Housing and a Dignified Life

Chapter profile

The preceding chapter completed the rationale for social protection that prevents people from falling below the poverty line and improves the management of risks throughout the life cycle. Yet it left a risk that cash transfers alone cannot resolve: a household may have an income above the poverty line but consume it in high rent, live in an overcrowded unit, own an unserviced plot on which it cannot build, or move to the city outskirts and pay daily in transport costs, time, and interrupted services. Housing thus becomes part of economic and social stability, rather than a commodity separate from it.

This chapter does not begin from nothing. Part Seven established that a new city is not measured by its number of units; that housing far from employment, schools, and hospitals creates compulsory journeys and daily urban costs; and that a basic service is measured by what actually reaches users, rather than by the presence of a network on a map. This chapter therefore carries those conclusions from the level of cities and services into housing policy itself: how do we produce, finance, allocate, and protect housing, and connect it to a liveable place?

1. Executive summary

Housing in Iraq presents a statistical paradox from which any serious reform must begin. The final results of the 2024 General Population and Housing Census recorded 46,118,793 people, 8,054,385 households, an average household size of 5.7 people, and a total of 8.34 million dwellings designated for private residential use. They also recorded ownership or free residence with parents as 72.14% of tenure arrangements, compared with 19.41% for private rental. These figures show that Iraq's shortage is not simply a shortage in the number of buildings: the nominal number of dwellings is close to the number of households, but adequacy, distribution, location, overcrowding, quality, and ability to pay radically change the picture. ²

National Housing Policy 2025-2030 provides the clearest reading. Counting every structure hides tents, mud dwellings, temporary and inadequate units. Combining census results with the 29.1% overcrowding rate from the 2023-2024 Household Socio-economic Survey produces an estimated 2.3 million-unit deficit. This is a policy estimate, not simple subtraction of households from dwellings. The Vision uses it as a national working baseline requiring annual updates for population growth, new production and existing-stock improvements. ³⁵

The second problem is that Iraq has extensive public land, yet access to land ready for housing is difficult. Housing policy indicates that the state owns approximately 80-90% of land, but legal conversion, planning, allocation, infrastructure provision, and registration create an effective scarcity that raises land values and slows housing production. The distribution of a plot is therefore not a housing outcome unless it comes with clear ownership, a road, water, sanitation, electricity, financing, and a building-permit process that can be completed within a defined period. ⁶

In 2026, the state moved towards a major expansion of land supply through the One Million Plots Initiative. By the end of September, procedures had been completed for approximately 275 thousand plots distributed across 121 cities in 15 governorates, according to an official announcement, alongside plans to finance external infrastructure, design cities, and link some eligibility to private-sector workers covered by social security. This initiative could transform the housing market if it becomes a combination of sites, services, financing, and construction; it could also reproduce unserviced outskirts if it remains a distribution of land on paper. ¹¹

On the direct-production side, housing policy recorded, at the time of its preparation, that 21 new-city projects had been approved since 2024, with approximately 765 thousand units, and that eight additional projects with approximately 329 thousand units were awaiting approval. In 2025, the New Cities Authority was also monitoring a broader portfolio targeting 60 cities. These figures represent potential capacity, not delivered units. The chapter therefore adopts clear approval gates: a unit is not counted as an achievement until tenure, access, basic infrastructure, services, and actual habitability are in place. ⁵¹⁰

Finance is the third link. National policy recognises dependence on the Housing Fund and Real Estate Bank and limited private-bank participation, calling for refinancing, guarantees, Islamic and microfinance, rent-to-own and Community Land Trusts. The Fund reports serving over 100 thousand families and an administrative figure near 123 thousand borrowers across 14 governorates. In 2026 it introduced electronic applications with governorate quotas and two financing routes. This foundation is important but insufficient for a deficit of millions. ⁷⁸⁹

Informal settlements are more than “violations”. The Planning Ministry's survey update published in 2023 recorded 4,679 settlements and around 3.725 million residents, concentrated in Baghdad and Basra, while noting geographic coverage limits. This cannot become a definitive national total. Each settlement requires classification: feasible in-situ upgrading, regularisable tenure, environmental safety or necessary resettlement. The national roadmap separates legal/technical, financial, institutional/administrative and coordination work, an approach the Vision adopts instead of blanket clearance or legalisation. ¹²¹³¹⁴

The 2045 choice moves from “unit policy” to a “housing system” with six linked drivers: developable land, infrastructure and services, affordable finance, quality production and maintenance, tenure choices, and data and allocation governance. Household outcomes measure success: less overcrowding, excessive costs and unsafe housing; fewer new informal settlements; longer tenure stability; and affordable, timely access to work, education and services.

