Eng. Aieda Ismail

Eng. Mohamed Z. Abdul Wahab

Eng. Mazin Dh. Nouri

MINISTRY OF PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

CHARACTERISTICS

IRAQ located between (37 15 , 29 5=)north latitude and (48 45 , 38 45)east longitude .

THE Area of IRAQ (438,317) square kilometers .

Large parts of Iraq consist of desert , but the area between the two a major rivers Euphrates and Tigris fertile , the north of the country is largely mountainous with the highest point being a 3611m.

Iraq has a small coastline with the Arab gulf .

IRAQ is divided into 18 governorates

1- Baghdad 2- Salah Din 3-Diyala 4-Wasit

5- Maysan 6- AL Basrah 7- Dhi Qar 8- Al Muthanna

9-Al-Qadisyah 10- Babil 11- Karbala 12- An Najaf

13- Al-Anbar 14-Ninawa 15- Dahuk 16-Arbil

17- Kirkuk 18- Al Sulaymaniyah

The population is 26,074,906 .

- Consist of Arab, Kurds, Turkmen's .

-Muslims make up 96% of populations .

- Christian and other religions make up 3% .

- Arabic is the official language as well as Kurdish language

Level of urbanization( % of total population )

in urban settlements

Urban population annual growth%

Rural population annual growth%

1975 2000 2025 1975-2000 2000-2025 1975-2000 2000-2025

61,39 77,08 85,42 3,98 2,75 0,93 0,53

Urbanization Trends size and the growth Urb & Rur Population 1975-2025

Different changes have taken place during the last 25 years which affected Iraq's infrastructure and put the Iraq's condition in critical position like Iranian-Iraqi war, the sanctions by United Nations that continued more than 13 years, adopted policy and moreover the last war conflict in 2003.

Introduction:

Ministry of planning and development cooperation has a vital role in urbanization process; its role could be seen through achievements in the field of urban development. Achievements of making researches, studies, following up the governmental as well as donors projects (funded by the donors). Ministry of planning consist of relevant directorates to the topic of urban development such as regional planning and environmental affairs, construction, housing and services directorate, geographical information center / central statistics organization, economical planning and the governmental investment programme directorate, industrial planning directorate, agricultural planning directorate, transportation and telecommunication directorate, etc.. Those directorates are working connectively with each other to reach the aim of human development, as the human is the main cell of the society. Two directorates in the ministry of planning and development cooperation that are strongly involved to the process of urban development, which are Regional Planning and Environmental Affairs directorate as well as Construction, Housing and Services directorate.

Regional Planning and Environmental Affairs:

Regional planning represents one of the important scientific methods that can be use in planning the comprehensive development. It represents the essential method to achieve the balance in the distribution of the different projects, also the economical, social, and physical investments among the Iraqi governances in one hand and among urban centers as well as rural areas in another hand in the aim of eliminating or reducing the variance in the development level among different areas.

Aims :

The main aims of the regional planning and environmental affairs are concentrating in distribution of economical activities as well as social in a way of insuring the elimination of the variance among different cities, reducing the difference in development levels from one side and between urban areas and rural areas from another side, creating balanced network for the size of the cities in Iraq, distributing developing projects and especially the industrial ones and energy projects in a way of being adequate to the needs of the national security, identifying the economical and social qualifications as well as the size of resources for the future development plan, studying different development directions for the areas that have privacy or have limited problems like desert areas or mountain or marshes, analyzing the projects in a way of protecting the human and natural environment and finally the public contribution and raising the public awareness towards the environment in order to achieve the idea of eliminating and reducing the environmental effects from the source.

Duties:

As duties, preparing spatial balance for the national development plan, setting up regional development strategies along with its consequences of development indicators, setting up basis and policies that deal with urban development, making development studies and finally evaluating the framework plans for the governorates.

Background:It is known that humans can affect and be affected by the ambient environment; this interactive between each other may be either positive or negative. However, negative impacts usually exceed the limits more than positive ones. In the last periods, the process of the negative affection had been accelerated due to the expansion of geographic effects region and the complexity of such effects.Two major causes, which lead to city expansion and affect the environment, can be allocated as population growth and migration from rural areas to big cities.

