81323050-Transforming agribusinesses to improve the employment situation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Despite Iraq's macroeconomic position as an upper-middle-income country, the economic situation in Iraq is tense and employment opportunities are scarce. IDPs, refugees from neighbouring countries, as well as host communities of displaced persons in Iraq face a high level or high risk of poverty stemming from the lack of prospects for income-generating employment. These groups often have insufficient qualifications for existing jobs or the qualifications are not recognised. Lack of access to finance for entrepreneurial activities and to employment-related networks further hampers employment growth. Structural business development support for start-ups and scale-ups is rare. Existential constraints often push vulnerable labour market participants into short-term, informal jobs with no prospects for long-term decent employment. Many IDP returnee and refugee families as well as vulnerable households in general rely on small-scale farming and livestock. Most of these enterprises are small, informal, and low in productivity due to limited access to finance and structured support as well as limited equipment and water access, weak business and marketing capacity and poor market linkages. Environmental pressures reduce agricultural productivity further and make climate-smart practices and improved resource management critical. Women and people with disabilities are severely disadvantaged. Despite very low participation in the labour market, 30% of women of working age are unemployed (compared with 13% of men) and there are far fewer female than male entrepreneurs. Women account for just 11% of the working population and have less access to land and other assets as well as financial services. People with disabilities are confronted with major barriers when trying to enter the labour market, hence, many are unemployed. Women with disabilities face an almost complete exclusion from the labour market, resulting from a combination of social stigma, physically inaccessible envi