Almost exactly one year on from the start of widespread popular protests on 1 October 2019, this rapid piece of
research aims to respond directly to the tumultuous events of the past year and explore perceptions and attitudes of young people in Iraq and Kurdistan in their own words. In particular, it compares their views of their economic prospects with those of their parents’ generation and their peers in other regions of Iraq and its near neighbours. On the basis of this primary research, the report formulates recommendations for policymakers, as well as further questions which deserve exploration in greater depth.
This research aims to highlight the extensive and complex nature of many political, social and economic issues facing young people, and merely touches the surface of several, complex deep-rooted problems and factors, which should be covered in a series of much longer studies. The timescale of this research was three months and focused on all provinces in the Kurdistan region and three provinces in the rest of Iraq (Baghdad, Basra and Thi-Qar), which have seen the most consistent protests and unrest since October 2019