The missing link between urban and rural development: Lessons from Iraqi Kurdistan Region

What is it about?

This paper aims to contribute to the development of the Peripheralization concept by highlighting the causes of increasing spatial, economic and socio-cultural disparities between rural and urban areas in post-conflict Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Since 2003 the rural-urban migration has increased in the region largely due to the decline in rural economy and the deterioration of rural infrastructure services. The majority of people who migrate from rural areas are usually settling down in the suburbs of the major cities in the region, facing new forms of exclusion (social, economic and political). This paper will, in particular, shed lights on the regional rural development policies to deal with current rural outmigration and socio-spatial exclusion in the region.

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Why is it important?

This paper emphasized that peripheralization emerged as a result of the weak economic and social links between the dominant city of Sulaimaniya and small towns of Chwarta and Basne in the rural areas of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. The functional integration of Sulaimaniya, Chwarta and Basne is very limited. This requires different kinds of policy interventions. There is a need to create a polycentric framework for the Sulaimaniya city-region, one aimed at promoting the complementary functions of Sulaimaniya city and the rural towns of Chwarta and Basne.

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