The Iraq Community Action Program
WASHINGTON, DC 20523
PRESS OFFICE
http://www.usaid.gov
(202) 712-4320
2003-044
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 27, 2003
The Iraq Community Action Program (CAP) is designed to promote citizen involvement in community development efforts at the grass-roots level and to prevent and mitigate potential conflict by empowering individuals across gender, ethnic and religious lines. The program will promote diverse and representative citizen participation in and among 250 communities and will benefit approximately 5 million Iraqis.
The Iraq CAP will promote the following:
- Community mobilization and cooperation: The program will establish committees to facilitate community participation and draw previously underrepresented groups into community action, including women, ethnic minorities, and religious groups. The program will rapidly support committee decisions with concrete activities in the three areas below. In addition, activities will include community clean up and other preventive health programs, community-based education initiatives, and inter-community conflict management activities.
- Social and economic infrastructure development: CAP will implement community infrastructure projects, including potable water, wastewater and irrigation systems, and the construction and rehabilitation of schools, health clinics, community centers, and roads. These activities will accelerate, extend, and complement USAID's local governance and capital construction efforts.
- Employment and income generation: This program will generate immediate employment and incomes through public works projects, local contracting, and the purchase of local materials, supplies, and services. Activities in agribusiness, small-scale industry, and local trade/service activities will support food processing, re-open small-scale industrial enterprises such as furniture or shoe factories, re-open shops and service businesses, and invest in home or cottage industries.
- Environmental management and protection: Current environmental concerns in Iraq include the drained marsh areas east of An Nasiriyan; inadequate potable water supplies; air and water pollution; soil salination and erosion; and, desertification. Community environmental management activities will mitigate pollution, protect health, and preserve natural resources.
USAID community action programs have a history of success in challenging post-conflict environments, and flagship programs have mobilized communities in Lebanon, Serbia and Montenegro, and Central Asia's Ferghana Valley.
For more information on USAID's humanitarian relief efforts in Iraq, please visit www.usaid.gov/iraq/.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years.
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