2. The central question and the chapter's limits

The central question is: how can Iraq build, between 2027 and 2045, a housing system that provides sufficient adequate, affordable homes connected to employment and services, uses land, financing, and infrastructure efficiently, and prevents the reproduction of informal settlements and urban poverty, without turning the state into a single contractor or the market into a mechanism that excludes low-income households?

The chapter addresses four mandatory themes from the approved index: housing as part of stability; planned cities; services around housing; and informal settlements and urban poverty. It adds only what is necessary to complete the chain: land, financing, rental housing, maintenance, construction quality, tenure rights, and market data. It does not rebuild the transport system from chapter V3-D07-C04, the water, sanitation, and waste networks from V3-D07-C06, or the social protection design from V3-D08-C04; instead, it turns their conclusions into acceptance conditions for any housing intervention.

Ownership is not the sole goal. Adequate housing may be owned, securely rented, social, incrementally built on serviced land, cooperative or rent-to-own. Security, adequacy, affordability and opportunity access matter more than one tenure form.

3. Definitions and measurement rules

Measurement rule: census figures, investment licences, announced units, and loans must not be combined into a single achievement figure. Each measures a different stage. Existing stock, units under construction, completed units, and actually occupied units must be distinguished, as must households that have acquired a legal right and households that have actually become able to live in a home.

4. Constitutional, Policy and Institutional Framework

Article 30 of the 2005 Constitution provides the rights basis: the State guarantees individuals and families essentials of a free, dignified life, including adequate income and suitable housing, reiterating housing in ageing, illness, incapacity, homelessness, orphanhood and unemployment. This does not require free ownership for every family, but rules and tools making adequate housing accessible and protecting those markets cannot serve alone. ¹

National Housing Policy 2025-2030 is the principal current framework, with six pillars: land management, unit production, finance, residential infrastructure, management and maintenance, and building materials. This avoids reducing reform to “build more”, since constraints may concern land, finance, infrastructure, upkeep or quality. In September 2026, the Ministry, UN-Habitat and partners began implementation-plan work including land management and finance. ^3171826

Functions span the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Public Municipalities and its entities, Planning, the New Cities Implementation Authority, urban-planning and municipal directorates, local governments, national and governorate investment commissions, property registration and State-property bodies, Housing Fund, Real Estate Bank, Central Bank, banks and service providers. Vision 2045 proposes no new housing ministry, but one decision chain with clear outcome ownership at each link.

5. Baseline: Population, Households, Dwellings and Tenure

The most important conclusion from this dashboard is that “one million new units” does not equal “one million households emerging from the housing crisis”. A unit may be built in a governorate or suburb without effective demand, at a price the intended beneficiary cannot afford, or without transport and services; it may also remain vacant for investment reasons. Policy therefore needs a register that matches households, location, price, tenure, and services, rather than relying on a single national total. ²³

6. The Real Housing Deficit: Overcrowding and Adequacy

The final census recorded a housing stock close to the number of households, while policy estimates a deficit of approximately 2.3 million units. This is not a paradox once the nature of the deficit is understood. A dwelling may exist yet be overcrowded, deteriorated, temporary, far from opportunity, or unavailable to the household that needs it. There may also be vacant or underused units without a mechanism to return them to the market. The Vision therefore defines the deficit as a gap in adequate, available, affordable housing in the required location, rather than a gap in concrete alone. ³²⁴

The objective through 2045 is not to reduce a fixed number to zero, because population growth and new households will continue to enter the market. The objective is for the rate at which adequate housing is created—through new construction, renovation, bringing vacant units onto the market, and reducing overcrowding—to exceed the rate at which new needs arise for several consecutive years. Demand and supply accounts should be published annually at governorate and city level, rather than for Iraq as a whole only.

7. Adequate Housing: From Walls to Life's Functions

Housing simultaneously provides physical protection, assets or stable tenure, service access and a position in labour markets and cities. Excellent engineering may place families two hours from work; central locations may lack safe water or sanitation; serviced units may impose unmanageable debt. Policies must pass a household-life test before a unit-count test.

