A joint partnership between UN agencies, development partners and the Government was launched to conduct a diagnostic on informality in the Iraqi labour market, which seeks to gain a better understanding of the informal economy and build a baseline for monitoring progress towards formalization; extract information on the causes and consequences of informality; provide insights on the types of activities that support the transition to formality for informal economy workers and economic units; and agree on priorities and responsibilities and to define an action plan and a road map for a policy response.

The initiative was led by the International Labour Organization (ILO), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP), UNWomen, the International Organization for Migration(IOM), the European Union (EU), Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research (Fafo) and the Cash and Livelihoods Consortium in Iraq (CLCI), which is composed of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and Oxfam.