Transcript: Local Governance Update
June 19, 2003
MODERATOR: There will be a lot of information coming back on how the preliminary activities begin.
I need to set a little bit of ground rules for you, however. The first portion of this meeting is a consultation. It is not a press event. So, press, you'll have a chance at the end of the consultation to ask questions. But we are looking to pass information and receive commentary back from people who are interested in the topic, to begin with, and then the press questions after.
You should know that we are being web-cast today, so when you have a question at the appropriate time you have to step up to the microphone; otherwise the people looking at you on the internet cannot hear you.
Lastly, we're going to talk about local governance here in USAID, and how we are supporting the reconstruction. Questions on administration policy, questions on military. This like that we can't answer here. So we'll have to divert you either to State Department or Defense Department, or whoever actually has that information. If it's an AID question, we'd be happy to deal with it.
I would like to introduce our speakers today. We have three pieces of the democracy portfolio that USAID is responsible for. One is administered by Research Triangle Institute from North Carolina. And Mr. Ron Johnson and Mr. Aaron Williams will be presenting their portion of what's happening there, dealing with districts and provinces, and how the municipal structure is being strengthened in this area, where Iraqis are not used to having authority over their own affairs. If Baghdad didn't tell you to do it, then you can't do it, and we're trying to change that.
We're going to have Mr. Greg Gottlieb from the Office of Transition Initiatives here in USAID, to talk about their rapid-response grants and the governance activities that they've been carrying out over the last two months.
Lastly we'll take just a couple of minutes to have Marianne Regalman [ph] from the Asia and Near East Bureau tell you a little about the initiation of the Community Action Program, which is an NGO-based grass-roots effort to deal with local governance, local needs, and conflict resolution. And at that point then, we will turn it over and take questions from the floor until 11:30.
So without further ado, Ron Johnson, would you like to tell us what you guys have been up to?
MR. JOHNSON: Thanks very much, Ross. It's a pleasure to be here this morning and talk a bit with you, and I hope to share some of our experiences there in the local government program in Iraq and get some insights from you in the audience. So I very much look forward to your feedback and your insights as well.
You'll see the title from time to time, "local government, local governance" and various other things. It seems in Iraq in combination with our consultations with a lot of Iraqis and also with USAID staff in the field that simplifying the project name to Local Government Project seems to work best there. So that's not the title that's in the contract, but it seems to work best, it translates most easily. So that's where you'll see that.
You see on screen now the strategic objective, and the bold-face italicized, and this is in USAID parlance, the strategic objective for the program, which applies more broadly than our project. So we're fitting into a program that essentially Iraqis will benefit from improved local governance. And then the rest that you see on the slide is descriptive and very brief form of the actual activities that we're carrying out on the project. So if you look at that, the bold-faced italicized is the objective. And then the words following that tend to be sort of the broad-based terms for the mechanics of it.
Also the USAID audience is quite familiar with the results framework. These are the basic four categories in which we are expected to achieve results. These are not the actual measures of results. And you can see them, we depicted them as a kind of an overlapping series of circles, a kind of VIN diagram, because they really do build on each other.
Restoration of basic services is not a construction program. Our contract does not include any significant construction activities. But we do use our small-grants program, especially upon first entry, for kinds of small rapid-response projects. And we work with the Office of Transition Initiatives, the OTI Programs, Fritz Weden in the field, who is heading those to coordinate, on those kinds of use of grants. Something that can make a small impact on some aspect of service or another. Aaron will give you some examples, from some of our work in the southeastern part of Iraq of the use of those types of programs for that.
A lot of our effort focuses initially on that, not that these occur sequentially, one, two, three, four, but that's where we start typically. Effective and efficient local administration. That tends to be the nuts and bolts of local government, management and administration. Budgeting, accounting, systems to improve the efficiency of operations, improve effectiveness.
We have some ongoing activities already started in that category. But that tends to be in areas, once we've gotten engaged in some other activities.
Effective civil society organizations, that's the part of our program in which we are principally dealing with community groups, nongovernmental organizations, either working with ones that exist, and there are a few in Iraq, but helping create other organizations. A parents association, for example, in conjunction with a school, that we can assist getting them organized to work for the benefit of that particular school gives them a stake in a particular public service, but also helps them become organized as a community of interest around an issue that previously they had little input into.
And then the last transparent and participatory political processes, we are already doing some of that work as well later that will lead to other activities that get more into the structure and the functioning of specific political institutions. So there's a certain amount of sequencing, but we're engaged in activities in all four of these.
Quickly, the field management slide is simply to indicate where we have established regional headquarters. These correspond to the basic four regions that the Office of the Coalition of Provisional Authority also has regionally organized around. You see on No. 4, Kirkuk and Mosul, it's proved more effective for us in our initial work not to pick a central hub in the north, but rather we have two hubs there. So Kirkuk and Mosul is where we have established operations. The other three, Al Basra in the southeast, Al Hila in the south central, and then Baghdad itself, corresponds not only to our regional structure for how we're organizing the work, but it corresponds to the regional structure that exists today for the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The next slide is a map. Let me know if I label and a slide, and Latesha [ph] will flag me down if I'm ahead or behind her. Of course, to show a whole map of Iraq, there's a bigger map up here that you may be able to see. All we've really put the map on here for is to indicate those towns and cities, and there are 11 of them, where we have started actual project work. We have visited some other cities and had discussions. But in fairness we haven't actually started physical on-the-ground project work.
Some of this work activity is very early stage, where we have met with perhaps the town administrative officials in that town agreed on an initial program of work, some initial activities and were then moving staff to start that work. So it may be that we've simply made the entre point. In other places like Al Basra, as you will hear, and in Baghdad we have extensive programs of work already underway. So there's a mix on the slides that, the triangles that are in red.
The other yellow triangles are governant capitals. As you can also see that most of the places where we're working are governant capitals. Those of you familiar with Iraq and the population distribution know that Iraq is a highly urbanized country. About 70-75 percent of the population lives in urban areas. For that matter, about 77 percent of the population lives in the top 25 towns and cities. And the 25th town in Iraq has a population of about 35,000. So, you know, from those basic data points, you see that it's a high degree of population concentration in urban areas, with obviously Baghdad being the most populous, at about 6.5 million. Basra is the second most populous.
To talk briefly about the institutional setting. Everyone familiar with the program realizes that there are many actors involved, and there are key entities representing the U.S. federal government. Our project works in close coordination with these entities. We take our policy guidance, policy direction from USAID. AID is a part of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
We are collaborating closely with other AID programs. Some of the early work of the Disaster Assistance Response Teams helped us in terms of some places where they had been before we had. In terms of identifying situations, I mentioned already OTI, with whom we're working. And of course with civil affairs officers from the various branches of the U.S. Military. Civil affairs officers are working throughout Iraq with local government activities. And they are our closest coordinating liaison for our activities as far as the U.S. or British presence. And as the Polish and the Spanish provide military forces there, they will be providing civil affairs officers as well.
Basically the way our program is organized corresponds to an overall organization of work at the governant or province--we tend to use the terms interchangeably. At the governant level, typically the governant capital. And then we will add additional towns and cities within some governants that are among the more populous.
