heard from our speakers, leaders in the government of Iraq, they are navigating these issues, providing leadership and partnership during very difficult times In a government that many expected it to have a short-term mandate of just getting the country out of a political crisis towards early election But in reality, this government has been trying to be more than that, laying the foundation for longer-term vision, reforms and solutions I think it's healthy to point out the gaps in their efforts, but it's also important to recognize the burden they are dealing with The current government still has some time to continue its charge forward and hopefully the upcoming elections will result in a government that will build on the direction and foundation of the current government as His Excellency Dr. Najem also mentioned I mean in that it remains central to address the human legacy of the conflict with ISIS, while also maintaining sight of the fact that peace and stability in Iraq will be most durable when they hinge in major part on the Iraqi people Their well-being, their meaningful contribution in the economy and governance, their feeling that the state is theirs to serve them and protect them The Iraqis will continue to need the support of the United States and the international community to achieve these goals Thank you Minister Khaled Najem and Minister Ivan Jobro for joining us today and the insightful conversation We hope to host you again soon in person And thanks Ambassador Yasin and the team at the Embassy of Iraq in Washington for your continued partnership in organizing such events and more And thanks to our viewers for tuning in. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you