Local NGO sector struggling to establish itself

Pictures of good works line the dingy and dirty walls and files full of cases are stacked high on every desk at the Center for Helping Harmed and Needy Families near the National Theatre in central Baghdad. Volunteers in one room deal with a batch of files; two guards stand watch at a desk downstairs. A sign on the building outside points the way to the local aid agency, unusual in a city where all international aid agencies have taken down anything showing where they are located for security reasons, or closed their doors altogether. “Before the fall of the regime, we were not allowed to open any civil society groups,” al-Zubaidy, one of the organisers, told IRIN. “So we weren’t able to start our work until April of last year.” Al-Zubaidy has big plans to help people - plans that so far are financed from her husband’s deep pockets and donations from well-to-do friends and community leaders. The group is building housing for poor people on a family plot of land, she said, showing off pictures of workers digging dirt and laying bricks. The NGO also wants to help widows learn how to use computers, to get cooperative farms going again for people who have no jobs and to offer extra schooling activities for children, she said. They are coordinating with the new ministry of housing and the ministry of agriculture to get approval for the projects. But so far, no outside aid agency has offered funding, al-Zubaidy said, even though she has approached several, including a Spanish non-governmental agency and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the main US government-run aid agency. Centre staff used to go to regular meetings with other aid agencies at the United Nations office, she said, before it was bombed a year ago. “We have good coordination with those NGOs, but they are not supporting us financially,” al-Zubaidy said. Local aid agencies have opened their doors in record numbers in the past 14 months since the US-led invasion of Iraq toppled the former regime. An estimated 500-1,000 such groups are now working. Many are self-funded or charge small fees for the services they offer. While they may do important work, groups like the Centre for Helping Harmed and Needy Families struggle with credibility problems, Sedim Ghani Abdulbag, the head of Human Aid Society, another new aid agency on the other side of town, told IRIN. “After the fall of the ex-regime, we wanted civil society to spread,” Abdulbag said. “Most of the groups are fake, people say they are helping the needy, but they’re just trying to benefit from a bad situation.” Agencies register a variety of names so they can make money as quickly as possible, Abdulbag said, without naming specific groups. He pointed out that there is not much government control over what goes on in Iraq at the moment. An interim government named in June in a UN-sponsored process is expected to work until January, when an election is to be held. Human Aid also plans to build housing units for people who have been displaced under the former regime, Abdulbag said, showing documents from city government officials in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad allocating available land for the project. Abdulbag also shows letters of support from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the minister of human rights and from other local groups. “We have approval from the government and local and international companies are investing in our projects,” Abdulbag said, admitting that he also started his group with funds from wealthy neighbours. For Bishop Jusif, a Christian religious leader who is trying to open a university, or at least expand the range of classes he currently teaches in church, just trying to start an organisation is the main issue, not whether it is credible with outsiders. Norwegian Church Aid, an international aid agency which may help Jusif get started, expects his project to cost about $50,000. Regardless of how others feel about them, al-Zubaidy said her agency will continue to work. Lawyers are also volunteering to defend detainees who have been kept in Iraq jails, many without charge, for several months. Lawyers are also looking into additional allegations of detainees being mistreated by US forces, she said.