The governant support teams have been set up in most governants. The governant support teams consist of multiple parties. They consist of the Office of Coalitional Provisional Authority, civilian staff, especially concentrated right now in the four regional locations. But they are spreading out into the governants. It consists of the civil affairs officers and staff or personnel who are organized into teams in each governant, and then the LGTs, or local government teams, that's the staff that we providing on it. So, there's a coordinated effort at that level.
I'll talk briefly about Baghdad activities with two slides. And then I'll turn it to Aaron Williams, who in his time and during our start-up spent most of his time in the southeast and south central.
In Baghdad--and it might be that we might flip to the next one, and I may go back to this one. This is a busy slide. It was put together by Any Morrison in the U.S. State Department, who is part of the Baghdad Central Team with whom we've been working very closely. And what he and I and Chris Milligan, who is the USAID person in Baghdad that we worked most closely with, and a few others from now Ambassador Bremer's team, have been working in Baghdad to establish a representative structure. We initiated this with AID with some pilot efforts in a few neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods had not previously been represented in the political in the Ba'athist system. You'll see on that slide in the Ba-athist system, that's the middle column, you'll see at the neighborhood level the word, mukhtar, which is not unique to Iraq; it's common in the Middle East. The traditional structure, a mukhtar, was a respected elder typically old, but not always old but typically a tribal leader, a person that people turned to for dispute resolution. The Ba'athist party essentially bastardized, excuse my language, but the concept of mukhtar, and appointed a mukhtar in each neighborhood in Baghdad.
And the appointed mukhtar's job was to keep track of who came into the neighborhood, who left, to keep track of everything that happened in the neighborhood, and report it to the Ba'athist party officials. So Baghdadians have now come to distrust completely any semblance of a structure at the neighborhood level.
We wanted to create a structure that they could gain some confidence in, and we started with a few pilot neighborhoods, inviting people to form a neighborhood advisory council. This is an interim measure before elections to form these councils around the idea of representing the neighborhood at higher levels in the city.
We have formed something over 50 neighborhood councils now out of the 87 neighborhoods. The pilots led us quickly to the conclusion. We took low-income areas, high-income areas, Shia-dominated areas, Suni-dominated areas, mixed areas with Shia, Suni, Christian, and others. So we started in neighborhoods that had a lot of different kinds of social characteristics, cultural, religious and economic. And it went pretty well the same way in each one.
A lot of concern about the basic services, the lack of power, the lack of safety and security. But when it came to the bottom line: Did they want to participate in a program that ultimately would lead to an advisory council at the city level, every neighborhood has opted in.
The person power for these counsels, setting these councils up, has been provided primarily by the civil affairs officers working in those neighborhoods. We've participated in about a dozen directly with State Department, AID, and RTI, and sometimes OTI staff working together, and Department of Defense Staff on Bremer's staff. By and large, though, we've provided training to civil affairs officers who were already working in the neighborhoods, and needed some help. And so we now are working more or less hand-in-glove with them in organizing these.
The structure you'll see that's intended to follow is to move from the neighborhood councils, each neighborhood selecting a sub-set to represent their neighborhood, and a district or municipality council, again using the word 'advisory' there. Baghdad has nine municipalities. Think of it as New York and the burroughs. Nine municipalities, they have some quasi-autonomous functions within their boundaries. And sometimes they're referred to as districts. Nine of those.
And then the representatives, each district would select a sub-set of their membership to represent the district of the municipality at the city council level.
This program has gotten off to a great start. And the decision has been made collectively by our team, by Ambassador's Bremer's staff. And to extend the program to all of the large cities in Iraq. It's going to look different every place, because obviously there will be variations. But the notion of creating a representative process for the first time in Iraq at this kind of bottom-up level, or at the first time in the last 30 or so years.
We've had a number of activities in the southeast region, south central, and the north. I'm going to ask Aaron Williams, who was part of our team at the beginning of the project, and he spent, as in indicated, most of his time in the south central and southeast areas. He'll talk about some of the activities we have going on there.
Aaron?
MR. WILLIAMS: Thanks, Ron.
As Ron said, he spent most of his time in our month in Iraq in Baghdad. And while Ron was in Baghdad working with Coalition officials, with Ambassador Bremer, and with the military authorities, the other members of our four-person team, we were in the south, starting up our activities with local governance.
AID asked us to start off in Basra. That was the first permissive area at the time we arrived in end of April and early May. And we went into Basra and we spent some time in consultation with military and civilian authorities. And we had a chance to meet extensively with the local Iraqi council that was there, looking at the affairs in Basra City.
And through that we put together our initial work plans. We also were very fortunate, because while we were in the process of our initial conversations and briefings with the various parties, it quickly became apparent that there was a need for a senior expert to provide assistance in terms of municipal advice in city planning, city management, et cetera.
And we had on our initial team a person who was an experienced city manager from the United States, someone who's worked in Latin America, and Asia and Africa with municipal development. And that person we immediately assigned by in this case and the case of Basra, which is controlled by the British authorities. He immediately became senior advisor to the commanding general in the area, working with the local Iraqi officials and with the civilian officials. In the south I might add. Ambassador Olsen is the CPA lead person there. And so he's also working with that person.
so right off the bat we were able to put someone in place who had a tremendous amount of experience in municipal development and city management.
At the same time we also opened up our Basra office, because we decided early on that it was important to have offices in the key capitals in the regions. And we wanted to be co-located with both the civilian authorities under Ambassador Bremer, both in terms of Basra, Al Hila, which I'll talk about in a minute, in Baghdad obviously where Ron was working, and in the north in Mosul and Kirkuk.
We opened up our office in Basra. We've got our initial technical team, which is working there now. And as you can imagine, as look at and assess the kinds of needs that a city the size of Basra, the second largest city in Iraq needs, we've come up with some very specific technical assistance requests. And this of course worked out very well, because we had our senior advisor there. So we've deployed people who are solid waste management, water engineers, people who have experience in managing power companies in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
So we think we have a very good team in place that's able to provide immediate assistance to the authorities and to the Iraqi citizens in that city.
At the same time, AID had asked us to look for ways to provide what we call rapid response grants, trying to respond to the immediate needs of Iraqi citizens in the towns and cities where we are working. In the case of Basra, we were able to tour a couple of different health facilities. And it immediately became apparent that because of the looting that had taken place after the fall of Saddam Hussein and the many, many years of neglect n the south in terms of Baghdad basically abusing the citizens of the south--of course, as you know, that's primarily a Shia population--there were enormous needs. And so we very quickly provided $20,000 to refurbish and rehabilitate and re-equip a clinic which serves 50,000 people. So that was a major step forward.
And as the doctors that we talked to, the ones who run the clinic, as they told us, they said this is the first time in ten years that anyone has come in and tried to provide assistance to help the people that are serviced by this health clinic. So, it was really an important step forward.
In Umm Qasr, which of course is important because Umm Qasr is a port town, a very important port for bringing materials in and shipping things out of Iraq, in Umm Qasr, we sat down with the military governor and with the Umm Qasr council, and came up with a plan for providing assistance. At the time we arrived there it was the end of the school year, and education was very much on the minds of the parents of Umm Qasr. And they asked us to look for ways to rehabilitate the 20 schools that are in the Umm Qasr area.