In Vision 2045, the national minimum housing standard includes structural and fire safety; space that does not produce excessive overcrowding; ventilation, shade, and insulation suited to the climate; water, sanitation, electricity, and communications; a safe road and the ability to walk; acceptable travel times to a school, primary healthcare, employment, and public transport; and documented tenure or a clear rental contract. This standard becomes the basis for assessing state projects, market projects, and informal settlements alike: the instruments may differ, but the dignity of the outcome must not. ⁴¹⁶

8. Affordability

The housing crisis will not be resolved if supply increases but remains beyond households' ability to pay. The new housing policy places affordability at the centre of reform and points to high land and construction costs and limited formal financing. Iraq's problem is that measuring affordability remains weaker than measuring prices: we need to know the share of household income spent on rent or instalments, then add energy and transport costs, because a distant location can turn “cheap housing” into an expensive life. ⁴⁷

The decision for 2027 is to introduce a comprehensive housing module into IHSES and administrative registers, covering rent/instalments, energy spending, distance to work, number of rooms, dwelling condition, legal security, and maintenance expenses. Once a baseline is established, a housing-burden indicator should be adopted for households by income quintile, with a warning threshold when basic housing costs exceed a substantial share of household resources. The chapter does not establish 30% as an Iraqi legal rule; it uses that figure only for comparison until a national methodology is developed.

9. Land Management: Legal Abundance, Practical Scarcity

Policy identifies a structural dilemma: State ownership of around 80-90% of land does not automatically produce residential land. Ownership, land-use conversion, planning, agriculture, municipalities, registration, investment and external infrastructure overlap, creating conversion bottlenecks and higher buildable-land prices. ⁶

The solution is neither the wholesale sale of public land nor leaving it frozen. Vision 2045 establishes a national residential-land portfolio classified into land reserved for future generations and infrastructure; land for investment development; land for affordable sites-and-services schemes; land for social housing; and land on which construction is prohibited because of water, environmental, or hazard constraints. Each plot must identify the authority responsible for decisions, its market value, the cost of services, the target density, and a timetable. Land thereby becomes a planning asset instead of a political resource for distribution.

10. From Land Distribution to Serviced, Buildable Plots

The One Million Residential Plots Initiative represents the greatest opportunity and the greatest test of this rule. The official announcement on 30 September 2026 stated that procedures had been completed for 275 thousand plots within 121 cities in 15 governorates. Other meetings linked the initiative to financing external infrastructure, city designs, and targeting households without housing, including private-sector workers covered by social security. ¹¹

The Vision supports expanding supply but rejects counting land subdivision as a housing achievement. A plot should not be handed over until there is a financing plan for trunk infrastructure, a timetable for services within the site, a mechanism for financing household construction, and safeguards against rapid trading in the land. It favours the sites-and-services model recommended by housing policy: clear title + services + an incremental construction loan, enabling households to build in lawful stages instead of waiting until they have all the capital or resorting to informal construction. ²⁵

11. Housing Finance: From Public Loans to a Diversified System

Policy diagnoses reliance on the Housing Fund and Real Estate Bank with limited private participation. It advocates capital increases, sustainable recycling of repayments, refinancing and risk guarantees, private banks, microfinance, Islamic finance and rent-to-own. An ITC survey in 2025 found 31% of respondents citing absent Islamic-finance options as a barrier to housing loans or mortgages. ⁷

The 2045 model offers products by income, not one for all. Formal employees may suit long mortgages; informal workers need alternative income evidence and graduated loans; poor households need social rental or support rather than unserviceable debt; serviced-plot owners need staged construction loans; affordable-rental investors need finance conditioned on cost ceilings, quality and secure leases.

12. Housing Fund and Real Estate Bank: Disciplined Expansion

The Housing Fund is an existing foundation, not a theoretical proposal. Its official website reports serving more than 100 thousand families, presents an administrative figure of 123 thousand borrowers, and lists branches in 14 governorates. In 2026, electronic applications opened with governorate quotas, a 2% administrative fee, and a declining-balance interest loan option once the quota under the Fund Law is exhausted. These improvements matter for access and transparency, but they also reveal that financing still rests on limited quotas in the face of extensive demand. ⁸⁹

The required reform is not simply an increase in the nominal loan amount; it is portfolio and risk management. The average processing time, geographic and income distribution, proportion of loans that brought dwellings into use, defaults, cost of implicit subsidies, and number of beneficiaries who are not salaried employees should all be published. The Housing Fund should also test financing for sites-and-services schemes, renovation and insulation, and incremental construction, rather than new construction alone.

