In 2016, as the Government of Iraq and the Global Coalition against DAESH were making progress in expelling DAESH, also known as ISIS, from towns and cities—which at the height of its expansion controlled forty percent of Iraqi territory—UNDP was requested to establish the Funding Facility for Immediate Stabilization (FFIS) to provide rapid, civilian-led stabilization assistance immediately following the military-led liberation of territory.

The FFIS was to be an on-demand facility with the primary objective of facilitating the return of millions of conflict-displaced Iraqis. Aside from facilitating return, the FFIS would lay the groundwork for reconstruction and recovery and safeguard communities against the resurgence of violence and extremism.

The Facility delivered in four areas (“Windows”), as follows:

1. Public works and infrastructure rehabilitation.

2. Livelihoods.

3. Capacity support to local governments.

4. Social cohesion.

The Facility’s donor partners had—and continue to have—different interpretations of stabilization (in terms of definitions, methodologies, approaches, and desired outcomes). However, the focus on Internally Displaced Person (IDP) return created unity of purpose among the multiple FFIS partners, an essential foundation for the FFIS’s success.