And again, we toured some of these schools, and quite frankly, I don't want to be course, but some of the schools that we toured and looked at you wouldn't want anyone to set foot in that school, let alone young children who are expected to receive an education there. Horrible conditions. Again a graphic demonstration of the abuse that the Shia population had received over many, many years from Saddam Hussein's regime. No water, no electricity, et cetera.
So we agreed to refurbish all the schools in the Umm Qasr area. And we're moving forward with that grant at this point in time .
Moving a little further north into the central area, Al Hila. Al Hila is also in the area where Babylon is located.
And one thing I might just mention, I think one of the real resources that Iraq will have in the future in terms of tourism development, once it becomes a stable country. And that is Babylon. Babylon is an incredible site, that for some reason under that terrible dictatorship they allowed the National Archeological Institute to really restore Babylon. So you're going to see something, and those of you who at some point in time, hopefully you'll have a chance to travel there, will see an extraordinary site. It's going to be an important source of revenue generation, employment, and something that the Iraqi people will be proud of in the future.
Anyway, in the Al Hila region, where Babylon is located, we of course again proceeded to consult with the local authorities, both military and civilian. We talked with the local Iraqi officials, and we tried to identify ways to provide the appropriate technical assistance. Again, we have opened up an office there. We are now providing a technical team in the various areas that we've identified where there is need, and again basic services being crucial: water, power, solid waste management, sewage systems, et cetera.
And we also have started to move out the other governant capitals, the other six cities in that area. And again we're looking for ways to provide rapid-response grants, to provide very targeted technical assistance in response to what the leadership in that area believes that they need.
Just another story to point out some of the things that we're involved with at the personal level. We met with the head of the electric company in Al Hila. And this is a man who had been trained, I think he had been trained originally in Iraq and then later in Jordan. And he said that he had tried everything despite the lack of resources to run an efficient power company in Al Hila. But frankly, he said, he was at the end of his rope. There was nothing else he could do. He had not been exposed to the outside world, he hadn't had a chance to find out what modern management techniques were, what modern engineering was in terms of the electric company in that particular city. And he was desperate to look at the outside world, to find out, to have information, to reach out to his colleagues in the Middle East, in the United States.
And so he felt that really one of the wonderful things that was going to happen now because of the liberation of Iraq was that he was going to have a chance to modernize and improve provision of electrical service in that town. So I think this is again a chance on a one-on-one basis to really make a difference in terms of local governance and service delivery.
And then finally, in the month of June, we have started working in the north. As you know, of course the north has had some degree of autonomy for quite a number of years. And so we're now looking at ways to provide again very targeted specific technical assistance in the areas that we're working in, Kirkuk and Mosul. And we're looking for ways to provide that to the government that's already in place in the north.
I think that overall, in a very short period of time, in less than two months, we've been able to deploy a significant number of experts. We've looked for ways to be responsive to the needs that the Iraqi citizens have indicated, that are paramount in terms of restoring services and providing assistance and moving towards a more effective governance structure, and also at the same time to provide basic services to make lives better for the average citizen there.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Ron and Aaron, for the overview of what you've been doing in the last two months. As you can see, one of the hallmarks of what AID is attempting to do is to involve the Iraq citizens to the maximum amount. It's their country; they're going to have to live in it after we're gone. So they need to be involved right at the outset.
One of the ways that we have been able to involve a lot of people very early on was through the Office of Transition Initiatives, which was part of our Disaster Assistance Response Team that deployed essentially on the heels of the military units, moving in as quickly as possible to deal with immediate needs, and then to bring people into the decision-making process about their own futures as soon as we could.
I'd like to introduce Mr. Greg Gottlieb, who will tell you a little bit about what OTI has been doing.
MR. GOTTLIEB: Thanks, Ross.
Good morning. OTI, as Ross said, has been out in the area since the beginning with the Disaster Assistance Response Team. We remain a part of that team now. And the most recent director of that unit is now from the Office of Transition Initiatives, since that is the phase that we are definitely moved into.
OTI is about eight years old. And the way that we function is we look at ourselves as being a very fast and flexible group, in particular in a place like Iraq. What we're trying to do, since we have groups like RTI, which have a broader mandate than we do for rehabilitating local government. Our objective is to try to fill gaps. Like RTI does. Some of that has to do with small grants. Some of the other things that we are also trying to do is work directly with both local government groups and even national groups to try to give some linkages between what's going to happen at the national level, and what's going to happen at the local level.
So our people have been deployed throughout Iraq since almost the beginning, since we could get in. So early on, we went into Umm Qasr, with some of the first people that were up in Basra, were our folks. Also in the north, we were part of the northern team there.
So we've had several months to get in and begin our work. Right now what we're doing is we work with two partners. One is Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI), and we also work with the International Organization for Migration out of Geneva. Both are establishing offices throughout the country. In particular, DAI has an office in Baghdad. IOM will be opening offices in other places. In Basra, Nasaria, Hila, Umm Qasr, Kirkuk, and Mosul.
By opening offices in the same place that our colleagues are in, the objective of course is to work closely with them. It's not to just try to run out and take advantage of what we might see as opposed to what they might see.
So I think there is a high level of cooperation. What we try to do. There is some good music coming in here I think.
[Music plays.]
[Laughter.]
MR. GOTTLIEB: That's good. I kind of needed that, a little background there. I prefer a little more upbeat. But that's good.
MR. : That's coordination.
MR. GOTTLIEB: Yeah, it's coordination.
So, what we are trying to do is to fill some gaps. And let me just go over some general areas that we're working in. And--
[Music grows louder.]
[Laughter.]
MR. GOTTLIEB: And, that's all right. If my daughter were here, she'd begin dancing, I think. But we're trying to eventually establish at least ten offices throughout the country, and provide immediate and tangible examples of improvement at the local level.
So this can be small infrastructure. We've done schools, we've done communications centers. We've even worked on some dams that had a problem, to try to keep those dams going, from collapsing. It's our belief from our previous work that a lot of times, doing an infrastructure project will allow you to begin to work with community.
From our perspective, it's not so much that we rebuilt a school; it's the way that we rebuilt it. It's the involvement of the community in doing it with us, and they're taking over the running and the maintenance of that particular program. So that's what we're aiming for there.
We're also looking to increase Iraqi participation in restoration of public services. As I said, up in the north, we worked on a dam to try to get that from collapsing. We're just supplying the materials. The Iraqis are doing the work. They are doing the technical work. As we find, and I'm sure as RTI finds, there is capacity in Iraq. There are a lot of people with a lot of talent. Those skills may need upgrading, but the fact is that we are finding partners to work with.
We're also looking for information and media. We are working with some groups right now. we've worked with Radio Sawa to try to broadcast messages. We're also looking at some local communications to try to get sort of local mayors, local officials on the radio to begin to talk about issues that are going on in the community.