13. New Cities: More Supply or Relocated Crisis?

Policy records 21 new-city projects approved since 2024 for around 765 thousand units and eight pending for around 329 thousand. In July 2025, the Authority reported six cities awarded and three awaiting award within a planned 60-city portfolio. These could reshape housing but remain capacity until they become inhabited neighbourhoods with jobs and services. ⁵¹⁰

The Vision treats a new city as an economic and social project, rather than a real-estate plan. Every city must therefore pass five gates before expansion: adequate water and energy; public-transport and road connections; an employment base or access to employment centres; schools, healthcare, and municipal services; and phased financing that does not leave thousands of units unfinished. If the first phase fails to attract residents and services, a further expansion phase must not open automatically.

14. Complete Cities: Work, Services and Transport before Handover

Chapter V3-D07-C04 established that separating housing from employment creates compulsory journeys. Housing policy therefore uses a “45-minute” rule as a planning test proposed by the Vision, rather than a legal provision: the proportion of households able to reach a major employment, education, or healthcare centre within a reasonable time by public transport or a reliable road network. This does not mean that every Iraqi city will have a metro; it means that housing planning measures accessibility before land is sold.

External services are contractual conditions, not later government additions. Official 2026 city and land meetings explicitly discussed wastewater treatment, water plants and energy. The Vision prohibits occupancy where water, sanitation or electricity depend on unfunded or uncontracted bodies. Total city finance covers lifecycle costs, not unit construction prices alone. ¹¹

15. Renting: A Lasting Housing Option, Not Failure

Private rental represents 19.41% of reported census tenure, too large to treat as merely transitional. Young people, new families, students and mobile workers need functioning rentals. Housing Policy 2025-2030 identifies importance for low- and middle-income households but weak regulation, maintenance and protection, proposing social rental, cooperative/non-profit models, landlord renovation loans conditioned on quality and stability, and eligible-household vouchers. ²¹⁵

Vision 2045 adopts tenure neutrality: support stability and adequacy, not ownership alone. A simple electronic lease register, rapid dispute resolution, standard contracts and regular city/type rental data are needed. Protection means clarity and prevention of arbitrary eviction while retaining viable rental investment, not rent freezes.

16. Maintaining and Rehabilitating Existing Stock

Any policy that builds new housing while ignoring 8.34 million existing dwellings will lose its race against time. Housing policy points to the absence of a national database on dwelling condition and vacancy, the existence of vacant or underused units, and limited renovation programmes. It also links poor thermal performance to energy and water consumption, and proposes insulation, shading, ventilation, water-saving fixtures, and weather-resistant repairs. ²⁴

Iraq should therefore establish a “rehabilitation before replacement” programme for older homes that can be saved: small loans or jointly funded grants for vulnerable groups, safety audits, roof and wall insulation, electrical and fire-safety improvements, leak repairs, and adaptations for persons with disabilities and older people. Restoring a unit in an existing neighbourhood is often cheaper than constructing a new unit together with an entirely new network, while also preserving social relationships and location.

17. Informal Housing: Scale and Statistical Limits

The latest geographically extensive figure published by the Ministry of Planning in 2023, from the updated 2021-2022 survey, recorded 4,679 informal settlements and approximately 3.725 million residents. Baghdad had the largest number, with more than one thousand settlements, followed by Basra. However, the same statement mentions coverage limitations and indicates that some governorates and the Kurdistan Region were not included in the same way. The chapter therefore treats the figure as an important administrative spatial baseline, rather than a definitive total for the population of informal settlements in Iraq. ¹²

Informality varies: public-land settlements within urban fabric with partial roads and networks differ from floodways, dangerous industrial sites or disputed private land. One label invites unfair legalisation or destructive clearance. Settlement profiles must combine ownership, age, safety, density, services, poverty and location before choosing interventions.

