Former Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi implemented a swathe of initiatives designed to stimulate economic growth and improve lives and livelihoods during his time in office, including spearheading the Dari housing initiative. This article will take a closer look at the initiative, which was designed and executed with a specific focus on benefiting local communities.
In January 2022, the then Iraqi Prime Minister Moustafa Al Kazemi confirmed that over half a million plots of land had been allocated under the initiative. Designed to provide more than three million Iraqi citizens with homes, the scheme operated via an online application process. The attached infographic contains some interesting statistics on the Iraqi construction industry.
In addition to helping local people access land to build homes on, the initiative also saw the creation of health and school centres and other important infrastructure. The Iraqi Government voted on the mechanism for distribution of residential land in September 2021, paving the way for the Al Kadhimi administration to join forces with investment companies, creating infrastructure in regions where residential land was to be distributed under the Dari housing initiative.
Reflecting on the plans, Haidar Majid, spokesperson for the Cabinet Secretariat, indicated to the media that the process of handing over plots covered by the Dari initiative would be completed in a series of steps, explaining that Prime Minister Al Kadhimi had informed the Iraqi Ministry of Reconstruction of the contract with investment companies with the aim of establishing full infrastructure in all of these places. The attached PDF delves deeper into attempts by the Al Kadhimi administration to drive economic growth and improve living standards for Iraqi citizens.
As indicated by the Iraqi Planning Minister Khaled Batal, under the Dari housing initiative loans would be issued by government banks, providing Iraqi citizens with a means of purchasing residential land against which the loans were secured. The registration process on land plots comprised in the Dari housing initiative was completed in August 2021, with the names of beneficiaries who registered online announced the following month. Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi revealed that the number of application forms fulfilling the conditions stipulated on the Dari project’s website totalled 3,463,921.