The other thing that we've just tried to do, particularly in Baghdad, is we tried to generate some employment for people. Clearly this is a pressure. When people don't have work, it puts an increased pressure on local government. Not just the Iraqis that are in place, but of course on us. So, in Al Thawra, which was formerly Saddam City, we did a clean-up effort, which involved about 16,000 people. So we will try to replicate that in other places as needed. Clearly it's a big effort for those places which have suffered under the previous regime.
Another aspect of our program, which relates to the national government. We call it--
[Music grows louder.]
MR. GOTTLIEB: I know he's going to take care of this any minute now.
[Music stops.]
MR. GOTTLIEB: Great. Thank you.
It was something that we call sort of a ministry in a box. And what we're trying to do by working with both the mayoralty in Baghdad, some of the municipal headquarters, electrities commission, the justice ministry, the finance ministry, the central bank, and trade and industry. What we're trying to do is just get those ministries back up and running.
So what we have done with them is to take a look at the buildings that they occupied, or now want to get into, and are supplying them with some of the basics of furniture, computers, some phone systems, probably in the neighborhood. Some of that will be radios right now as the local phone system gets back up. And so we're working with those ministries to get them up and going.
The water authority is another group. The electricity commission. We're going to help them clean up and repair and refurbish about three buildings.
So we'll try to work. We know that there's a big effort going on to try to get the electricity back on. So our objective is to work with that ministry to help them feel like they're up and functioning. It also brings people back to work.
In the north, we've also worked with the At Tameem [ph] government building to try to get them back up and going. Also the public education group in that town. And also in the NAWA governant we're also working with the Director of Education to rehabilitate their facilities.
In the south, along with RTI, we were also in Umm Qasr. We rehabilitated some schools. We rehabilitated the building that the local municipality is in. We also did some smaller things. We also rehabilitated a soccer field. Now, there's a place to play soccer. It's a little hot there, but nevertheless, we tried to do that. We found in our previous work that trying to also do something for the youth to get them engaged, and perhaps a little bit distracted from some of those larger issues is good. So we've tried to do that.
We've also tried to set up in Umm Qasr, and we will be setting up in other places, communications centers, where people can have access to internet. They can have access to satellite phones. A lot of this involves people who have not been able to contact other members of their family because of the poor phone system. So we find that that's a good way that get people again engaged in issues. You get more intellectual groups in some places. That gives them access to outside information. So we will try to replicate that in other places.
In Nasariyah, we've done water and sanitation in Nasaria. In Basra we've worked with the central engineering workshop to bring equipment in for them so they can begin to do their own repairs of equipment. And we've also worked with a food distribution place in Basra, so that the food that comes in can be better distributed and stored. So that's a little bit about what OTI is doing now in Iraq. We expect to get a fairly substantially large increase in our budget from what we originally expected. So we'll be working with our partners and with RTI and with others to make sure that we can cover those areas that aren't getting covered by their programs. And we can fill in those gaps that are going unmet, as they are working on the longer-term programs.
Thank you.
MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Greg
One of the things that has been emphasized, and I'd like to emphasize again is that these activities are coordinated on the ground. They are not locked together, and indeed there is no individual responsibility for a particular sector or a particular kind of work. What we're finding now is that there's so much work that needs to be done that anybody who can get there and get it moving, that's a good thing.
So you hear the governance people handling schools. We have the school contractor handling schools. It comes from a lot of different places. But the needs are so great that we need to be there fast rather than later.
And an additional portion, then, to complement the two activities you've heard now, this is an activity that's only been going for a little over a week. But we call it Community Action. It's a successful NGO-based method that has been run in Lebanon, in Serbia, and in the Fergana Valley of Central Asia, dealing with populations where there's a great deal of internal conflict that has to be sorted out.
Now, Iraq is very much like that, because you have different tribes, different brands of Islam, different sorts of pressures, all within the communities. And now that you've removed the police state from on top of them, the question then is: How will they deal with each other? We've found that NGOs are uniquely qualified to be able to do that sort of thing, to be able to reach down to the grass roots and help people find a way through their own problems so that they come with the solution that they and their children could then live with.
The community action program has just begun, and like Marianne Regalman from Asia Bureau to give you an overview on it, and then a month or so from now, will give you a much more in-depth report on how things are going.
MS. REGALMAN: Thank you, Ross.
I'm going to be quick, since I've been told I have two minutes. As Ross said, the Community Action Program, which we call CAP for short, is barely underway, but we have great hopes and great expectations. We are hoping that a year from now, we will see 250 communities involved around Iraq benefiting approximately 5 million Iraqis.
CAP has four basic components. And I'll just quickly run through them. The first is community mobilization and cooperation. This is really the community organizing a face of CAP which we think will be absolutely critical, and which we hope will become self-sustaining over time. And which will promote a democratic society-building at the community level. The program will establish associations in communities to engage participation of citizens and draw previously under-represented groups, as Ross was saying, into the program, including women, ethnic minorities, and religious groups.
The program will rapidly support communities association decisions with concrete activities in three areas, which I'll get to in a minute. In addition, activities will include community clean-up and other preventative health programs, community-based education initiatives, and conflict management activities.
The three basic activity foci of CAP. Let me start with social and economic infrastructure development. Once community associations are formed, and there is already I think a very good system for selecting communities and coming up with criteria for activities, once these associations are formed, they will implement community infrastructure projects, which would include potable water, waste water irrigation systems, construction and rehabilitation of schools, health clinic, community centers, and roads.
And as Ross said, while this may sound a tad difficult, it's not because the need is so great and we need to get engaged on many levels. The activities will complement other activities of similar nature being carried out by OTI, by RTI, and other donors
The second major facet is employment and income generation. And this program will generate employment and incomes through public works projects, local contracting, purchase of local materials, supplies, and services; agribusiness, small-scale industry, and the like. Cottage industry. Things like that.
Finally, environment management and protection. Currently there are serious concerns in Iraq concerning the drained marsh areas east of Al Nasaria [ph], if I'm pronouncing at properly. Inadequate potable water supplies, air and water pollution, soil salination and erosion, and desertification. And CAP activities under this component are expected to address these.
As Ross said, USAID has implemented CAP-like activities in Serbia, Montenegro, and Lebanon, and also in the Fergana Valley of Central Asia, and these have been very successfully initiated.
The last thing I would tell you is that we already do have a few activities underway, even though the program has only been going for about 10 days to two weeks. These include, in Baghdad, trash collection activities, sewage system repair, and establishment of PTAs.
Thanks.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Marianne. We have high hopes for this program, because it's going to be able to fill in yet another set of gaps with a different breed of implementer, that would be able then to move in circles that perhaps we couldn't otherwise get to.
Aaron, or Ron, I'd like to invite one or both of you to come and sit up here as we take questions.
What I'd like to do is to open the floor to questions. As we said at the beginning, because we are on a web-cast, you'll need to come to the microphone after you're recognized. We'd like to know who you are, and who you represent, so that everyone will know. And then go ahead and ask your question. And we'll pass it to the most likely candidate to provide you a straight answer.
So gentlemen, if you would.
MR. : I'd like to invite Dick McCall, also. Dick was part of our start-up team that was Creative Associates. One of our partners [Inaudible]
MODERATOR: Okay. Dick, you're going to have to bring your chair with you, because we have a screen on the other side, here.
