Shafaq News/ Baghdad remains Iraq's most populous governorate amid a rising population growth rate in the entire country, Ministry of Planning spokesperson Abdul-Zahra al-Hindawi said on Sunday.

In a statement to Shafaq News Agency, Abdul-Zahra said, "Iraq's population, according to the estimates of the Central Statistics Center, will amount to more than 41 million inhabitants by the end of 2021."

Baghdad remains the top boost to the population count with 8.75 to 8.8 million inhabitants, followed by Nineveh and Basra with four and three million, respectively. Dhi Qar, Babel, and al-Sulaymaniyah house around two million inhabitants each. Al-Muthanna is the least populous governorate with 860 thousand.

"The population growth rates remain high at 2.6% but below the 3.5% growth rate a decade ago. Converting this percentage to actual numbers, we are talking about 850 thousand to one million a year," he said, "Iraq is second after Egypt in terms of population growth."

"To mitigate the impact of this rate and benefit from the growth, the Ministry of Planning started accounting to the population dimension in the development plans. It also devised long-term population plans."

"The Ministry aims to accommodate for multiple trajectories to change the population development from a burden to effective policies," Abdul-Zahra explained, "[the policies] target the biggest segment, youth, by enabling them, providing job opportunities and proper housing. They pursue health, education, services, and infrastructure trajectories."

Abdul-Zahra added that women and partnership with the private sectors are also among the trajectories the Ministry considers.

The last population census Iraq conducted was in 1977. Over the past 15 years, the status quo forces in Iraq failed to agree on holding a new consensus that serves as a basis for resources distribution, development and reconstruction plans.