In Iraq there are three major cities Mosul in the north, Baghdad in the middle as the capital and Basrah in the south. As a consequence of the military conflicts faced by the country in the last decade, policies were adopted to improve some cities on the expense of others. The former government gave high consideration to develop the capital and some small cities in the north of the country and neglected other governorates. Application of central planning methods caused unfair distribution of financial resources to other cities. High interests were given to the armament issues.

According to above mention policies, the following consequences were noted:Expansion of cities continuously in the direction of neighborhood areas, which are usually

green lands.Magnificent increase of utilization of different kinds of transportation means causing

pollution.Allocating industrial plants near the cities` neighborhoods and effect of these plants on the

city itself. The negative changes of residential criteria’s accordance to social aspects and traditions as

well as changes from horizontal residence to vertical one. High demand for modern services such as energy, sewage systems, solid wastes, and

drinking water taking into consideration the negative impacts on these facilities.

After the 2003 military conflict, the government could not impose the laws and regulations because of the lack of institutional means such as police. This the case hundreds of thousands from governorates moved to main cities such as Baghdad, Mosul and Basrah. For instance around 2 millions of immigrants moved to the capital Baghdad seeking job opportunities. 7 millions estimate the population of Baghdad now. Due to high percentage of unemployment in the country, thousands of people living in the neighborhood governorates have been entered the capital looking for jobs, it is estimated that the population in Baghdad reach 9 millions in the day time. Such huge number of population with a lack of adequate services, the situation getting worse and worse. Thousands of families coming from other governorates invaded all the governmental buildings and offices and occupied the vacant lands to build their shelters illegally. The impact of this situation is very bad on the environment. Huge number of cars, illegal access to the water supply system, an adequate solid waste management and the random distribution of activities,etc. all together lead to the environmental deterioration in the city. As a consequence of the expansion in population in Baghdad, the needs for public services were increased magnificently. The municipality establishments are not able to offer the basic requirements. As is the case, people started to access illegally on drinking water network and electricity installation.

Prospective Plans and Strategies:

Regional planning and environmental affairs directorate had introduced many solutions as fast steps as well as long ones. Land distribution to the public in the surrounding areas of big cities would be a fast solution with take in into the account the land use criteria. Fare distribution of investment projects would be efficient solution by means of development balance. Constructing new industrial cities would absorb and eliminate migration from low-income areas to the most prosperous ones. Providing chances for other people by transferring some of the services from the big cities to other small cities. Creating satellites cities to the big cities. (some had been inspired by the Korean experience).

Construction, Housing and Services:

Introduction: Construction, housing and services directorate is one of the important directorate in the ministry of planning and development cooperation because it is dealing with 24 ministries and 13 administrations and unions in the Iraqi government in order to monitor the development process by means of following up the developing plans implementation as well as projects achievements control. This directorate is also one of the oldest directorates that have the plans, ideas, and the comprehensive view of the new Iraq. Moreover, the directorate deals with the donors plans, as it is the case after the last war conflict in 2003 in the plan of rebuilding Iraq. The estimation of total cost and annual allocation of the proposed projects related to the potable water supply for municipality purposes, the health care buildings such as hospitals and nursing centers, the building of schools, universities, education institutions and the housing centers. Those mentioned projects are introduced by the Iraqi ministries to the directorate of construction, housing, and services in order to be studied according to above factors in the unified federal budget of the country.

Participating in the annual discussion as a previous work for the projects following up with sides such as ministries & governorates that is return to the capital investment budget as well as the donors sides both international and private organizations. Introducing lectures that illustrate the view and the benefit of the capital investment budget and the donors as well as following up projects procedure for all relevant sides all over IRAQ. Keeping real corresponding with all governorates and ministries to our directorate either by hot line or via internet in order to give them the legal and specific solutions they faced which may hinder the major plan and give them the official solutions as soon as possible to prevent the delay and the routine in the governmental directorate .

Future viewDifferent ideas had been drawn in the mind from the Korean experience in the field of

urban development and management. Ideas that can be applied on the Iraqi field such as the concept of constructional investment and its related issues to the economic development. Moreover, the distribution of the services in different cities for forward development and decentralization of services in the big cities can be effective approach in Iraqi field as well.