MR. : Also, let me introduce Dennis Chandler, who is with us today. Dennis represents--
MODERATOR: You got to do it on the microphone.
MR. : I'm sorry. Excuse me. Let me introduce Dennis Chandler, who is with us today. Dennis is from Chemonics, another one of our key partners in this important contract. Thank you.
QUESTION: Good morning. My name is Nishiash Amdeen [ph]. I'm the representative here in the United States for the Kurdistan regional government. When you refer to the north, I guess you mean the recently liberated part of the north, because there are three governors that were liberated 13 years ago. Now, there are 3.7 million people there, and they are also just as much at a disadvantage as the rest of Iraq. Will the program later on cover those areas, or is this just it? Thank you, anyone who would care to answer?
MR. WILLIAMS: Okay. I'm going to pass to RTI and then to OTI. Let me give the quick political answer. I had to do this once before on another project where we were saying, "Why isn't it in the area of the northern governants that were no, if you were, liberated, because they were already free? And a portion of that has to do with the fact that we did come up from the south, conditions in the north were relatively better. But indeed we hoped to be able to extend reconstruction activities of whatever type into the north, instead of simply concentrating in a set of southern areas. Ron?
MR. JOHNSON: Well, as I indicated, we've already begun some activities in those areas that you're describing. But in addition under our project, we will be working in all of the country. The country, both depending on however you want to classify the country that all is within the boundary of what's called Iraq. So that includes the areas that you described. We are working and will work in all of those areas.
Greg, do you have something?
MR. GOTTLIEB: Yes. OTI, similar to RTI, will continue to work in all areas of the country, whatever the status of the place, whether it was liberated, or was an open area before. So there won't be any limitation on what where we'll work. Sure.
I would also add, one of my colleagues, Albert Cevallos, who was deployed in Iraq for the first 90 days, is also here, and I might ask Albert to come a little closer, in case he can help us out and answer some questions. Thanks.
MODERATOR: Okay, ma'am?
QUESTION: I'm Diana Olbaum, with Olbaum Consulting. As you know a lot better than I do, one of the greatest problems in Iraq right now is the problem of security. And I mean not just for U.S. and Coalition forces, but for average Iraqis who are dealing with the problems of looting and protection from common crime. And in wondering whether legal reform in the sense of starting up courts, training lawyers, getting the whole legal system working again, is considered part of this local governance initiative. And who would be handling that if it's not part of this, you know, where is that being done? Thank you.
MR. : The majority of criminal law, which are police, courts, prosecutors. I presume that there will some sort of state-appointed defense, because the Americans are pushing those kinds of things for people who don't have a defense. All of that is being undertaken by the U.S. Department of Justice and the State Department Office of International Narcotics Affairs, because they are the people to whom that was tasked under the Coalition Provisional Authority. So the details on criminal law we have to push towards those people who are better capable to answer.
We do need to talk specifically about security, however, because in one sense security is generally dealt with as whether or not it's the Ba'ath party or the remainder of the special republican guard, or something like that. But you make a good point, in that day-to-day security is something that's tremendously important. An economy can't run if delivery trucks are highjacked. Schools cannot open if young women can't walk to school safely. The ability of representative leaders to conduct their business is seriously compromised, if someone comes to them in the night and makes threats.
So there are a variety of descriptions of security which go beyond just the courts and the old regime remnants. And all of those are important. And they will have an effect on how we do our business.
Another question?
QUESTION: My name is Akmad Aziz [ph]. I am working with American Kurdish Center, and I'm a dentist here in this country too. What is your plan helping the Iraqi people. You know, there are a couple Kurdish organizations here, like NGOs. Do you have any plans to work with them? You can be of great benefit to this, because like organization we have people on the around there, we know there, we grew up there. And a lot of people like that and all qualified doctors and engineers, and a lot of people. I don't know, are you planning on that, somehow? Is there anything to fit with you guys? Can we help? That's one thing. I have another question. Now, the second question is: I'm not hearing about the smaller towns, which are not mentioned anywhere. Like what are you doing with a small city, they call it Khanaqin? Which is my small town, actually. So, after all, what is going on there? I don't hear anywhere. You talk about Kirkuk, you talk about Mosul. And that's on the east, north of [Inaudible] which is quite east near to the border with Iran, way down there. This city has been under the control of Saddam Hussein for all the time. And never was liberated until recently. And there is no project, nothing going on. The schools are all ruined. Bridges are all falling apart. Anyway, you mention it is way down the list of any of the cities I have heard about so far, really, other than there is a smaller one, Mendali, which is also a small Kurdish town.
I wonder, you know, do you keep planning going on, things like that. And see how can we help? And thank you.
MODERATOR: Let me address that. This is AID, so we're going to take the second question first. And the first question second. And then, you've got something? Okay.
One of the constraints on our ability to operate, this comes back to the security issue, is that as we sent American technical assistance out there, it has to be a permissive environment. We have to be relatively sure that no bad things are going to happen related to the war. And that has constrained out ability to go into some areas, some that we read of in the newspaper here, and some as in your town we're not reading about it, but it's only recently liberated. And as a result, we haven't got there yet. We know that we want to work from the Province down, so that we are able to deal with districts and towns. But in this first about six weeks of implementation, we know we haven't made a broad coverage yet. So this and I expect other towns will have the same sort of requirement.
And before I promise that we'll fulfill everything, I'm going to pass that buck to the guys who'll actually be doing the work.
The first question on Iraqi NGOs and Iraqis here in the United States. I know that we have reached out under several of our contracts to employ Iraq ex-patriots. I don't have a number of those expatriots on the tip of my tongue, but it's coming. And we do get requests from both Iraqis and others, people who are even volunteering their time and offering to pay their own air fare to go over, if they can plug in and be helpful.
And I know that we've begun that put people in, the example that I was given was in south central, of some people that had been looking back there. We haven't done that strongly in the Kurdish areas yet, that I'm aware of.
Greg?
MR. GOTTLIEB: I'm actually going to let my colleague, Albert Cevallos answer. I will just say in general that the way that OTI has worked is we tend to work mostly with local partners. So it's our objective when we find local Kurdish groups or Iraqi groups that we can work with, we will do our best to work with them and have them implement the programs.
We also have a number of Kurdish Americans who are on our staff, who came from the states and are now out there with us. So it provides us a pretty, I think it provides us a better entree.
But let me let Albert, who's been up in the north for quite a while, and I think he can give you a little more detail>
MR. CEVALLOS: Hi. My name's Albert Cevallos. As Greg has noted, I'm with the Office of Transition Initiatives. I spent probably the last two months, or month and a half, in the north. I guess actually in response to the last two questions, we do, as Greg notes, we work on the community level. Part of that meant for us, before we deployed was working with the Iraqi organizations here, the Kurdish organizations here to make some contacts. Very basic first steps. Make some contacts, so when we could get out there, we have a starting point. And those have been key in our efforts our there.
We've been able to develop a lot of very strong relations, whether it's with the regional governance, whether it's with local NGOs, media, journalists, what have you, we have been working on those. And we will continue to do that.
