Climate Security and Social Cohesion in Al-Qurna, Northern Basra

Client: UNDP Iraq Climate Security Programme (Contract PO-10446876) | Funded by the Government of Japan | Location: Al-Qurna District, Basra Governorate | 2025–2026 | Partner: Iraqi Al-Firdaws Society (IFS)

The Challenge

Al-Qurna, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, faces intensifying salinity, extreme heat arriving earlier each year, declining river flows, and environmental pollution — pressures that drive youth out-migration, farmer-herder tensions, and erosion of social cohesion. Under UNDP's climate security and conflict-sensitive programming framework, the project worked to understand these dynamics and equip the community to respond.

What We Delivered

• Inception report, conflict mapping, and literature review grounding the programme in Basra's climate-mobility dynamics.

• Community awareness and risk-perception activities, including volunteer workshops and the establishment of a Community Task Force as a standing coordination and early-warning structure.

• A multi-stakeholder community consultation — engaging agricultural specialists, local government, women's representatives, youth, and civil society — that produced nine community-proposed adaptive initiatives.

• A prioritised shortlist of five initiatives (women and youth livelihood micro-grants, drip irrigation, salt-tolerant crop varieties, beekeeping and ecosystem restoration, and fisheries restoration), each designed with SMART indicators, conflict-sensitivity measures, and grievance mechanisms, ready for a funding envelope of approximately USD 20,000 per initiative.

Inclusion by Design

Women and youth participated as active proposers, not token attendees — women's representatives proposed and shaped several of the shortlisted initiatives. Selection criteria were designed for transparency, with safeguards against elite capture and a community grievance mechanism built in from the start.

NABU's Role

NABU provided programme facilitation, technical design, and reporting alongside IFS, whose women-led community networks across southern Iraq anchored access and trust. The engagement reflects NABU's core model: making southern Iraq's deepest community access contractible for international partners.