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| March 1, 2004 |
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| Donors Commit $1 Billion For Iraq Reconstruction |
WASHINGTON - March 1, 2004. International donors committed Sunday to placing about $1 billion of money
they have pledged for Iraq's reconstruction into a fund [International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq], which will initially be overseen by the biggest single donor, Japan, The Associated Press (02/29), Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland, 03/01), and Die Welt (Germany, 03/01)report.
The two-day meeting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, was a follow-up
working session to an Iraq reconstruction conference in Madrid, Spain, where a total of more than $33 billion was promised in grants and loans, including about $20 billion already pledged by the United States. Donors committed to release nearly $1 billion of the pledged money into a trust fund that will be jointly managed by the World Bank and the United
Nations, said Matsumitsu Ito, Japan's ambassador to Iraq. He said the
donor's conference had agreed that management of the trust fund would be
overseen by a committee comprised of countries that have pledged $10
million or more to Iraq's reconstruction. Japan, which committed $500 million to the fund in Abu Dhabi, would hold the rotating presidency of
the committee for one year, Ito said. The committee also includes the
European Union, Australia, Canada, Spain, India, Qatar, Kuwait, South
Korea, Norway, Sweden, Britain and the United States. About half of the 38
countries at the conference signed binding agreements for a total of $1
billion to be placed in the trust fund during the current year, Ito said.
Agence France Presse (02/29) notes in another piece that Mehdi al-Hafidh,
Iraq's interim planning and development cooperation minister, presented
the meeting Saturday with a list of 700 projects in health, education,
infrastructure and other sectors that urgently need funding of four billion dollars.
Dow Jones (02/29) adds that Iraq's planning minister asked for more than
$4 billion for reconstruction over the next 12 months, but World Bank and
UN officials said that while donors were coming forth with some of the
funds they had pledged, they wanted to know how the money would be managed
and where it would be spent. Joseph Saba, the World Bank's country director for Iraq, told reporters that the meeting was about working out
how funds would be managed.
Agence France Presse (02/29) meanwhile notes in another piece that a member of the Qatari delegation said a meeting of the Iraq donor's committee was expected to be held in Qatar in the second half of May and would include Iraq, the World Bank and the United Nations. The committee will "endorse overall priorities, provide strategic guidance to the two trust funds, review progress and ensure reporting to all donors,"
according to the World Bank.
Separately, Agence France Presse (02/28) notes that the United Nations
said Saturday it was finalizing an action plan that would guide its
development work in Iraq in 2004 and beyond. Titled "A Strategy for
Assistance to Iraq", the plan addresses 10 sectors, or "clusters" as it refers to them, ranging from education and culture to water and sanitation, governance and civil society. Once complete the action plan would be the UN's "definitive strategic planning document for Iraq."
In other news, The Washington Post (03/01) reports that Iraqi political
leaders agreed early Monday on the terms of an interim constitution that
strikes a compromise on the contentious issues of Kurdish autonomy and
Islam's role in government. The document, which will provide a legal
framework for Iraq until elections are held and a permanent constitution
is drafted, grants broad protections for individual rights, guaranteeing
freedom of speech, assembly and religion, and other liberties long denied by the Baath Party government of former president Saddam Hussein. In an
unprecedented step toward gender equality in the Arab world, the document
sets aside 25 percent of the seats in the provisional legislature for
women, council aides said.
The New York Times (03/01) writes that if approved, the interim constitution would be the most progressive such document in the Arab world. Even before the hard bargaining began, there was wide agreement on many of its major features, including the freedom of speech, press and assembly and the free exercise of religion.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press (02/29) reports that Iraqi Electricity
Minister Ayham al-Sammarae said on Sunday that the country will need to
have at least 25,000 megawatts of electricity to support planned
reconstruction, adding that money from international donors will help pay
for the expansion. The ministry expects to reach a national capacity of at
least 7,000 megawatts by summer and 12,000 megawatts by the end of the
year. Al-Sammarae said the ministry has come up with a list of more than
200 projects that it hopes to start by 2006, tallying the cost at $6 billion.
Agence France Presse (02/27) reports that the UN said Friday it needed
$369 million over the next four years to fund a housing rehabilitation
program in Iraq. UN-HABITAT and officials of Iraqi ministries on Wednesday adopted the "Urban and Housing Rehabilitation Program," under which the UN human settlements body will help promote sustainable post-war
reconstruction in Iraq.
The New York Times (03/01) reports that Iraq's oil industry has undergone
a remarkable turnaround and is now producing and exporting almost as much
crude oil as it did before the war, according to officials with the
American-led occupation and the Iraqi oil ministry. A month before the
April 1 deadline set by Iraq and American officials for restoring the
industry to prewar levels, the country is producing 2.3 million to 2.5
million barrels a day, compared with 2.8 million barrels a day before the
war.
The New York Times (02/29) also reports that in its final years in power,
Saddam Hussein's government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of UN sanctions. Millions of Iraqis were struggling to survive on rations of food and medicine. Yet the government's hidden slush funds were being fed by suppliers and oil traders from around the world who sometimes
lugged suitcases full of cash to ministry offices, said Iraqi officials
who supervised the skimming operation.
Source: The World Bank |
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