Maintain the resilience of vulnerable populations in area of return including IDPs, returnees and remainee communities and enable them to cope with the impact of the crisis, in their chosen locations in Iraq, through immediate access to food assistance and income for extremely vulnerable rural families and social awareness, in areas at high risk of tensions and humanitarian needs The crisis in Iraq has left over 2.3 million IDPs and 3.5 million returnees in extremely vulnerable situations with very limited access to humanitarian assistance due to fragile security situation and access-related challenges in western Anbar and Hawija. Social tensions continue to rise, particularly in areas in which returnees and remainee communities face economic or social hardship. Displacement and its subsequent economic repercussions upon host communities directly contributes to conflict between returnee, IDP and remainee communities, according to a recent impact assessment conducted by Human Appeal in both regions. Debt is growing among displaced/returnee communities, as well as Iraqi society as a whole, creating greater reliance on a diminishing social protection floor. The ability of the protracted returnee population to find sustainable job opportunities continues to be severely limited, with income generation remaining among one of the top needs of those populations.

Livelihoods needs often lead to social tension erupting in conflict. Assessments have shown that returnee, IDP and remainee community populations which are unable to address their needs or which struggle economically are significantly more likely to have poor relationships with other communities. This is confirmed by the fact that IDPs continue to face ethnic and socioeconomic discrimination. Where economic grievances may lead to social tensions, specific livelihoods interventions are needed to support vulnerable households. In Ninewa, Human Appeal has succeeded in developing early livelihood opportunities for the extremely vulnerable IDPs and returnees with generous support from UNHCR, WFP and others.

The conflict and civil insecurity have resulted in death, displacement and destruction and had serious impact on the food security of large number of people. Trans-boundary animal diseases and zoonosis are already a threat to the livestock population in Iraq and thus the danger to public health, especially the returnees, IDPs and remainees, is of great concern. Loss of assets and income opportunities together with disruptions of marketing activities, transport networks and farming have exposed large number of people to severe food insecurity the significant number of returnee/IDPs is also putting high pressure on remainee communities. Immediate food assistance is urgently required to mitigate the impact of the crisis and avert further deterioration.

The proposed project aims to improve access to food assistance for 2000 conflict affected IDPs, returnee and stayee families, it will enable them to cope with the impact of crisis in their chosen locations through immediate access to food assistance. Human Appeal will identify the extremely vulnerable rural families in hard-to-reach areas in Hawija with no access to PDS food rations and/or markets and provide them with dry food rations for four months.

Human Appeal will implement this project in extensive close collaboration with WFP, MoT, MoMD and other operational FS partners on ground to ensure zero duplication in all the proposed geographical locations, this collaboration will include:
1. Sharing the list of the HH assessment with WFP scope to identify duplicated names. Following HA assessment undertook before the designing of this project we released that some families have divided into two parts, the first part remain at the IDP camps to ensure continuous access to humanitarian aids while the second part have returned to the original places, such situation would significantly increase the risk of duplication at all areas
2. Human Appeal will seek the list of MoMD beneficiaries to avoid duplication
3. Human Appeal will liaise with protection cluster to exclude the families who have access to MPCA unless concrete justification made for the extremely vulnerable families
4. Human Appeal will liaise with MoT agents to avoid duplication especially in areas where PDS is functional