DOHA, 26 May 2004 — Iraqi interim leaders issued a cry for urgent help from donor countries yesterday as aid only trickles through and violence rages ahead of the US-led coalition’s June 30 deadline for the handover of power.
“Iraq needs your help now,” interim Planning Minister Mahdi Al-Hafidh told a meeting of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq and the Donors Committee. He called on donors to “activate financial promises.” A total of $33 billion were pledged at the first donors’ conference in Madrid last October. One billion dollars of it was earmarked in February to the fund. Seventeen projects and programs valued at $230 million have so far been approved, UN officials said.
World Bank officials have said $500 million should be committed to specific projects within two months. Hafidh told the some 200 representatives of 40 countries and international bodies including the United Nations and World Bank that Iraq signed May 15 a first grant agreement with the bank to print 60 million school books at a cost of $40 million.
The bank said a second agreement worth $60 million would be signed by the end of the month to rehabilitate more than 700 schools.
Five more countries, including Italy, Finland and France, have joined the Iraq donor committee bringing in an unannounced amount of fresh aid, officials said on the first day of the two-day event in Doha. “We were invited for the first time and France pays great attention to events in Iraq,” French Ambassador Alain Azouaou told AFP.
The committee, set up in February, comprised Australia, Britain, Canada, the European Commission, India, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Norway, Qatar, Sweden and the United States. The panel is open to all states which contribute at least $10 million to the Fund Facility for Iraq.
Hafidh spoke of the “immense challenges” facing Iraq, notably “high levels of crime, kidnapping, rampant violence,” just 33 days before the coalition’s deadline for the return of sovereignty. He accused extremists, foreign and local, of “damaging infrastructure, threatening citizens ... becoming an obstacle to development on all levels, lowering economic activity and slowing the pace of rehabilitation of Iraq.”
But the minister also listed achievements such as opening 2,400 schools, 240 hospitals, 1,200 clinics and one million telephone lines — 20 percent more than under the ousted Baathist regime.
UN special representative for Iraq Ross Mountain noted progress in the field - several hundred schools rehabilitated, five million children vaccinated against measles in March and April, 11,000 Iraqi refugees helped to return home, nine million liters of water tankered to Baghdad, Basra and Fallujah daily at peak, 40,000 people employed mainly in water and sanitation schemes.
“Hundreds of partnerships have been formed with ministries, local authorities and civil society to deliver goods and services that impact and benefit the lives of millions,” said Mountain. “Amid the daily media diet of bombs and slaughter, we here need to recognize that there are significant positive developments,” he added.
Hafidh said: “A great start has been made but Iraq needs help to step up the operations on the ground. “Today we, donors, international organizations and Iraqi officials must move more quickly to fulfill the hopes of the Iraqi people for a better life.”
The World Bank outlined schemes ready for implementation in the second half of 2004. They include $100 million-$120 million of emergency infrastructure projects for Baghdad and other urban areas to be followed by a further $200 million-$300 million for power, transport and telecoms. In parallel, a $20 million pilot scheme will start for community infrastructure in rural areas. And an agriculture project is also to follow at an estimated $70 million.