18. Informal-settlement Responses: Upgrading, Regularisation and Safeguarded Resettlement

The updated national roadmap for addressing informal settlements organises reform through four frameworks: legal/technical, financial, institutional/administrative, and coordination. Official dialogue with UN-Habitat stresses the need to understand causes and select tailored solutions encompassing planning, settlement, upgrading, resettlement, and community participation. ¹³¹⁴

Vision 2045 sequences rights protection: prevent new expansion and monitor by satellite; classify risks; improve urgent health and safety services without automatically legalising ownership; regularise tenure where lawful and suitable; and resettle only where risks, public rights or infrastructure costs cannot be resolved. Relocation must measure lost jobs, schooling and social networks, not unit area alone.

19. Housing for Poor and Vulnerable Groups

Housing for poor households cannot be managed through the same market loan. A household without a stable income does not become financeable simply because interest rates fall; it may need social rental housing, a rental voucher, a low-cost unit, an improvement grant, or a serviced plot with incremental construction. Eligibility must be linked to the unified social registry developed in the preceding chapter, with a specific pathway for female-headed households, persons with disabilities, older people, homeless people, and those returning from displacement. ¹⁵

Poverty must not become spatial segregation. Peripheral projects concentrating poor people may lower unit prices while increasing urban poverty. Mixed-income development, dispersed units or rental-market vouchers are preferable, with anti-speculation and early-resale safeguards. Families should enter functioning neighbourhoods, not “projects for the poor”.

20. Rural Housing and Incremental Building

Low rural density reduces some central-network efficiencies without justifying lower services. V3-D07-C06 allows safe, maintainable decentralised water and sanitation. Likewise, larger plots, incremental building and compliant local materials with water, solar energy and appropriate sanitation may outperform copied urban apartment models.

Rural programmes should be linked to local development and employment policy, so that rural housing neither becomes a subsidy encouraging artificial reverse migration nor leaves households without an income. Licensed incremental construction should be used to reduce costs: a safe, expandable core dwelling, with a loan disbursed in stages and inspection at each stage, rather than a large unfinished house or informal construction.

21. Housing, Land and Property Rights for Displaced People and Returnees

Conflict and displacement damaged Iraqi titles, property and homes. Since 2022, UN-Habitat has protected housing, land and property rights for tens of thousands of displaced people, returnees and minorities alongside construction and rehabilitation in liberated areas. Physical rebuilding without tenure resolution leaves deferred disputes. ²⁰

Vision 2045 integrates HLP into housing registers through rights verification, digitised maps and titles, mediation, priority reconstruction in sustainable-return locations, and compensation or alternatives where return is unsafe or impossible. Displacement must not permanently exclude households from banking or municipal systems.

22. Quality, Safety and Climate

The new housing policy links the numerical shortage to safety. Official statements at its launch referred to fire risks, structural vulnerability, and extreme heat, and to the need for national rules that strengthen safety and climate resilience. ⁴

The Vision therefore proposes housing performance passports for new and publicly financed projects covering structural/fire safety, insulation, ventilation, water and energy use, accessibility and materials. Requirements phase in with finance, training and compliant supply markets rather than abruptly driving affordable housing into informality.

23. Building Materials, Value Chains and Employment

The housing sector can become an economic driver if it does not turn into a channel for construction-related imports. Housing policy links affordability to the building-materials supply chain and calls for standards, certification, quality control, and the development of low-carbon production where Iraq has an advantage. ³²⁷

Procurement and new cities provide predictable demand for cement, blocks, insulation, windows, mechanical/electrical systems and water/energy efficiency products, supported by laboratories and certification rather than blind protectionism. Vocational training and occupational safety are essential: mass building of poor units or workplace injuries is not development.

24. Housing Data and the National Register

The greatest measurement gap is that we know more about people and dwellings than about the housing market. We need a national register bringing together housing stock, occupancy and vacancy, age and condition, rent, sale prices, permits, construction time, service connections, loans, defaults, informal settlements, new cities, and social housing units. Housing policy itself records the absence of a national database on dwelling condition and vacancy. ²⁴

Build integration rather than another giant database: census and property registers, municipal permits, electricity/water, investment, Housing Fund, banks, social registry and transport. Publish monthly/quarterly price, rent and permit dashboards and annual adequacy, crowding and burden indicators, moving from price reactions to managing supply and demand cycles.