Going back to the other question, Diane, you were asking about legal reform. This is also key. OTI, one of the things we have been doing is trying to get some of the courthouses, some of the legal infrastructure up and running again. It's still, as many of the other presenters had noted, it's still key basic issues. So rehabilitating, cleaning out the courthouse that was burned down, or the documents that were looted, or what have you.
But we've been doing this through Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Arbeel, some of the farther northern areas are for the most part okay as far as basic infrastructure goes, but then as you work farther south, we are trying to get into some of these places, and just get them up and running again. And that will in turn be coordinated with longer-term AID efforts.
MR. GOTTLIEB: Although your question pinpointed a particular area, one of our dilemmas of course is that we all started in the south and started working north. So when I talk about work in the north, we went to Arbeel, but we haven't started a program there. And we've been working in the north for about one week now. So, we haven't reached out.
The other dilemma is that it takes some time to mobilize all of the personnel. There's a lot of process that one has to go through essentially to get permission to have staff come into the country. Because there's a great deal of support that has to be required, that has to be provided by other parties. Including in some cases, as in Baghdad, the military, in order for staff to operate.
And we have approximately 40 staff on the ground. International staff. We'll have approximately 200 when we're at the peak, which we establish to the end of August that September. And these again are international experts. Not all Americans. A number of them are already Iraqi Americans. A number of our staff who are already working there in fact have worked in some of the Kurdish-controlled areas of the north during the last ten years. So we have staff on the ground that are familiar with that.
But we're definitely interested in continuing to build up our relationships with the various non-governmental organizations, both those that are international that have had representation in various parts of Iraq, especially the north, where they've been most active, but also with locally based non-governmental organizations.
The natural tendency, of course is to start with the larger cities. And that does leave some of the smaller towns and cities, at least initially out of the picture. But our strategy is essential a hub and spoke. Start by the four regional offices; expand to the governant, capitals, which would put us in 18 places, and then work out from those. If the province is extremely large, then we can't rely on just one hub in that province. And so we will have to expand still further.
That's part of our plan. And of course we intend to hire a large number. And it's only been possible over the last three weeks. Once the UN sanctions were lifted to even hire Iraqis. And so we intend to hire a large number of Iraqi professionals and support staff as a part of the entire team.
MODERATOR: Yes, go ahead, and then I'll throw a last word in.
QUESTION: The first thing that I mention is the security is a concern, it is definitely there. But those places that I mentioned there is no trouble at all. There is no resistance, there is no fighting, there is nothing going on there. Quite a safe area to go anywhere. Any person can go there now. It's just like you go to Arbeel or [Inaudible], you could go to Khanaqin the same way. That's one thing I just want you to know about that.
The other thing is you know people there are really so desperate. And they need quick answers. And in a way you don't blame them. In a way we don't blame ourselves too that we are here. We try to help them. But is there any way we could like fasten this process a little bit more? What is the whole plan, like the whole plan with Iraq to make it faster? We see all these demonstrations every day and people they want to go back to their jobs, and people they want to do something. And this and that. And they are blaming us, you know, very much that we are so slow. And--
MR. GOTTLIEB: Yes. And the needs are so great and they need them now.
QUESTION: Very needed. And people, a lot of people have no salaries now. Could you imagine that anybody here doesn't have any job at all for months or two? And we have liberated them already, but then we left them without money--
MR. GOTTLIEB: They are free, but they're hungry.
QUESTION: Yes, some progress.
MR. GOTTLIEB: Let me give you a point of contact then, in beginning to make things go a little faster, and trying to make sure that the benefits flow.
There are three AID-funded activities that we've spoken about today that have the potential of reaching into towns such as the one you've described. There is also the civil affairs units, which are military operations, but they actually are able to reach farther than we at the moment.
Being an American, I know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So the people who squeak are likely to get the attention first or at least make sure their needs are known.
What we would recommend is that representatives from the town come to the provincial capital, to the governant capital, and speak to the governant support team. Those will be military officers. And as quickly as we can get out there with a local government team, which would be RTI, or, I don't know which of the NGOs will be servicing that area, but there will be NGO representation for each governant as well. And then OTI you've already heard is available to assist.
So if you have the local reps from the town, come and deal directly with the CPA representation in the capital of the governant. They should be able to direct you into the right place to began at least making your needs known, and insuring that when projects are considered, the projects from that town are on the list to be considered. Because if you're not on the list, then nothing is going to happen.
So, I don't need to tell Iraqis to be aggressive. They're already very outspoken. But definitely plug into the system, and make sure that the needs get on the list, so that they can be addressed.
Sir?
QUESTION: Ian Houston from America's Development Foundation. Good morning.
Just a general observation. My complements to AID for facilitating these sessions. I think a lot of people appreciate your being pro-active and being transparent. And the informational needs are certainly being met. So, on behalf of the community, we really appreciate that.
Overall I have a specific question about the Baghdad municipal structure that was referenced. And just overall I think my observation with that, I think it has my complements for the development of that system, and it seems on paper to look like it will function properly, it seems, as you're noting, is working well.
I've a question, though, about how the different councils communicate with one another, in terms of like networking, communications needs, informational needs. Do they have co-hairs to head up these councils? Is there a sensitivity to gender diversity and things like that within the leadership structure of the council themselves?
And then, if you could more in detail talk about how the individual members of the councils are selected.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Ron, is that you to handle that?
MR. JOHNSON: I think so. Well, those are really great questions, of course. I don't want to oversimplify things, because the activities are as diverse as the number of neighborhoods we've been working in.
Let's take the gender issue first, for example. In the first pilot neighborhood, that was the Al Kindi neighborhood, which is a mixed area. It's upper income, upper-middle income I guess I should say. And it was pretty representative, not in terms of youth. Generally it's the professional class in that particular neighborhood that came to the first meeting.
How did people show up at the first meeting? People were identified by a combination of OTI and civil affairs officers. Anyone who had been working in that neighborhood began to talk about the concept. The meeting was announced, and indicated that people were welcome to come to the meeting. About 25-30 people came to the meeting. There were three women at the first meeting. The second meeting we asked that other women be invited to come. And I think six women came to the second meeting. So the gender issue was not an issue in that neighborhood.
On that same day we had our second pilot. That was in Al Shula, that's a low-income Shia area. There were no women at that meeting. There was one cleric, there were six tribal leaders or tribal elders, and a number of shop keepers, and just a variety of male representation of the community.
Our staff member there who is playing a key role in organizing these neighborhood councils, her family is from Baghdad. She is female. She asked the person who had more or less appointed himself as spokesperson for the group if at their next meeting they could bring some women. His response was to smile and say, "No." But he would happy to organize a second meeting for her to meet with women in the neighborhood, which she has followed up on.
So, we basically can ask and request, and try to address an issue like that. But in different neighborhoods we're getting different responses. On the other hand, we're not being shut out, if you will, of that process.
But it's really a self-organizing process. We're trying to kick it off, but we're not really directing it. We are following up with some basically training in sort of what, you know, what a municipal council--not that these are little municipal councils--but what would be the functions of a municipal council? How to run a meeting.
