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The Iraqi National Development Plan is a multi-sectoral document aiming to create, from 2013 to 2017, a federal, decentralized, socially-integrated system that provides fair opportunities for development, in which the private sector and civil society are active partners and environmental sustainability represents an approach toward achieving a green economy. The general development proposed relates to different levels, namely the Plan aims at economic, social and environmental goals. More specifically it presents: (i) a population policy, (ii) a workforce policy, (iii) a financial policy, (iv) a monetary policy, and (v) an economic policy related to private sector. Main goals concerning the population are: (i) integrating population data in developmental plans and programs; (ii) making a progressive impact on the population growth rate; (iii) increasing the life expectancy rate at birth to more than 70 years in 2017; (iv) benefiting from the demographic dividend; and (v) organizing the population’s movement in development. The workforce policy, aiming at a productive and protected workforce, has the following goals: (i) decreasing the unemployment rate to %6 in 2017; (ii) increasing the participation rate in the economic activity to %50 in 2017; (iii) developing the activities of labor market institutions; (iv) increasing labor productivity; and (vi) creating a decent work environment. The financial policy, responsive to development needs, aims at four main achievements: (i) eliminating the budget deficit; (ii) limit imbalances in public expenditure; (iii) increase non-oil revenues and diversify their sources; and (iv) reform the financial administration towards a decentralization process. The monetary policy is the mean that contributes toward reaching sustainable economic stability and growth, through: (i) credit activities that stimulate development; (ii) keeping inflation rates within single digits; (iii) maintaining the stability of the local exchange rate; (iv) strengthening and reinforcing the foreign exchange reserve; (v) lowering the bank density; (vi) combating money laundering; and (vii) localizing information technology in the work mechanisms. Private sector in the Plan has to become an effective, competitive and competent partner with the purpose of increasing its contributions to the GDP.In order to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable, the NDP proposes between its environmental goals: practice sustainable exploitation of natural resources to protect the rights of current and future generations; preserve biodiversity by developing natural grasslands, adopting developed methods of environmental management and threatened ecosystem maintenance to guarantee bio-security; promote the spirit of citizenship and environmental awareness and strengthen environmental management and environmental tracking and monitoring.To reduce rural poverty, the Plan suggests to adopt a comprehensive strategy for rural development that would attract investments since rural areas are considered as the pockets of poverty within the country; one of this Plan’s priorities is to achieve justice and fairness in distribution of its benefits across all of Iraq’s regions and to reduce the spatial development disparity between the governorates on one hand and between urban and rural areas on the other. To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the means is putting in place environment-friendly projects and implementing policies that limit consumption of energy that produces ozone-depleting gases; limit desertification and air, water and soil pollution; revive the marshes; preserve biodiversity; and expand green spaces, together with the reduction of desertification by expanding land reclamation, establishing desert oases, and increasing green spaces and belts around cities.As for the governance, the establishment of a national policy to manage lands that will be used as rural and urban lands equally and efficiently will help achieve sustainable development, limit poverty and provide food within the market economy.
