Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities

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“ You are the future of Ramadi. You should never forget what you have seen and what we have been through. This is our way forward” —Latif Obaid Ayadah 2 A complete stabilization package had hundreds of IEDs, there were attacks happening, sometimes multiple times per day.” But by summer 2007, almost a year after what is often referred to as the Second Battle of Ramadi, the landscape began to change. Many shops had reopened and kebab stands were again filled with customers. And the Tameem Quarter Soccer Field, refurbished and reopened, was the site of the Tameem Championship, a citywide tournament. Before the final match between Tameem Quarter and the Qadasiyah neighborhood teams got under way, Ramadi Mayor Latif Obaid Ayadah walked across the new field and greeted the players. He shook hands with the young Iraqi men and congratulated them for making it to the finals and for helping restore normalcy. The event, and its community support, was “crucial in winning back the city,” he said. “You are the future of Ramadi,” he told the gathered players—and spectators. “You should never forget what you have seen and what we have been through. This is our way forward.” CSP sponsored many similar youth programs, holding sports events and tournaments in areas once deemed hot zones. But the Tameem tournament is illustrative of just how fundamental the element of integration was to CSP’s success: integrated programmatic components and integrated activities with the military. Capturing project progressions and linkages Four months before the tournament in Tameem Quarter, a cleanup campaign jointly organized by US military civil affairs teams and CSP removed the garbage, junk cars, debris, and other trash that blocked the streets and prevented kids from getting to the field. Through that community infrastructure and essential services project, IRD employed hundreds of local young men, many of whom were then organized into neighborhood soccer teams—with help from community leaders, sports union members, and local teachers—as part of CSP’s youth activities program. IRD provided the teams with equipment and uniforms and organized a series of games on local fields restored by CSP cleanup initiatives. The Tameem championship game was the culmination of more than a month of separate but interrelated projects that began with hiring temporary workers but ended with an organized public event that packed in local <strong>citizens</strong>, including the targeted young male demographic. Organizing and supporting similar programs in areas that had been cleaned up and secured, Mayor Ayadah said, was “the key to preventing insurgents from making their way back into the community.” This event was one of hundreds demonstrating how effective well-planned project links could be. In Mosul, two Olympic-size pools, restored as a CIES project, were soon crowded with kids and young adults taking part in swim meets or swimming lessons—activities planned and organized by the employment generation and youth unit. Similarly, CIES rehabilitated hospitals while the employment generation and youth unit would provide on-site emergency response and first-aid training. In Baghdad, newly constructed computer training centers hosted vocational training classes that consistently operated at full capacity. In Kirkuk, a major irrigation canal restoration project allowed struggling farmers to receive funds through the business development grants program. And with such a large number of youth employed on the canal project, IRD took the opportunity to promote Kirkuk’s Hawija Medina Soccer Championship, which drew more than 2,500 spectators and participants. The final independent evaluation commissioned by USAID found that all four CSP components “were effective to varying degrees” but that intra-CSP coordination and “integration with other programs” was “notable in [its] impacting effectiveness.” Each program component had specific objectives, but by closely integrating project work across as many components as possible, IRD ensured its activities were 30
A typical market project would begin with an intensive cleaning campaign followed by rehabilitation work to rebuild roads and infrastructure that had either been destroyed or fallen into disrepair mutually reinforcing, which enhanced the likelihood of a project’s lasting impact. Another consideration for IRD was the need to capture the progression and links between the various shortand long-term initiatives, so that the shift from service provision (such as debris removal) to economic development would not be abrupt and, ideally, would play out in a linear fashion, a chain of events that would reflect increasing stabilization. Another way to describe the complete package would be as a selfsustaining cycle (figure 1). CSP in full: Ramadi and the 17th Street market A typical market project would begin with an intensive cleaning campaign followed by rehabilitation work to rebuild roads and infrastructure that had either been destroyed or fallen into disrepair. Grants would then be awarded to help businesses in the revitalized market increase their stock and services to boost sales and generate new jobs. Such rehabilitations were not possible without secure neighborhoods, and perhaps no city in Iraq embodied the need for a joint civ-mil partnership more than Ramadi. The dramatic turnaround began in mid-2006, during the Sunni Awakening and the military’s subsequent push to win the city back from insurgents. “In 2006, Ramadi had been written off by the military,” said Gartner, the CSP deputy chief of party. “The level of destruction was huge. By that time, insurgents were parading openly up and down 17th Street, the main street though the city. They were on TV with their weapons announcing, ‘We own the city.’ So when the Marines cleared that, the insurgents just destroyed everything in their way. It was a hardcore battle.” Prior to 2003, 17th Street had been one of the city’s main commercial arteries. But the urban warfare, which had damaged shops and caused shop owners and residents alike to flee, transformed the corridor from a lively district into a wasteland. Before the military campaign to win back the area began, terrorists put up roadblocks and lined vacant buildings with explosives. After the military had regained control, there was not much to control other than the land. The military split the city into different zones, and within each zone a company or platoon of Marines 2 A complete stabilization package Figure 1 Self-sustaining project work cycle CIES-funded public works projects boosted short-term employment and rehabilitated basic infrastructure (such as streets and markets), which allowed for . . . Development grants to help businesses in the revitalized areas rebuild economically, which boosted the need for . . . Apprenticeship and job placement services that linked reemerging businesses and contractors to newly skilled labor hires, many of whom started out on CIES-funded works projects. Vocational training to help young people acquire the technical and business skills to find permanent or long-term employment, which could be secured through . . . 31
Page 1: Empowering citizens Engaging govern
Page 4 and 5: Copyright © by International Relie
Page 6 and 7: In memory of Awni Quandour, whose r
Page 8 and 9: Overview General David Petraeus, co
Page 10 and 11: what made CSP stand out was the clo
Page 12 and 13: By the end of the program, the busi
Page 14 and 15: 1 Building community trust through
Page 16 and 17: “ The community believed in what
Page 18 and 19: Community action groups stood at th
Page 20 and 21: “ Many colleagues have told me th
Page 22 and 23: IRD’s health advisor referred Oma
Page 24 and 25: IRD placed a premium on diversity
Page 26 and 27: Whenever harm befell a community ac
Page 28 and 29: Scheduled to wind down in 2012 afte
Page 30 and 31: 2 A complete stabilization package
Page 32 and 33: As planning for CSP unfolded, the s
Page 34 and 35: “ There were no similar programs.
Page 36 and 37: the most successful projects were t
Page 40 and 41: “[Colonel John Charlton] was the
Page 42 and 43: 3 Successes and setbacks in a count
Page 44 and 45: CSP helped create a sense of normal
Page 46 and 47: the renovation of the Mosul Social
Page 48 and 49: By combining his personal savings w
Page 50 and 51: Ninety-eight percent of grantee bus
Page 52 and 53: Dr. Noor Abdul Aziz Baqir’s grant
Page 54 and 55: all the training centers renovated
Page 56 and 57: IRD embarked on its own job placeme
Page 58 and 59: CSP’s youth activities component
Page 60: most Iraqi citizens had an overwhel
Page 63 and 64: “We had challenges, but with the
Page 65 and 66: CSP was unprecedented in scale, but
Page 67 and 68: “ Without security, there is no d
Page 69 and 70: IRD’s staffing woes could be brok
Page 71 and 72: Many key tactical lessons have alre
Page 74 and 75: Epilogue
Page 76 and 77: Acronyms ACV CAG Assistance to Civi
Page 80: This report details IRD’s impleme

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