Transition

9 Tr a n s i t i o n Small Grants Meet Needs After the conflict, the transition team moved to prevent ethnic clashes and get people started on fixing things. puter center at Mosul University in northern Iraq, the Agency’s When looters destroyed the com- quick-response team from the Of- fice of Transition Initiatives (OTI) jumped in and provided 48 computers and in- ternet access to serve the 32,000 students. “If there were three times as many com- puters here at school,” said an assistant pro- fessor, “they would be used. It was a good achievement for the Americans to set it up.” OTI was one of the first USAID offices on the ground in April 2003, quickly giving out small grants in places where security allowed relief and reconstruction to begin. Staff and contractors worked with farmers, business- men, human rights groups, educators and others to create visible projects that gave Iraqis hope they were seeing their society be- gin to change. Some 670 small grants worth $45 million were launched to provide jobs, basic services, access to information, communications, and protection of human rights. The region around Halabja was attacked by Saddam Hussein’s forces with poison gas in 1988, killing more than 100,000 Kurds. Many survivors still suffer aftereffects. One small grant helped an Iraqi doctor travel to mountain villages to offer treatment for phys- ical and mental problems. “U.S. aid is paying our salaries, the cost of our vehicle and for basic medicines such as antibiotics, analgesics and anti-parasitics,” said an Iraqi physician, as about 30 women and children crowded into a village house to meet with her medical team. Some of her patients suffer from lung and nerve damage from the “cocktail” of various nerve and mustard gases dropped on the re- gion in 1988 by Iraqi forces, she said. “If we didn’t have the U.S. funds we could not do as much as we do,” she said. Transition grants now focus on prepara- tion for a new Iraqi government, working at the national level on civic education, civil so- ciety, media development, women’s participa- tion, conflict mitigation, and transitional jus- tice. For example, they are funding public in- formation on the new constitution, election plans, and the transition to Iraqi sovereignty. To avoid conflict between ethnic or other groups, USAID gave 62 grants as of March 2004, worth $4.3 million, working closely with the U.S. military civil affairs teams in the Sunni regions of central Iraq, the Shi’ite regions in the south and various ethnically mixed locations in the north. Some 79 small grants worth $5 million helped created a national network of new Iraqi human rights groups and supported the new Ministry of Human Rights. Other grants help marginalized and vulnerable groups in- cluding women, youth, minorities, and the disabled. U.S. grants have also helped Iraqis ac- count for and move beyond the atrocities committed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Work includes protecting and unearthing mass graves, supporting the Iraqi Special Tri- bunal and other forums to address past crimes; providing services for victims of past crimes; and backing the Iraqi commission set up to handle property disputes. Another critical transitional job was to provide more than 130 Iraqi national min- istries, schools, clinics and other municipal buildings with start-up kits called “Ministries in a Box” which included desks, chairs, com- puters and office equipment. Despite the looting and destruction immediately after the collapse of the Iraqi regime, these enabled people to get back to work in a hurry. Transition activities also focused on help- ing Iraqi women, who have long had only limited participation in political and civil so- ciety. More than half of Iraq’s women are il- literate, making it difficult for them to partic- ipate in political life and to defend their rights in cases of inheritance, marriage and abuse issues. Iraq’s fertility rate of 5.4 children per woman is one of the highest in the region contributing to low infant birth weight. U.S. transition teams helped Iraqis set up women’s organizations aimed at providing educational programs, vocational training and income generating projects. Community development groups funded by U.S. teams were created to encourage women to engage in community decisions, empowering women at the grassroots levels. And parent-teacher associations also gave women both a voice in school issues as well a taste of participation in community affairs. Results ● In order to have the quickest impact after fighting ended, the Agency’s transition teams gave out many small grants. ● Mosul University’s computer lab had been looted so one grant set up about 30 computers and internet service to help stundets and teachers continue their work. ● To reach out to Iraqi- Kurdish villagers whose village was taken over by Al Ansar terrorists, transition grants spon- sored literacy classes for women. ● The “Ministry in a Box” grants paid for Iraqis to replace chairs, desks and some comput- ers so government could resume its functions quickly. Thomas Hartwell Former prisoners sort through some of the millions of files that the Ba’ath Party kept on its victims. Debbi Morello/USAID Most government offices were stripped bare in the looting that followed Sad- dam’s fall. Here replacement desks are delivered to a gov- ernment ministry as part of USAID’s “Ministry in a Box” program. August ‘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 ▲ Jordanian embassy bombed ▲ Oil pipeline in ▲ UN headquarters in Baghdad bombed north sabotaged ▲ “Chemical Ali” captured ▲ Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim killed in Najaf