In close collaboration with international and local partners and authorities, Welthungerhilfe empowers people to break out of hunger and poverty, with measurable impact, integrity and accountability. In 2019 alone, Welthungerhilfe directly supported more than 18,000 people (209,627 individuals indirectly) – men, women, and children in villages and towns across the districts of Sinjar, Tel Afar, Tel Kaif, Dohuk, Erbil, Mosul, Al-Hamdaniya in Ninewa Governorate.
From emergency aid to recovery and resilience
Welthungerhilfe aims to strengthen humanitarian aid and link it with development. We work across all aspects of rehabilitation. This includes the basic reconstruction of service centres and social infrastructure, such as implementing Cash for Work project activities as a means of providing communities with emergency assistance in a dignified manner. Rehabilitation also involves generating employment and job creation, therefore directly contributing to economic development and thus strengthening resilience. We place women in in the centre of our work by both supporting them within our teams and by ensuring that protection strategies are incorporated into our programming to make it relevant and accessible to vulnerable women.
The following four programme areas link our focus areas with the fight against hunger and poverty: Humanitarian Assistance; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); Agriculture and Environment; and Economic Development.
In Iraq, through our Cash for Work activities we rehabilitate public and private basic infrastructure such as water treatment plants, pump stations and water networks. In order to be as inclusive as possible, we also provide unconditional cash assistance to reach people with disabilities, vulnerable women and youth with limited employment opportunities.
Protection relates to the safety, dignity and rights of people affected by disaster or armed conflict and has become an additional focus of our project activities in Iraq. Our protection teams assist people in need through interventions to help them understand their rights. Furthermore, we hold awareness raising sessions on relevant topics such as trauma prevention, early marriage, child labour and basic human rights.
Welthungerhilfe developed an emergency preparedness plan and set up a local emergency response team to reduce the humanitarian impact of humanitarian crises and disasters in a timely, effective, consistent and coordinated manner.
Access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene is a human right and a prerequisite for fighting hunger and poverty. Our WASH projects are primarily located in the rural areas of Ninewa Governorate.
These projects improve large-scale water and sanitation infrastructure and focus on the rehabilitation of small-scale public WASH facilities. Additionally, Welthungerhilfe works closely with local authorities and provides capacity building trainings.
Through household and community level awareness raising sessions we promote good practices on health and hygiene, including menstrual management and awareness for girls at schools.
Hunger is most prevalent in remote regions where people typically draw their food and livelihoods from the natural environment.
In Iraq, we support returnees and vulnerable host community members in their ability to effectively work in agriculture. Welthungerhilfe empowers communities to help themselves on a long-term basis, by using market-based approaches that enable people to continue to earn a living from their agricultural products.
Through the provision of agricultural, resource-efficient and modern farming training, we seek to empower rural families to achieve sustainable food and nutrition.
Currently we are also introducing renewable energy to the agricultural sector to improve the production in an environment friendly and sustainable manner.
Acknowledging the complexity of eradicating hunger and poverty, Welthungerhilfe encourages economic development and education to tackle the causes of hunger and poverty in a sustainable manner.
Through market-based approaches, agricultural project participants can restart their production and yield surpluses can be sold for profit. Economies are further boosted through the establishment and reestablishment of businesses in the project areas, while unemployed youth are engaged through an apprenticeship programme to increase their skills and employability post-apprenticeship.
Our economic development activities include:
Provision of grants for local business owner and start-ups
