Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3 Successes and setbacks in a counterinsurgency environment Local workers rebuild a destroyed market in Jurf al Sakher
“The ultimate goal was to engage people for two or three years, but in many cases, we made a successful transition to keep activities going on. And that was evident across all the program components. CSP created jobs. CSP engaged youth. But at the local level, it really achieved something special.” — Barzan Ismaeel CSP was originally known as the “Focused Stabilization in Strategic Cities” program, which was descriptive of the COIN philosophy of quick-impact relief and reconstruction with short, targeted missions. Unlike traditional development programs, CSP was fluid, scaling up or down in response to evolving priorities in the most insecure areas of key cities like Basra, Kirkuk, and Mosul. But as CSP evolved from concept to implementation, “focused stabilization” began to mean more than geography. IRD’s broader mission of trying to establish a wholly integrated stabilization program with discernible short- and long-term benefits led to a system of “checks and balances.” Individual program components were afforded flexibility to meet their goals, but they also maintained a focus on adherence to the complete package model. As CSP rapidly scaled up, this tightly integrated approach proved important. The initial cooperative agreement was for $265 million and six months of activities in Baghdad. Expansion was expected, but funding increased rapidly in response to Department of Defense and USAID needs to add cities to the program. These changes eventually pushed the total obligation to $644 million. At the height of the program, CSP had 1,800 staff and was spending an average of $21 million a month. Program operations easily could have spiraled out of control, but the overall design didn’t allow it. “When we started expanding to other cities, the initial processes and procedures were taken to those cities,” Michele Lemmon said. “But they had to be adapted, because each city had its own circumstances, different <strong>communities</strong>, and a different acceptance of the program. Remember, we were doing what the Iraqis wanted to do. All the programs were designed by the Iraqi staff, with a helping hand from us. Now, consider going from one city, Baghdad, to 15 cities in a matter of months. That’s how large we became. Really, the success we had in those circumstances is owed to the strong program design. It kept CSP focused almost by default.” Community infrastructure and essential services: CSP’s entry point CSP categorized employment as either short term (fewer than three months) or long term (more than three months). By traditional labor standards in a modernized country’s economy, three months would hardly seem long term. In an environment like Iraq, however, that measure helped differentiate between jobs created by traditional development tools such as 35
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 38 and 39: “ You are the future of Ramadi. Y
Page 40 and 41: “[Colonel John Charlton] was the
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

Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?