12 August 2006, Erbil, Kurdistan – Iraq (KRG) - The Kurdistan Regional Government created the new Ministry for Sports and Youth in May this year, appointing Taha Barwary as the Minister. In an in-depth interview, Minister Barwary answers questions about the ministry’s responsibilities and plans, and the challenges it faces.

What are the areas for which your ministry is responsible?

Minister Taha Barwary: The Ministry for Sports and Youth (MOSY) has two very broad areas of responsibility. Within these two main areas of sports and youth, there is a whole array of responsibilities that are under the direct jurisdiction of MOSY. By and large, the development of the sports movement has been extremely limited in the Kurdistan Region due to the area’s violent history. Similarly, there is an undeniable lack of progress in the situation of young people in the region.

For these reasons, the responsibilities of MOSY are very broad. They range from providing sports facilities and appropriate infrastructure in all communities, to promoting the training of professional athletes, and legislating on compulsory sports classes as part of primary and secondary school education, in cooperation with the Ministry for Education.

With regards to the youth, our responsibilities cover legislating on youth interests and rights, supporting youth movements, empowering young people in all aspects of society, working for the large number of unemployed youth and breaking the isolation of the youth in the Kurdistan Region.

In living up to its responsibilities, MOSY will direct its policies mainly towards improving the situation of rural youths, socially marginalised youths with financial and social difficulties, out-of-school youths, adolescents (particularly female adolescents), youths with disabilities, and youths under especially difficult circumstances.

What are the goals of your ministry?

TB: MOSY has formulated an overall vision that gives a clear idea of the direction towards which we will conduct its work. This general vision is the creation of “a developed democratic civil society for all citizens regardless of gender, age, religion, ethnicity, social or economic background”.

More specifically, the main goals for the development of sports are the creation of “a democratic, independent and self-maintaining sports movement”, and the achievement of “active, engaged and health-aware citizens with democratic values who promote the Kurdistan Region in regional as well as international contexts.”

Together, these main goals envisage a sports movement which can manage most sports activities in the region through federations and through citizens who participate in sports activities through voluntary engagement. We also work to promote democratic values such as honesty, fair play, leadership, teamwork, tolerance, empathy, respect, trust, confidence, communication, participation, and problem-solving.

Our main goals with regards to the youth are to develop “a free, independent, creative, active, educated and stimulated youth population”, and to achieve “a democratic, self-perpetuating, influential and participative youth movement and population”.

The ministry will work towards establishing a youth population of free individuals who live in a peaceful society with good living conditions and standards of living, pursuing a life of responsibility, independence and activity in society as whole citizens, with rights and obligations. The ministry will also work to ensure that the young have access to political power, to politicians and their agenda setting, and that they live in a society which allows them to develop a coherent and organised powerful voice with the ability to influence society.

What policies are you putting in place to achieve these goals?

TB: The extent of the policies required to fulfil our realistic, albeit somewhat ambitious goals are vast. It will take many years to implement these changes, and it will take even longer for these changes to show their effects. Although the skeleton of the ministry’s policy has been drafted, the details are still in the making.

MOSY will use internationally recognised agendas as the basis for its policies and adopt them to local problems and needs. In doing so, in all its planning and implementation MOSY will take into consideration different perspectives to ensure that the outcome of all its policies are democratic, equal and sustainable. MOSY will thus keep the issues of gender equality, ethnicity, age, religion, social conditions, disabilities, sustainability, environment and drugs, at the forefront of all its activities.

On a more specific note, with regards to sports MOSY thinks it is vital to cooperate with existing civil society organisations in the process of drafting and implementing its policies. As part of this effort, MOSY will establish an Advisory Board which can be in direct contact with sports organisations. We will also support the establishment of the Kurdistan Region Sports Confederation to manage the sports movement as an umbrella organisation. The ministry also intends to support the sports movement and boost the creation of new sports organisations to diversify the kinds of sports practiced in the region. This will be one of the major tasks of the ministry; providing government support, financial or otherwise, to sports and youth organisations, because MOSY firmly believes that strengthening civil organisations is indispensable to the creation of a strong and durable democratic society.

The ministry must also take an active part in the initial work of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, to work towards ensuring a rightful Kurdistani presence in Iraq’s Olympic activities. The ministry is very concerned with maintaining an international presence for Kurdistani sports and for youth within relevant international arenas.

We will also work to strengthen communication and cooperation between KRG ministries, so that we can coordinate our mutual efforts towards improving access to sports and young people’s lives. For example we expect to develop cooperation with the ministries for health, education, justice, social affairs, planning, culture, environment, and naturally any other ministries which may become relevant to MOSYs work. It will also be necessary to found an Institute for Sport which will, amongst other things, carry out research, planning, translations, statistics, policy formulation, evaluations and follow-ups.

On a more practical level, the existence of sports movements and of active citizens also depends on improving and changing the infrastructure, which will facilitate sporting activities. We need to build stadiums, swimming pools, running and walking paths, set up football fields, tennis and basketball courts, and so on. And it is equally important to establish schools to train sports leaders and sports teachers.

MOSY also hopes to promote the benefits of sports for psychological as well as physiological rehabilitation of our citizens who suffer from post-war traumas. Another ministry policy specifies programmes for disadvantaged groups, providing them with beneficial and uncontroversial opportunities to participate in a variety of sports-related activities and programmes.

With regards to the youth, MOSY will establish a Board for Youth Affairs and cooperate with it on youth-related matters. The ministry will work very hard for the legal rights of young people. A substantial part of its work will be to lobby for the rights of the young in parliament, to direct efforts towards evaluating the implementation of these rights, and to fight through political means against all forms of discrimination against youths, including discrimination based on sex, religion and ethnicity, social and economic background. It is of immense importance that the youth of our region feel that they have legal backing and that they themselves can, through our ministry, work to improve their situation. Additionally, a Youth and Child Ombudsman will be put in place. This will be a government agency which will investigate complaints from young citizens of injustice arising from maladministration by agencies and authorities and aims to preserve and protect children’s rights in society.

