The Cities as Home: Location Factsheets and Case Studies of Local Integration report provides a localised understanding of integration in the 15 urban locations in Iraq hosting a large share of out-of-camp IDPs.

This set of factsheets analyses the most prominent barriers and contributors to local integration in relation to IDP belonging and to host community acceptance at the location level, as well as a description of the specific regulatory landscape. Four case studies are intersected in the report offering an in-depth analysis on specific location typologies and IDP-host community dynamics.

These factsheets and case studies are part of a larger research project, Cities as Home, carried out by IOM Iraq, the Returns Working Group, and Social Inquiry, that explores both drivers and deterrents of integration across 15 urban locations that still host the largest share of IDPs in the country. The framework of integration used in the study is predicated on the understanding of local integration as stemming from IDPs’ feelings of belonging to the hosting location as well as host community members’ acceptance of them over the long term. Primary data collection for the project took place between December 2019 and July 2020 and included 2,819 household-level interviews and 40 interviews with local policy-implementers.

Additional outputs of this project include a general report on determinants of integration for IDPs and host community members and a brief report on COVID-19 regulations vis-à-vis integration.