Multi-Actor Response to the Internal Displacement of Iraqi Nationals: A Field Study on Coordination of the Humanitarian Emergency Response in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Abstract: In the summer of 2014, about one million Iraqis were forced into internal displacement in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) following successful incursions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant into bordering areas. To mobilize assistance and respond to the immense humanitarian needs, the UN assigned the situation its highest level of emergency, L3. This thesis investigates the emergency response coordination structure that had evolved four months later between the Kurdistan Regional Government, the UN, and non-governmental organizations, and analyses factors that constrain efficient coordination. Through a field study made in the KR-I, and based on approximately 50 key informant interviews, this thesis found that the emerged structure was so complex, non-uniform, and unsystematized that few understood or trusted it. Coordination at all levels of the response was insufficient, leading to both gaps and over-lappings: inconsistencies and redundancies. Characteristics of organized anarchies (i.e. fluid partici¬pa¬tion, unclear technology, and problematic preferences) help explain the low level of coordination. Furthermore, weak leadership as well as dispersed and inadequate resources—financial and human—intensified competition among the actors involved, which further impaired incentives for coordination (e.g., lack of information sharing). This, in combination with uncertainties regarding future funding and security, poses challenges to meet the needs of the internally displaced Iraqis in a systematic, coordinated, and sustainable manner.