Bureaucratic Liaison Unit – Access Unit Support to Humanitarian Access and NGO Operating Space As of late 2019, a breakdown of the national access letter process has severely disrupted NGO operations across federal Iraq. The access letter application process, initially led by the Joint Coordination amp Monitoring Centre (JCMC), was presented as a mechanism to ensure access for NGOs to areas where recovery and development programs are delivered while at the same time ensuring the adherence of those actors to government rules and regulations. While the system had many flaws, including procedural changes and overlapping jurisdictions, it did, nevertheless, provide NGOs with an avenue to navigate the procedural requirements of the National Operations Centre (NOC) to obtain national-level access letters which are prerequisite for NGO operations in federal Iraq. However, the issuance of access letters by the JCMC was abruptly suspended in December 2019. According to UNOCHA, between early December 2019 to mid-January 2020, more than 2,460 missions were reportedly cancelled or prevented from reaching their destinations. At first, the humanitarian community was advised that the Directorate of Non-Governmental Organisations (DNGO) would take over responsibility for the access letter application process. However, the initiative came to a quick end. As a result, a proposed mechanism was agreed to by the Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC) and the National Operations Centre (NOC). This would see the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) and UNOCHA work together to coordinate and oversee the national access letter application process.

NCCI aims to strengthen the activities of the Bureaucratic Liaison Unit (BLU) to expand NGO space and ensure consistent access by establishing an Access Unit. This Unit will help centralise and consolidate efforts to maintain and expand NGO operational space in federal Iraq. The NCCI-BLU Access Unit aims to minimise administrative hurdles associated with obtaining access letters by systematising and introducing stability to the process. The document checking service provided by the NCCI Access Unit will work with members to ensure that the information included in the application form is correct and the supporting documents are appropriate. Training sessions will be held to ensure that all NGO staff involved in the preparation of access letter applications understand the process and the government’s documentation requirement. The goal is to reduce the rate of rejection and thereby enhance the ability of NGOs to obtain access letters without unnecessary delays. This expanded capacity will include a dedicated team based in Baghdad and Erbil that will engage with NGO staff, who are mostly based in the KRI, and GOI officials in Baghdad to support the preparation of access letter applications to the NOC. To improve the acceptance of national access letters at the local level, NCCI will expand its subnational engagement in priority governorates, including Anbar, Diyala, Salahuddin, Kirkuk, and Ninewa. The Unit will track developments and identify emerging issues to help mitigate the introduction of new and fluid compliance rules that have led to disruptions in implementation and constrained NGO operational space in federal Iraq. 

The Bureaucratic Liaison Unit (BLU), will support the Access Unit through direct engagement with relevant government stakeholders and through regular technical-level meetings with relevant stakeholders including NOC, DNGO and OCHA to identify issues and clear bottlenecks. NCCI’s advocacy expertise will support intensified efforts to ensure that the shrinking NGO space is brought to the attention of national and international stakeholders through government engagement, awareness-raising, and donor engagement.