25. Governance, Allocation and Transparency

Land, housing units, and loans are three high-value assets; unless the criteria governing them are sound, housing policy becomes a channel for privilege. Every public or subsidised programme requires published eligibility criteria, auditable selection scores, an electronic lottery or objective ranking, a beneficial-owner register, safeguards against duplicate benefits, and disclosure of allocations at governorate level without publishing sensitive personal data.

Separate assistance from investment. Developers are selected for price, quality, time, infrastructure, finance and delivery history with performance guarantees, not paper unit counts. Beneficiaries should not be penalised for changed work locations or needs; regulated transfer and sale rules prevent speculation without creating dead assets.

26. Iraq's Housing System in 2045

If a link falters, policy must return to the preceding link instead of pushing the project forward. For example, if there is no funded water allocation, the problem cannot be solved by issuing building permits faster; if the intended households lack financing capacity, it cannot be solved by increasing the number of plots. This is the difference between a housing system and a portfolio of projects.

27. Transformation phases, 2027-2045

28. Indicator and target dashboard

All the targets above are policy commitments, not automatic forecasts. Indicators without a unified national baseline begin with measurement in 2027 and should not be linked to penalties or financing until their definitions and methodology are established. Targets should be reviewed every four years in light of household growth, climate, internal migration, and the labour market.

29. Implementation programme package

30. Implementation, cost and financing matrix

Fiscal rule: this chapter does not announce a single national cost figure, because costs vary radically with land, density, infrastructure, and unit type. Each programme requires a business case at project/governorate level, incorporating life-cycle costs, scenarios for land prices, materials and interest rates, and households' ability to pay. Transparency about subsidies matters more than their size: land subsidies must be distinguished from interest subsidies and rental subsidies, so that policymakers know who benefits and at what cost.

31. Risks and safeguards

32. Governance, data and monitoring

The National Housing Council/the competent governmental framework should lead a single annual review of the system, replacing separate reports from individual institutions. The national housing report should answer five questions: how many households entered the market? How many adequate units were added or restored? Have overcrowding and housing burdens declined? Where have prices risen faster than incomes? And which governorate/programme is falling behind, and why?

Implementation should be managed through a dashboard with three layers: a public dashboard showing supply, demand, prices, and progress; a government operational dashboard covering projects, land, services, and financing; and a protected individual registry for eligibility and contracts. Beneficiaries' names should not be published; allocation criteria and aggregated outcomes should be. Every subsidy, exemption, or allocation of public land must have a start date, an end date, and an outcome indicator.

An independent review should be conducted every four years before the policy is updated: a sample of new-city projects, field measurement of services and occupancy, a survey of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, an audit of the rental market and informal settlements, and an analysis of impacts on land and prices. If an instrument is shown to increase land prices more than it improves access to housing, the instrument should change, not the objective.

33. Scope of the Chapter and Conclusion of Part Eight

This chapter does not redesign cities or transport, water, and sanitation networks. Those matters were addressed in Part Seven. Nor does it rebuild the frameworks for poverty, equal opportunities, the middle class, and social protection; it draws on them to identify who needs support, what households can afford, and how housing can prevent downward social mobility.

Part Eight thus completes its logical sequence. It began with poverty as a risk to the state, followed by inequality and opportunity, the building of a secure middle class, and social protection that prevents households from falling into hardship; it ends with the physical space in which families live. Social justice remains incomplete when a household has financial security but lives in overcrowded, unsafe housing or in a neighbourhood cut off from schools, employment, and services.

34. The Bridge to Part Nine: Iraq in the World

After eight parts devoted to building citizenship, the state, security, the economy, human development, technology, infrastructure, and justice, the Vision turns to Iraq's international position. A state that addresses poverty and housing and builds connected cities gains more than domestic well-being: it reduces business costs, retains skills, makes its ports, corridors, and cities better able to accommodate investment, tourism, and trade, and transforms geography from a source of demographic and service pressures into a platform of strength.

This chapter passes three conclusions to Part Nine. First, a strategic location does not create value if cities and domestic infrastructure are weak. Second, attracting investment requires a housing market and cities capable of accommodating workers and businesses without a surge in living costs. Third, Iraq's external image is not built through diplomacy alone; it is also built through functioning cities and stable daily life on which visitors, investors, and citizens can rely.