Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis Toolkit

Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, was captured by ISIS in June 2014 and still remains under their control. However, the Iraqi army has vowed to recapture Mosul, and the speculation is that a counter-offensive is imminent. All scenarios for this military operation have dramatic humanitarian implications. According to some estimates, between 500,000 and 1.5 million civilians could flee into either the surrounding areas or into ISIS-controlled Syria. A large influx of new internally displaced persons fleeing towards the Ninewa Plains would have an impact on markets in the area; those markets need to be understood in order to meet humanitarian needs and to inform programming in an appropriate and effective way, while doing no harm. In February 2016, Oxfam and the International Rescue Committee co-facilitated a Pre- Crisis Market Analysis to inform preparedness and emergency response interventions by understanding market systems that are critical to supporting the basic needs and livelihoods recovery needs of populations affected by displacement in the Ninewa Plains - the wheat flour, drinking water and credit market systems. This executive summary provides a condensed version of a longer report that analysed how selected market systems are performing in the current situation and aimed to forecast the impacts of the shock scenario in the target areas, before providing numerous recommendations for preparedness and emergency response measures.