The UN Development Program in Iraq, as well as Iraq's Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation, launched on Thursday a survey of living conditions in Iraq over the past year, which finds high levels of malnutrition, rising illiteracy and significant unemployment.

According to the report, almost a quarter of Iraqi children between six months and five years of age suffer from chronic malnutrition.

The young are reported to be more illiterate than preceding generations in that country where 39 percent of the people are younger than 15, and unemployment among young men with secondary or higher education stands at 37 percent, the report said.

Iraqi questioners, trained by a Norwegian non-governmental research organization, asked 22,000 households in 18 governorates about their housing, infrastructure, population, health, education, work, income and the status of women, and the analysis followed international standards for statistical reporting.

Although a large percentage of the population in Iraq is connected to water, electricity and sewage networks, the supply has been too unstable to make a difference to people's lives, the survey results show.

The survey not only allows for a good understanding of socio- economic conditions in Iraq, but will also be a building block for further analysis that will certainly benefit the development and reconstruction processes in Iraq.

Source: Xinhua