MOSY will use the existing youth movement as an advisory and evaluating body to the ministry and will establish an Advisory Board which will work with the ministry. Another important task facing the ministry is to strengthen existing youth organisations. There are a large number of youth organisations in the Kurdistan Region today, many of which are in urgent need of reform. Some lack democratic practices and statutes, others lack the means to improve and expand; others have yet to include girls or young women. The ministry hopes to provide these organisations with various opportunities to improve their structures and practices through seminars, work-shops, international exchanges and other incentives.

In the longer term, the ministry will work together with the higher education ministry, education ministry and universities to ensure the spread of IT and young people’s access to the internet and computers through libraries, schools, universities, cafes and homes. Furthermore, schools for training youth leaders will be established. If these are widespread and sufficiently funded, then representatives from as many youth organisations as possible can participate and receive training for trainers and then pass on their experiences to their particular organisation.

How do you carry out the main functions of your ministry?

TB: MOSY is a new ministry. This has provided me as the Minister with the opportunity to ensure that it will be staffed by a carefully selected number of competent, skilled and highly qualified individuals. Smooth cooperation between the staff and myself is imperative to the functioning of the ministry. Furthermore, cooperation between MOSY and other relevant ministries as well as relevant interest groups will ensure the success of our work. All these relations will be carefully regulated by a clear set of rules and regulations.

In order to ensure the success of our policies, MOSY needs to be flexible and have an available mobile ministry team which can hold seminars and lectures across the Kurdistan Region, to inform and promote our vision and policies and hold consultation and policy forums to ensure that all relevant voices in society are heard. This will also function to improve the sense of trust in the ministry and its work, and hopefully make people more responsive to the changes proposed by the ministry.

Can you please provide some basic statistics of your ministry?

TB: There is currently very limited availability of statistics in Kurdistan. What I can tell you is that there is a general lack of sports facilities, and physical exercise does not have the compulsory place it ought to have in schools. There is also insufficient training of sports leaders and insufficient support for professional athletes.

With regards to the youth in the region, unemployment and school drop-out rates are high, university education is not at international standards, legal rights of youths have yet to be improved and university graduates are underpaid. These are just some of the conditions faced by the youth.

What are the biggest challenges faced by your ministry? How do you intend to tackle those challenges?

TB: There are a set of very obvious challenges facing our new ministry. To begin with, young people in the Kurdistan Region are very sceptical about the good-will of politicians and political parties. My initial months as a Minister have been heavily dominated by listening to the public, to youths and those active in the sports movement, and the disappointment of the young is very palpable.

It is extremely important to take these concerns seriously. We must both invigorate and activate the young to provide them with the tools to improve their own situation. It is important for government institutions to establish their reliability, and it is important for the public to hold their representatives accountable. Having said that, it is equally important that citizens learn the value of civic responsibility and realise that the government is not responsible for all aspects of citizen’s lives; human beings must also take personal responsibility for their shared society. MOSY will work to solve this issue by holding seminars, workshops, courses, by maintaining a real presence in the public, by keeping its promises and maintaining its cooperation with relevant actors.

A second major structural issue facing the ministry is the lack of appropriate sports facilities and infrastructure. This is a large and costly problem to solve, and we will solve it over time and hopefully through a great deal of cooperation and support from the international community and relevant donor countries.

This brings me to the third major problem which really cripples our work: the limitations of our budget. Because the issues at hand are so large, they demand resources which cannot be covered by MOSY’s annual budget. As I intend to run a very proactive ministry, this will hopefully not hinder our progress. It will be necessary to find appropriate funding internationally and it is also very important that we look to the federal budget in Iraq for the areas of sports and youth and ensure that the Kurdistan Region receives its rightful share of external funding for Iraq.

How do you intend to modernise your ministry to meet the increasing demands placed upon it?

TB: This ministry is the first Ministry for Sports and Youth in the Kurdistan Region. It is not a question of “modernising” it is a question of setting up appropriate standards from the get go. This ministry will not be run on the basis that modernisation is desirable for its own sake. We are more than aware that the demands on our ministry are high, this illustrates the strong sense of political and social awareness within Kurdish society and in particularly among the youth.

The ministry will be partly staffed by Kurds who have lived abroad and are highly educated in their areas of expertise. I am confident this will ensure that the standards of operation and efficiency remain high.

In terms of technology, the ministry will make use of modern systems to maintain a high level of efficiency in its work and ensure that matters are dealt with systematically. Furthermore, the ministry will hold specified office hours for those who wish to meet with a representative.

In addition, I intend to conduct regular evaluations, internally within the ministry and externally with members of the public. It is important to evaluate the implementation, influences and effects of policies within the ministry and in society using interviews, polls, questionnaires and field studies at different stages of our work.

How can members of the public contact you if they have a question about your ministry or if they need your services?

TB: MOSY places great importance on its availability to the public. There are several ways to contact us. Below are our contact details. MOSY encourages the public to use these contacts to express their concerns and provide suggestions for the improvement of the ministry and other relevant concerns. MOSY has also launched its website which will be the most important source of contact and information between the public and the ministry. We strongly encourage the public to regularly check the website for updates regarding the ministry’s work and calendar of activities.

Email: contact(at)mosy-krg.org




Office: Wednesdays 09.00 – 13.00, the ministry has office hours for the public. Please make an appointment in advance.

Website: www.mosy-krg.org