So, we are developing and starting to provide some training activities for those that are already organized. We're doing that more at the district level than we are at the neighborhood level, asking that those who are representing their neighborhoods carry this back to their neighborhoods. Because we have a practical just personnel, you know, to reach out to 87 neighborhoods. And we can't work intensively in 87 different neighborhoods.
So we're working more at the district level, and then working with those selected to represent the district as far as sort of training. We are providing some facilitating their communications, furnishing offices for them. That's where we worked with OTI in Baghdad to collaborate on our activities to help provide meeting places, furniture, chairs, the first meeting in Al Shula wa in the former police station and jail. There were no chairs. We waited while neighbors passed chairs literally over the fence, so that everybody could sit down at the meeting. We were providing chairs at least so that the next time they had chairs that were provided.
Communications equipment is on the list of things to try to do. But we need to coordinate that with a plan to bring communications back up in Baghdad itself.
So some of what we're doing is organized to address some of the questions you've raised. Some of it is organized by the neighborhoods or the districts themselves. And so it's highly variable in terms of how it operates in each neighborhood. But by and large, they're in charge of the process. And in the end the neighborhood council belongs to that neighborhood. It's not a U.S. council, it's not a civil affairs council, it's certainly not an RTI or a USAID council.
MODERATOR: Anybody else?
I'd like to point up the issue of the chairs that are being provided and come back to the security issue.
One of the things, we found this a lot in clinics that we're working on, as well as in schools. And we're seeing it from time to time with electrical repair as well. The matter of making sure that the assistance provided is available tomorrow and does not grow legs and go away during the night is something that the local folks take up very strongly. And they indeed are responsible for making sure that the windows and doors that are put into a school actually stay there, that the chairs remain and don't go away.
And we had an example I think three days ago where there were some repairs that had been made in the port down in Umm Qasr to an electrical system, and somebody attempted the other night to make off with part of that. Unfortunately they didn't turn the electricity off, and they were electrocuted.
But, this is yet another facet of security, and again where the local people take charge of it, and it's theirs, then we find that theft is much less of a problem. When it is the government's or the foreigners' equipment, then that doesn't belong to anybody, so it's free game. So part of the matter of making sure that you have local ownership of the process ensures that the equipment and the facilities that are rehabilitated remain functional. And the chairs being an outstanding example here.
Sir?
QUESTION: Thanks. Rich Eisendorf, a media consultant.
I heard some references to strengthening the infrastructure for communications and some references to media, particularly in terms of getting local mayors or leaders to appear on radio or television stations. I'm wondering what efforts there are towards building local media stations, television and radio stations, whether it's as private channels or stations, or as a public service radio network, or something of this sort? Is there effort being put into that? And sort of where does that land in this effort?
And my question or comment is also about the north; I want to add my voice to what's been said. Although you're focusing your attention on Kirkuk and other towns, the Kurdish towns I think are separate. And Arbeel and Solomonia represent two of the governants in the north that the Kurds themselves look towards as their capital. And I think there should be some attention placed on that.
And I think that rather than waiting until it become a squeaky wheel, this will definitely become an issue, on both the local governance level and as they seek to integrate into the national level. And I just want to add my voice to that.
MODERATOR: On the matter of Arveel, I'm not sure that this is a practical solution, but the USAID Administrator, Andrew Natsios, is going to be in Arveel tomorrow. So if you can get to a telephone--then you can place her right into the top of AID. But Andrew made it very clear that Iraq as a nation, started in Basra, went through Hila and Baghdad. Tomorrow he's going into the north, specifically to Arbeel. As he's looking over what it is that we've done with his program.
For communications, I need to turn to OTI. You guys are the experts.
MR. GOTTLIEB: Fortunately I have Albert here, and he'll do most of the talking here.
The one thing I would say about the Kurdish areas for us has been I think one of the concerns that AID has had, of course is that in areas like Kirkuk and Mosul, particularly Kirkuk, with the return of people there are tensions in the town over property. And I think that one of the reasons there has been a focus there, particularly even of the civil affairs people, is because they want to try to address some of those issues now, before it becomes a problem.
But on the media side, let me have Albert address those, because I think he's been up there and he has a good sense of what we're after.
MR. CERVALLOS: And actually to reinforce what Greg just said, that's exactly it. As far as OTI is concerned, we're focusing on kind of the flash points first. Helping to stabilize Kirkuk, Mosul, some of these other larger cities. Some of the smaller villages where there are problems we are also visiting some of them, both in the north, south, central regions. That doesn't mean we're not working in Arbeel and Solomonia. We actually do have several grants that we are running in those places in the north, and we are trying to balance, them, essentially, because of the Kurdish sensitivities, the issues up in the north there.
And that's as true for AID as it is for CPA, as it is for OTI, trying to get out into those various areas and so programming. But, as Greg says, the problem, the issue right now is trying to head off any potential violence that may occur in places like Kirkuk or Mosul.
The media question. This is what OTI does, is develop local capacity media. We have visited, although I do not think we've actually cut any grants just yet on radio, newspapers, we certainly have a few that are in development in some of these places in Baghdad, in Kirkuk. We actually helped create a network of human rights organizations in the Baghdad region that we're hoping to expand elsewhere. We're going to amplify their voices, amply their impact, their outreach, by providing them with the resources to do a newsletter of sorts. Something small. Not huge media. But it's the first step that if it goes well, we can try and move beyond that, try and to something else to amplify the voices that are coming from civil society, essentially.
So very much, we also visited several radio stations in Kirkuk, in Mosul several newspapers, in Baghdad, we were out there trying to do exactly what you are suggesting.
MR. GOTTLIEB: One thing I did want to add was there was a meeting just recently, you are probably aware of, in Athens, to discuss a larger plan for media in Iraq. The plan that came from there has now been taken to Bremer. So, it is under consideration. It's sort I guess the polite way to put it is that it's under discussion. I guess that would be the politically sensitive thing to say. And I think that's what happening is that they are talking about it.
Early on we have worked with Radio Sawa, to work with, I know the Administrator Natsios has broadcast in. And so we've worked with them because they had a certain amount of listenership. And as Albert says, in a lot of the places we've worked, we've always worked with local media. But in the case I think of Iraq, where Mr. Bremer is in charge, we are trying to work with them to make sure that the kinds of things that we could get off the ground quickly are in alignment with what they want to do.
So we're sort of looking to see where that larger plan is going to go, before we would engage it at our local level.
MODERATOR: Yes ma'am.
QUESTION: My name is Erica Evers, and I'm here representing the Austrian Trade Commission. I just had a general question. You had mentioned earlier several areas in the reconstruction process, such as water systems, and supplies, you know refurbishing buildings, and such. And I was wondering more about the areas, are there any areas of reconstruction dealing with sort of agriculture, and sort of what would be the needs in terms of technical assistance or supplies and thus?
