DEAD SEA COAST, Jordan, 16 May 2004 — World donors have made good on pledges to inject about $1 billion of the $33 billion of aid earmarked for Iraq’s rebuilding into trust funds run by the United Nations and World Bank, the country’s planning minister said yesterday.
Mehdi Al-Hafedh told reporters ahead of a World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan that donors would assess the flow of aid and make more pledges at a May 25-26 meeting in Doha. “We now have in the range of more than $1 billion now and I expect more to come,” Hafedh said. “This is money deposited in the (trust) funds.”
The funds have come in despite escalating violence in Iraq that has seen scores of foreign civilian contractors involved in the reconstruction process slain or kidnapped, Hafedh said.
“There are problems, no doubt, and this will continue as a concern to us. Without security and stability in the country it will be difficult for us to proceed,” said Hafedh, charged with overseeing relations with donors.
Several countries that opposed the US-led war to oust President Saddam Hussein, including France and Germany, refused to contribute any aid to Baghdad if the United States and Britain — who currently occupy Iraq - control the funds.
They said they preferred to give aid directly to Iraq or contribute to trust funds run and audited independently, while Washington has been injecting its billions of reconstruction money directly into Iraqi projects. Hafedh had outlined $4 billion of projects for donor consideration at a February meeting in Abu Dhabi to activate aid pledges made at a September donors’ summit in Madrid.
At the time, the United States said it would have committed $10 billion of the $18.6 billion it has earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction by mid-year. Other donors said they would funnel $1 billion of the aid they had pledged in Madrid to the trust funds.
The flow of aid and commitments to specific projects should pick up once Iraqis take over power from US and British occupiers on July 1, Hafedh said.
“Many obstacles will be removed particularly with regards to international recognition of the country,” Hafedh said.
Meanwhile, riot police deployed here yesterday as unions and opposition parties protested against the WEF. Around 100 delegates took part in a sit-in at the headquarters of the Jordanian trade federation as dozens of anti-riot police and security forces cordoned off the building, AFP correspondents said. The delegates held up placards branding the WEF as “dealers of human blood”, and vowing that “imperialists will be defeated” as well as rejecting privatization schemes and trade agreements.
Dozens of delegates from Arab civil society organizations concluded a two-day anti-globalization conference in Amman calling for the creation of an Arab economic unions capable of competing with international markets.
Around 850 delegates from 51 countries, two-thirds from the Middle East, are to take part in the three-day forum which started yesterday. The guests include Jordanian King Abdallah, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, UN special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher.
