Integral Alliance has hosted a teleconference for its Members to coordinate their ongoing work in Iraq, and discuss how best to be prepared for a potentially massive population displacement. As the Iraqi Security Forces and their allies plan an offensive to take back control of the city of Mosul from ISIS, the worse-case scenario would be that up to 1.5M people will be displaced. Fourteen Integral Members took part in the call. [See here for more info about the situation].
Four Integral Members are currently working on the ground in Iraq preparing for the situation, and are receiving support from other Members. Three Integral Members work in Iraq through their network of local partners, and a further five are on standby to assess the situation as it unfolds and support with funds from their supporters where possible.
Our operational Members, who include Medair, Tearfund and Mission East, are preparing for the situation by procuring and pre-positioning basic non-food items, hygiene kits, bottled water, water systems and cash programming.
Kendrah Jespersen, Iraq Desk Officer at Mission East, says, “The expected scale of the upcoming displacement demands that we be prepared to respond in advance. Mission East is already procuring and pre-positioning kits of basic non-food items, hygiene kits, and bottled water. We are also scaling up our staffing to be ready to distribute in some of the areas where the displaced are most likely to flee. Being able to discuss our plans ahead of time with other Integral Members allows us to share ideas and resources to make our collective response more efficient, especially as several of us consider expanding our activities to a new area in central Iraq at the same time.”
She continues: “The fundraising and staff secondment arrangement we have with some of our fellow Integral Alliance Members has been essential for filling critical gaps in funding and staffing for our response in Iraq since the beginning, and will play an important role in our response to the Mosul displacement as well.”
Integral Members will continue to use Integral’s ‘Disaster Monitor’ online forum to ‘watch’ this emerging situation and share information, plans, needs and resources with each other. The Integral Secretariat is on stand-by should there be the need for a full Integral Disaster Alert to be launched.
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Integral Alliance is a WEA affiliate and has served as a global partner to the WEA in the field of relief and development since 2006. Integral contributes to the WEA’s goal of fostering Christian unity around the world through working with its Members on a more integrated and collaborative strategy in disasters.
Integral has 23 Members with headquarters in 14 countries.
Integral Members work in over 80 countries, with more than 650 local partners, in over 40 sectors and have a combined income of over $700M USDs.
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