On Sunday, 8 April 2007, a High Level briefing meeting for The International Compact with Iraq (ICI) was held in Baghdad, co-chaired by HE the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Dr. Barham Saleh, and HE Ibrahim Gambari, the Special Adviser of the United Nations Secretary-General.

The Baghdad meeting comes as a follow-up to the successfully held ICI meeting in New York at UNHQ on 16 March 2007, hosted by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and co-chaired by Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. During the New York meeting the Iraqi Government presented its vision for Iraq and its commitments to addressing the political, security and economic challenges that face Iraq. These were tabled in an ICI document that included a Joint Monitoring Matrix (JMM) which lists indicative actions that would enable the government to meet Compact benchmarks. This JMM will facilitate the monitoring and reporting of progress toward the successful implementation of the ICI.

Dr Saleh announced that the International Compact for Iraq would be formally launched in in a ministerial meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on 3 May 2007. This meeting will invite the international community to express its support for the government of Iraq and the International Compact through commitment to various means of financial and/or technical assistance and debt relief .This launch of the ICI will be followed on May 4th by a ministerial meeting of Iraq, its neighbors, permanent members of the UN security, the G8 and Egypt and Bahrain.

The meeting was attended by representatives of number of States through their diplomatic missions in Baghdad, as well as multilateral institutions.

The International Compact for Iraq was developed by the Government of Iraq with the support of the United Nations and the World Bank, to deal with the serious challenges that currently face Iraq. The ICI represents the framework for a partnership between Iraq and the international community to achieve political stability, reconstruction and development.

The ICI's objectives, strategies and benchmarks were devised in response to these challenges and aim to meet the government’s vision for a ‘secure, unified, federal and democratic nation, founded on the principles of freedom and equality, and providing peace and prosperity for its people’