BAGHDAD - Iraq has a housing shortfall of 1.5 million homes and the situation will worsen in the coming years as more and more Iraqis migrate to cities, the United Nations said on Monday.
The country also requires an additional 4,000 primary schools, while half of the 15,000-odd schools already in use require major rehabilitation, the UN's urban development agency said in a report outlining its plans in Iraq over the next three years.
UN-HABITAT noted that Iraq's total housing stock is around 2.8 million homes, a shortfall of at least 1.5 million houses, while more than half of Iraq's urban population was living in slum-like conditions.
Iraq's lack of housing is likely to become even more of a problem, the UN said, because the urban population is expected to double by 2030.
Planning Minister Ali Baban wrote in a foreword to the report that Iraq "has an increasing housing shortage ... and crumbling infrastructure and basic services, the result of years of war, neglect and lack of sufficient investment."
Baban along with senior deputy minister of construction and housing Istrabraq al-Shouk and several other Iraqi officials attended the launch of UN-HABITAT's Iraq Country Programme, held in the planning ministry's offices in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone.
"Sustainable urban development is a major challenge for Iraq with most city councils unable to provide the desperately needed basic services including housing and jobs," Shouk said at the launch.
UN-HABITAT said it would over the next three years provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government and help build its capacity, but said donor countries were increasingly of the view that Iraq should fund its own urban development programmes.
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is viewed by critics as an 'act of aggression' that violated international law.
Subsequent US occupation policies caused the country to descend into almost total chaos, bordering on civil war.
An estimated 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed in Iraq as a direct result of the invasion, while millions more have fled the country.
Critics argue that the recent stability announced in the country should not excuse the 'crime' of invading Iraq, calling for the prosecution of the war's architects for 'crimes against humanity'.
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