NGOs working on development projects in rural areas

While much of the humanitarian aid is focused on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, which still suffers occasional power cuts and shortages in health care, and some aspects of life are returning to normal, some villages around the city remain in dire need of emergency assistance. In Hayy Tariq, one of the most impoverished villages north of Baghdad, electricity is being supplied for only two hours a day. "Right now, NGOs in Iraq are still continuing to work for emergency needs," the head of a German NGO, Architects for People in Need (APN), Alexander Christof, told IRIN. "Maybe it will take 10 to 15 years and tens of billions of dollars to rehabilitate the basic services in Iraq. Almost 60 per cent of people who live in the villages and rural areas have no access to safe drinking water or health services," he said. Hayy Tariq has never had a clinic, and those who can afford it are forced to travel for miles to get medical assistance, and even for them it is sometimes reached too late. "We never had a clinic before here in this village during the former regime," Dr Aminah al-Dhahabi, a physician working at a temporary clinic set up by APN, told IRIN in Hayy Tariq. The NGO is now busy equipping a newly established clinic as part of their project in the village. Al-Dhahabi said most of the doctors working in the village were from Baghdad. "I’m from this village, but I took some training with the UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund] while they were working in the country during the summer," she explained. "All the medicine is given here for free for the patients, but we issue cards for them first," Dr Abd al-Raziq al-Musawi, also working for APN, told IRIN. He said the villagers were facing health problems on a daily basis, and that during the summer there had been a particularly nasty outbreak of typhoid due to contaminated tap water. "The village suffers from a defective sewage system, which connects it to the tap water," al-Musawi said. It was for such reasons that children in the Iraqi countryside were now affected by one of the highest mortality rates in the world, he added. The situation had been exacerbated by the fact that key players in humanitarian aid, such as the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, had scaled down their operations in the country due to insecurity, he explained. A mother carrying her daughter suffering from an intestinal disorder told IRIN the clinic had been a blessing as she was now able to collect purified water to help treat her child. Patients visiting the clinic have also been given a hygiene kit for every family, which includes towels and cleaning materials. APN is working in the village as part of its ongoing operations in the country. Its project includes an integrated emergency response to essential water, health and hygiene needs in the shanty village of Hayy Tariq. It is focusing on rehabilitating four water-treatment plants, compact units, and a 30-km pipe network, as well as conducting health awareness and rubbish collection campaigns. The project is being implemented in cooperation with the French NGO Enfants du Monde. "The project is funded by ECHO [European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office] mainly, but we have other charity funds from Germany as well as other European countries," Christof said, adding that the project had been launched in August 2003 with a view to completion by March 2004. Ayad Mahdawi, an electrical engineer working for APN, told IRIN that the electricity system in Hayy Tariq was being connected to the main grid, but this would take some time to complete, but when it was done, the villagers would have piped water available in their homes. "Right now, we’re bringing around 12 tankers a day. Each tanker contains from 10,000 to 17,000 litres. We hope by the end of March to finish the pipeline connections, which will produce 1 million litres a day of water for the population of 572,000 living in the village," he said. APN has been present in Iraq implementing water, sanitation, health, rehabilitation and vocational training-education projects since November 2001. Enfants du Monde and ECHO have engaged in similar projects in other areas.