Baghdad, Iraq — May 26, 2009 — In May, two staff members from IRD’s Community Action Program III (CAP III) met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of a special forum for widows in Iraq. Beshair and Wessal are both mothers of three who lost their husbands to violence in the last few years. They are also fortunate to have found employment to support their families, which many widows have not. When Sec. Clinton visited Baghdad, she wanted to hear the experiences and ideas that Beshair, Wessal, and several other widows have about creating opportunities for disadvantaged women.

The IRD staff members and several of the other women pointed out that while giving women training is useful, it doesn’t necessarily get to the underlying cause of disadvantages. Once a woman is able sew, work with computers, or speak English, it still doesn’t solve the problem of lack of jobs and significant cultural obstacles.

IRD’s CAP III goes further than just offering training by making small business development grants available to help women get their own business up and running, creating jobs for others at the same time.

CAP III is an 18-month, $39.1 million project in Baghdad and Baquba fostering democratic principles at the grassroots level. IRD brings together Iraqi citizens into Community Action Groups and then gives them the opportunity to work together with local governments to prioritize and communicate community needs such as repairing clinics and electricity supplies. In this way, CAP III will help set up systems for citizens to participate in local governance and local governments to be more responsive to their constituents, even after CAP III itself has finished.

Under CAP II, IRD completed 1,179 projects worth over $26 million and benefiting over 12 million Iraqis. These projects created 12,687 long term and 12,992 short term jobs. This included the construction or rehabilitation of nearly 500km of roads, 48 schools, 81 hospitals and clinics, 17 sports facilities, five sanitation and sewer projects, and various other facilities including parks, fire stations, markets and community centers.