Abu Ghraib – Hope Rekindled?
In 2004, Abu Ghraib, an agro based region in the outskirts of Baghdad came into world attention for all the wrong reasons of human rights abuse. Thereafter, in an attempt to correct the aftermath, development agencies had been trying hard to rebuild the economic base and restore people’s confidence.
Sunirmal K Ray, a senior international consultant in SME sector management, working mainly in conflict economy countries of Asia, in his earlier post Could the Wound Heal in Abu Ghraib? of August 30th 2009, gave his perspective on the development initiatives being attempted by the donor agencies in this region.
Here is his rejoinder to the earlier post.
I wrote a blog on Abu Ghraib in Iraq sometime back and thought of writing another one in the context of some development work taking place there. It is one of the worst affected areas of Iraq and insurgent activities have caused many people to flee the place – those living are finding it difficult to earn a livelihood. The region though has fairly good prospect for different agricultural products and had substantial agriculture productivity earlier is now suffering due to various reasons. Framers do not have access to water, quality seeds, agriculture extension service and credit facility.
Recently, Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), supported by the US Government, has initiated few development activities to support both men and women living in this district, which is called Qada. It has several sub districts which are known as Nahiyas. Certain Nahiyas like Nasser al Salam and Zaidan are difficult to reach and more violence prone.
Hope rekindled: PRT recently organized an integrated development program which trained 250 women, of which 125 were trained in bee keeping and the other 125 were trained in small poultry farming. Many of these women are widows and desperately in need of a livelihood. Abu Ghraib was known for its agriculture once but years of neglect and invasion have destroyed the competitiveness. These women were raised in farmers’ family and immediately grasped the training imparted on them. This training was followed by a basic business skills training to provide an insight about a micro business.
One group of women are now being provided with bee keeping kits and the other group with chickens, chicks and feed to enable them to start a micro business from their home. Follow up support is being provided by a local NGO and Bee Keepers Association.
- Participants attending bee keeping training
- These organizations would help the women to get maximum production and will help them to introduce the best practices in bee keeping and poultry farming. Bee Keepers’ Association will also buy back the honey produced by these women. This is a great example in the context of livelihood development in Iraq. In the next phase PRT is having a plan to put this group with Iraqi Micro Finance Institutions to get micro loans which would help them to add more bee boxes to achieve economies of scale.
- Abu Ghraib is known for all wrong reasons and has given huge negative publicity to the US and it’s military. Replicating few more activities like this may heal the wound and will pave the way for agriculture activities to thrive in the region again.
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