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Iraq

The National Food Security Committee


Iraq coordinates food security through a national committee chaired by the agriculture ministry and supported by a coordination unit acting as its secretariat. Separate inter-ministerial bodies address food systems transformation and oversight of the national strategy.

Institutional set-up and structure

The Committee was established by Diwani Order in 2017 and expanded in 2021 to include the Ministry of Industry and Minerals. The Food Systems Coordination Unit, also within the agriculture sector, serves as its secretariat and facilitates coordination among stakeholders. Alongside these sit an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Food Systems, in place before 2020, and a National Food System Coordination Committee overseeing implementation of the national food systems strategy. The relationship between these bodies is not fully set out in the available documents.

Mandate and decision-making power

The Committee coordinates food security effort across government ministries, civil society organisations and private sector companies. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Food Systems brings together representatives of the relevant ministries to ensure a coordinated approach to food systems transformation, and the National Food System Coordination Committee oversees implementation of the national strategy.

The Committee is tasked with the following roles (building blocks):

  • Agenda setting: advocacy and dialogue

  • Policy formulation and decision making: coordinating policy development

  • Implementation: coordinating policy and programme delivery

Who is involved

  • Government: agriculture, as chair, with trade, planning, water resources, health and environment, industry and minerals, and the national security advisory

  • Non-state actors: civil society organisations and private sector companies are named in the Committee's coordination remit; further detail is not available in the documents


Evidence base: policy documents only, 2026. Last updated: September 2026.

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