CivilSociety

13 C i v i l S o c i e t y Iraqis Involved in Community Action Five NGOs work with Iraqi communities to build roads, schools, markets and other public services. Results repression, USAID provided about $70 million to create a Community Action To help Iraqis emerge from decades of Program (CAP) that helped citizens form civic organizations and select re- construction projects in their communities. The CAP drew on five of USAID’s tradi- tional allies in development and relief to car- ry out the reconstruction effort in Iraq: Mercy Corps, International Relief and Development (IRD), Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Co- operative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA), Coopera- tive Housing Foundation (CHF) and Save the Children. One NGO funded a quick, tarred road across a seven-kilometer region of central Iraq where isolated villages had spent months of the rainy season unable to reach markets, clinics, schools and other services. “People are grateful to me and they stop to thank me,” said one Iraqi contractor who built the road under a CAP grant. As he stood under a blue sky on the freshly tarred road, local drivers and passengers stopped their pickup trucks and crowded vans to thank him with effusive Arabic greetings. The CAP’s aim is for communities to de- cide for themselves on the projects and con- tribute resources to both the work and the oversight. Mercy Corps ● Set up 650 Community Action Groups to back grassroots democracy. ● Committed $48.4 mil- lion for 1,364 projects. ● Iraqi communities gave $15.3 million in la- bor, land, and buildings to joint projects. ● ACDI/VOCA focuses on Mosul, Kirkuk and the Iran-Iraq border, com- pleting 146 projects. ● CHF works in south central Iraq setting up community associations. Projects include access roads, sewage, water, school repairs, and swamp clean-up as well as commu- nity centers and sports clubs. They have completed 105 projects. ● IRD has completed 234 projects in Bagh- dad; 73 are focused on income and jobs. ● Mercy Corps complet- ed 89 water, sewage, clean-up, and school projects. ● Save the Children completed 271 projects in the south. Focus on sewage, water, public health, and girls’ education. A CAP project built safety railings on the stairwells in the buildings behind these children. Other projects remove sewage from the streets in many towns. Ben Barber/USAID Thomas Hartwell An Iraqi manager of the company which built a sev- en-mile road under a U.S. contract outside Hillah, stands as cars begin to use the route. Children at a kindergarten in Basrah. The school was refur- bished through a USAID grant to Save the Children. Young Iraqis practice their computer skills at a women’s center south of Baghdad. The center also offers nutrition and health classes and plans to open an Internet cafe. Dec. ‘03 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 ▲ Program creates 50,000th job ▲ Work on Umm Qasr railroad begins ▲ 350th small education grant ▲ Baghdad telecommunications exchange reopens ▲ Saddam Hussein captured International phone service restored ▲ Locals councils ▲ created throughout Iraq Thomas Hartwell