As of March 15th, 2022, IOM estimates that approximately 20,148 individuals are displaced across 10 governorates in Iraq due to water scarcity and climatic factors. Apart from climate change, drought related displacement, and rising food prices, Iraq faces challenges in the private sector, including a lack of supportive industrial policies, limited access to financial and non financial services, low domestic demand and purchasing power, and a brain drain of univeristy graduates to other countries and to the public sector, which offers comparatively better salaries, job security and pensions than the private sector.
With firms tending to invest minimally in their businesses, considerations for environmental sustainability are rarely a priority issue for business owners or end users. Although many institutions run programmes for MSME development, a lack of coordinated mechanisms to amplify impact and a lack of dedicated financing for early-stage startups relative to the unemployed labour force have meant that environmental considerations are often an afterthought, rather than the core foundation, of Iraqi business models.
The Enterprise Development Fund – Green targets innovators in sustainable development and those that are contributing to climate adaptation and resilience in Iraq. EDF-Green builds on lessons learned from the EDF-agriculture, started in 2021, such as small-scale irrigation infrastructure that is not yet common in Iraq, and from EDF-renewables, a pilot run by IOM in 2019, which identified opportunities to encourage uptake and use of renewable energy technologies.
EDF-Green also works with start-up companies, given the lack of venture capital available for early-stage companies in Iraq, and where possible work with other incubation programs, CSOs, and private sector development organizations to provide additional investment readiness programming for granted businesses. IOM can apply some of the lessons learned working with start-ups from its current ongoing programming with the tech sector, female-owned, and Cultural and Creative Industry businesses.
Types of businesses that the EDF-green may target include:
To strengthen environmentally-friendly business practices in #Iraq, IOM supported Omed to implement the largest #solarenergy system in the country through the Enterprise Development Fund - Green (EDF-G) programme.
EDF Overviews -
EDF-Green Overview
EDF Adaptation Assessments -
Renewable Energy Feasibility Study