MODERATOR: All right. For agriculture, we at AID are working on two levels, and the US Department of Agriculture is also involved. They're looking at a slightly higher policy level. In agriculture, we have currently out on the street for bid a request for proposals from private firms to bring in technical assistance for agriculture and agricultural marketing, both the agronomy and the marketing part. And I believe there are some financial institutions that are involved in there as well. We've asked the bidders to come with at least one non-U.S. subcontractor, so that this is an American flag, but it's got someone's flag or flags with it. And we expect that those technical assistance people would be on the ground problem in September. The request for proposals is on our website, and I don't remember the closing date; it's probably two or three weeks off yet.
MR. : June 27.
MODERATOR: June 27? Closer than I thought. Okay, in any case, now the document's about 80 pages long and it's on the web site. I think it's called ARDI. This is AID so everything ends in an 'I.'
But on a lower level, as you heard for the community action program, the NGOs would be looking at what could they do quickly? What could you do in a very targeted manner, whether it's a school garden, or whether it's getting people together for a truck to take their tomatoes in all at once, so you the higher-volume price rather than an individual price. Those sorts of examples. And those would be all locally driven.
One of the things that we've found in talking with our NGO partners is that they're very open to other people who wish to come and help. The nice thing about NGOs is they can open up their systems much faster than some of the other mechanisms we use.
As far as imported goods, for the moment we're trying to buy as much as we can in Iraq, because the huge sum of money that we've been given to administer, if we buy it all from the United States, then the benefits come to the United States. What would like to do is purchase in Iraq from commercial sources wherever we can.
For the US Department of Agriculture sorts of things, I'm afraid I have to refer you over to them. My understanding is that they're less in the purchasing business than they are in setting up to ministry and how the programs would run there.
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
MODERATOR: Yes ma'am?
QUESTION: I'm Barbara Dredi from the American Kurdish Center.
I had two general questions for you. One is someone had mentioned that there is going to be an effort to integrate the community level building of democracy with the national level. But I think one thing that keeps coming up in the news is the disenchantment of the Iraqis that there hasn't been larger-scale planning that's been made visible as to what's happening nationally. So I wonder if you could address that question of how to link up what you're doing at the local level, which really does sound very good with the planning process for something that would involve Iraqis and their own national government.
The second question I had is it sounds like the best approach right now to developing conflict resolution methods and applying then on the ground is coming from this community action program that you've just given out awards for. But I'd be interested in hearing what people are actually doing in terms of building conflict resolution methods at the community level, if there are people that are making use of traditional practices used in Iraq and in the Kurdish regions, and if people are building off of those; and also if those are being used to make bridges across the different ethnic groups. Because that looks to be the most difficult type of conflict resolution at the moment.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: How do local government activities fit with the larger national polity? A portion of that you're going to have to ask the State Department about. I can tell you a little bit about how we see things coming along, however. It does no good to replace one dictator with another. It does not good to remove one authoritarian government and put in place another authoritarian system. So what we are hoping to do, and the philosophy that's driving our local governance activities is to come from the most representative place possible, as far as bringing up the new local institutions. What we find is that as long as you do public meetings, and you push for the broadest representation that you can, and if you do everything as transparently as you can, then it tends to mitigate the extreme positions of very strong personalities, whether those are economic interest, whether they are religious interests, whether they are simply political or traditional points of view.
If you want people that come closer to a compromise, then you have to make sure that the discussions take place where you can see them. As an example, not in Iraq but in Afghanistan, the Loya Jurga that was held last year was broadcast on national radio live. And what we found was that people who were real firebrands and very difficult to deal with in private, when they knew that the entire nation was listening to them, then they tended to moderate some of their more extreme points of view. And they came together much more easily with other people who were around them.
So what we are hoping by working through towns and neighborhoods, building up to sub-district and district, and then also building up now to the beginnings of representation at a governant level, is that there will be this moderating influence that will have an effect on the way that people at the national level choose to behave.
Now, we know from other examples, that we stand a better-than-even chance of moderating some of the extreme behavior at the top. But, if you'll excuse the sports metaphor, the batting average is not 1,000, it's somewhat less than that. So we know that local governance is not a panacea. But it's the best thing we've found so far for getting people to be involved with their future, to control the money that is taken from them in taxes, to influence the way that foreign assistance or foreign investment is handled, and to essentially set their own future.
We're hoping that we can get a strong local governance system put in place well enough in advance that it will have that moderating effect, as the national decisions are made.
As far as conflict resolution, I'm going to turn you over to Albert, because he's done more of it than I have.
MR. CERVALLO: In response to your question, Barbara, I was actually deployed out there to work with what AID had set up, something called The Abuse Prevention Unit, whose specific job was identify conflict, mitigate, report on it, hopefully resolve it. AID sent out five people. There were three of us in the north, one in Baghdad, one in the south. We're sending out a new wave of three or four people in the next few days. But this is specifically, as you say, for conflict mitigation activities, conflict resolution efforts, and it could be anything from individual interventions, to grants, to working with local organizations, with political leader or civic leaders, to try and identify flash points, what to do about it, how to get media messages out to promote tolerance. It could be a whole slew of things essentially to address conflict.
There are other organizations that are doing conflict resolution activities, some through the universities in the north. I think they're going to expand farther south soon. There are other efforts by other organizations out there. Is it enough? Probably not. You can have a lot of these going up there. But there are varied activities throughout the country doing reconciliation behind the scenes, in the limelight so to speak.
And I think one of the biggest tricks is going to be in linking up all of these different efforts.
MODERATOR: All right. We have time to take one last question before we run out of our allotted space. Sir?
QUESTION: My name is Nick Store. And the question is a generic one, dealing with financial mechanisms, and speed of progress of getting things happening on the ground. Could you talk a little about the mechanics of how funds are being released by OCPA, and either from ceased assets or from oil revenues, or from appropriated funds. And I don't know if the AID funds are actually under the control of OCPA, or not. But how do funds actually get converted from whatever form of currency they're in, in some form of financial or banking institution, into actual dollars that you can dispense to individuals or institutions on the ground in Iraq? How is that process working? And are there points of contact in OCPA, or a web site that talks a little bit about how that mechanism is supposed to be working?
MODERATOR: All right. The funds that USAID uses for the parts of the program that we administer were appropriated by the Congress, and as a result, run through the same processes and the same mechanisms that we would use in any assistance program in any country.
Now there are a variety of other forms of funding that are available and are controlled from Baghdad by Ambassador Bremer. And the best place to seek how that's going to work and how they're making it work would be either from Defense Department here in town, or through the Baghdad people who are handling that. I do believe that we'll hear a lot more about how that happens when the donor committee meets in New York Next Tuesday. We're hoping that as part of that presentation, then the rules of the game will be made a lot clearer. But for the moment, we don't have a lot of information that we could pass to you on that.
QUESTION: Is there a point of contact [Inaudible]
MODERATOR: Is there a point of contact at OCPA? I don't know. It would be Doug Zycom's [ph] here and you'd have to go back through them.
All right, we have run out of our time for the consultation. So those of you who are here for the information exchange, we're very glad you came. We hope you'll come back. This will be available on the web site as a film later on today and eventually as a transcript I hope, so you'll be able to come back and hold us to our word.
What I'd like to do now is turn the podium over to Mr. Luke Zahner, who is part of our press office, and we will move on into a press event with many of the same folks still up here. Luke?
[END OF TAPED RECORDING.] :
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