|
Conference on Iraq reconstruction brings together array of international experts
July 30, 2007
A diverse group of international and community development experts gathered at the University of Massachusetts at Boston the week of July 22 to share expertise and develop recommendations for the ongoing reconstruction effort in Iraq. Current and former Iraqi government and education officials and community leaders were joined by American scholars and development practitioners for a week-long conference, “Rebuilding sustainable communities in Iraq: policies, programs and projects.” Participants addressed holistic strategies within the areas of infrastructure, economic development, and schools and communities.
The keynote address given by Dr. Abdul Hadi al-Khalili, a neurosurgeon who is the cultural attaché of the Embassy of Iraq to the United States, on the conference’s opening day gave a striking portrayal of the health crisis brought about by ongoing conflict. Al-Khalili told of a severely depleted Iraqi healthcare system – since 2003, 3,000 of Iraq’s 34,000 physicians have fled, and a lack of modern equipment is a major problem – unable to provide adequate care for the vast numbers of citizens wounded or made ill by the ravages of the war. He also detailed the dramatic spread of cancer and other diseases since 2003, calling attention to the fact that the majority of children in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum suffer from bloody diarrhea and typhoid.
To address the crisis and build local capacity, al-Khalili called on the United States to provide Iraqi medical students with greater opportunities to study in the U.S. and coordinate targeted online certification programs for those who are unable to make the trip.
As al-Khalili described the war’s toll, Dr. Mishkat al-Moumin, a former minister of the environment in Iraq’s interim government, sought to shed light on the roots of the conflict. Unequal access to a scarce amount of available resources, and not sectarianism, is driving the war, she said. In general, resource scarcity leads to declining economic productivity and migration, which in turn creates a weak state, as the government and elites conspire to take what they can for themselves, leaving a large number of citizens “environmentally marginalized.” Powerful groups seize upon this desperation and distribute resources to followers, creating potent incentives to join – in Iraq, Shia militias are playing this role, she said. Insurgents, meanwhile, resort to violence in an attempt to settle their grievances. Al-Moumin argued that the current Sunni insurgency was initially fueled not by religious differences, but rather simmering frustration over the lack of post-invasion humanitarian aid.
Others echoed al-Moumin on the fallacy of reducing the war to a conflict driven by sectarian tensions. Gerald E. Paulus, who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq as an officer with the U.S. Army, said that power and money, and not jihad, are the primary motivations for most Iraqi militants. To tackle the root causes and provide alternatives to taking up arms, Paulus suggested that the Iraqi government create temporary employment camps. The Iraqi workers based there could carry out localized reconstruction projects, he said.
Tackling vulnerability must also involve education, and numerous presenters at the conference addressed this crucial need. At the university level, some gains have been made. Dr. Mohammad Sadik, the president of Erbil’s Salahaddin University, and Ahmed Dezaye, an official with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research, spoke of the growth of higher education in Iraqi Kurdistan – home to just one university in 1991, but six today – and the relatively equivalent male-female student ratio in the country’s universities. A number of major concerns still exist, though. Among them, according to Sadik and Dezaye, is the fact that rote learning, not critical thinking, is the norm at Iraqi universities. Taher al-Bakaa, the former Iraqi Minister of Higher Education, linked these problems to Iraqi professors’ limited exposure to innovative Western ideas and recommended that the U.S. to do more to facilitate scholastic exchange.
Capacity-building initiatives are also needed, as asserted by several presenters who run microfinance projects in Iraq. Dr. Rajaa al-Khuzai, a former member of the Iraqi National Assembly and Constitutional Drafting Committee, spoke about her Iraqi Widows Organization, which has provided women with small microfinance loans and skills trainings in areas like sewing, flower arrangements assembly, and handicraft production. Initiatives like these offer a sustainable alternative to the quick-impact development projects that the U.S. government has increasingly promoted. Both Sally Iadarola of ACDI/VOCA and Dr. Riadh Tappuni, a Toronto-based architect who previously coordinated the Iraq Task Force and led the Urban Development & Housing Policies Team at the U.N., spoke critically of these projects, which are designed to build local trust by demonstrating immediate gains. Iadarola said that Iraqis are smart enough to see that many of these initiatives can’t be sustained. Tappuni derided them as cheap politics, saying that such a project might involve painting an old school white and portraying it on television as “reconstructed.”
These same types of problems also plagued post-2001 reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, according to Najim Azad, a Boston-area engineer who helped carry out development projects there. Enormous amounts of money were used on “super fast-track projects” in Afghanistan that benefited foreign companies more than ordinary Afghans, while larger rebuilding projects were financially strangled to the point of “slow death,” he said.
To help remedy this lack of planning and foresight, conference attendees gathered on their final day together to develop recommendations that could be disseminated among policy makers within the U.S. and Iraqi governments, and also to other stakeholders in the reconstruction effort. This draft “action plan” is set to be circulated among attendees in the coming weeks for further refinement before its release.
The Leadership Council for Human Rights
444 North Capitol Street NW, Suite 841
Washington, DC, 20001
202-638-0066
www.leadership-council.org
|
