Charities in Iraq Face Shortage of Money and Many Other Hurdles

The International Rescue Committee was one of at least six large American relief charities that pulled out of Iraq in 2005, as security in the country worsened and more and more aid workers found themselves victims of kidnappings and bombings. But last fall, the New York nonprofit group decided to reopen an office in northern Iraq, spurred by the growing numbers of people in need of food, medical care, and other assistance.

“We didn’t reenter Iraq lightly,” says Michael Kocher, acting vice president for international programs. “But we felt compelled given the further deteriorating humanitarian situation and the lack of service providers.”

While the charity is virtually alone among nonprofit organizations in returning to Iraq, workers for nonprofit groups have been discussing whether it is time for more groups to go back.

Returning charities would join a band of about six large American relief and development organizations — as well as some small and mid-sized groups that work on human rights and job creation, among other issues — that have remained in the country since shortly after the United States invaded in 2003.

Struggles Abound

A multitude of concerns face groups that operate in Iraq. The security situation remains extremely volatile. And questions about the ability of charities to operate independently of the U.S. government continue to plague the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Charities have found it difficult to raise money for Iraq from average Americans. Most of the groups now in Iraq rely primarily on government grants.

At the same time, charity officials say the humanitarian situation is worsening. More than 2.4 million Iraqi people have been forced to leave their homes for safer parts of the country. A 2007 report by Oxfam and a network of local nonprofit groups found that 70 percent of Iraqis lacked adequate access to water, compared with 50 percent in 2003. Twenty-eight percent of children were malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the U.S. invasion.

Meanwhile, an estimated 2.5 million Iraqis have fled to Jordan, Syria, and other countries. Some of the charities that left Iraq in 2005, including Save the Children, are providing care to the refugees.

Most of the large nongovernmental organizations that left in 2005 say they aren’t ready to make a decision about whether to return. Charles F. MacCormack, president of Save the Children, in Westport, Conn., says the charity has no immediate plans to return but is monitoring the security situation in Iraq closely.

Better by Degree

Charities working in Iraq say they have been successful in delivering services, despite the violence. Some say the security has improved over the last year, allowing them to expand their operations.

“It’s far better than what it was a year ago,” says Rick Santos, director of communications and advocacy at International Relief and Development, in Arlington, Va. His organization has expanded the number of cities in which it works to 17, from about 12 a year ago.

Others warn, however, that the improvements remain marginal. Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International, in Washington, says: “It’s improved from a negative 10 to a negative eight, but it hasn’t gotten into the positive.”

Charities that have chosen to stay in Iraq are not without their critics. Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, in Culver City, Calif., says that the heavy financial reliance of many aid groups on federal money blurs the lines between humanitarian assistance, private contractors, and the U.S. government.

“When you go in as part of the camp followers of a military adventure, it cheapens the whole field,” he says.

Mr. Walden says that money to rebuild Iraq should instead be directed to charities that are from countries other than the United States. “I totally get that there’s a humanitarian crisis and we’ve broken the country and have an obligation to put it back together,” he says. “The question is whether American NGO’s will be more effective than, say, a Swedish NGO, or a French NGO, or somebody who doesn’t have a dog in the fight.”

Ms. Salbi, of Women for Women International, says that her group accepted some government support when it first entered Iraq. But the group was frustrated by the government’s rigid requirement for how quickly it had to spend the grant, so now Women for Women International relies excusively on private giving for its Iraq work.

Other charity leaders working in Iraq, however, say that government support hasn’t posed problems for them.

David Holdridge, Mercy Corps’s Middle East regional director, says that as long as charities set conditions for receiving federal grants, and don’t allow U.S. government officials to dictate their work, they can remain independent. His group receives between $40-million and $50-million each year from the U.S. government for its Iraq programs.

“There’s a lot of pain in Iraq, and I can’t just get on my high horse and say I don’t like current U.S. foreign policy and I’m not going to deal with that pain,” he says. “But I can say I’m not going to be told how and where to address that pain.”

Mr. Holdridge says he hasn’t seen any examples of meddling by U.S. government officials in five years of working in Iraq. He says he would like to see more non-American groups working in the country, but they haven’t decided to return to Iraq.

‘A Lot of Tea’

Most of the large charities in Iraq both provide immediate humanitarian aid, such as food and medical care, and also support longer-term efforts to help create jobs and build local groups. Key to operating safely, they say, is developing the trust of local people.

Mercy Corps, which works in three Iraqi provinces, spends about six months to a year cultivating relationships with sheiks and other local leaders.

“It’s a bit of an art form,” says Mr. Holdridge. “You have to do a lot of things. You go to marriages and funerals. You drink a lot of tea. On the weekends, you might teach their kids how to use computers.”

None of the charity’s staff members have been killed in Iraq, although the group does face about a dozen serious security incidents — such as robberies, or employees held for ransom — in a given year. While the group has been forced to evacuate some areas in advance of militia violence, they have always been warned ahead of time by people with whom they have cultivated relationships.

Mr. Holdridge says it is imperative for charities that return to Iraq to spend time putting in place such safeguards. And even then, he says, “there are no guarantees.”

Aid groups also work alongside local Iraqi organizations. CHF International, in Silver Spring, Md., International Relief and Development, and two other groups share a program that engages local Iraqi leaders in determining development priorities for their communities. The groups hold public meetings, asking Iraqi leaders what projects they need assistance with.

Such efforts have benefited from the emergence of civil-society organizations in Iraq, which were all but nonexistent under Saddam Hussein.

Women for Women International has employed only Iraqi staff members since it began working in the country in 2003, but still hasn’t been able to offer the same level of services it does in other countries. It’s also been forced to cut nearly half of its employees, to about 30.

“We moved from having a huge program when we first started to being forced to operate under the radar screen,” Ms. Salbi says.

Publicizing Concerns

As the humanitarian situation in Iraq deepens, charities are also trying to raise awareness among the American public and U.S. government officials.

The International Rescue Committee, for example, asks readers of its Web site to sign a petition calling for the U.S. government to step up aid and allow more Iraqi refugees to enter the United States. Last month, several of its group’s board members, including Morton Abramowitz, a former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and James Wolfensohn, a former head of the World Bank, published an opinion article in The New York Times describing the plight of Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan.

But aid groups’ advocacy efforts have been complicated by the political sensitivity of the issue.

“There’s been an embarrassing lack of attention to the humanitarian situation, ironically far less than if it were in some place other than Iraq,” says Mr. Kocher, of the International Rescue Committee. “It’s been politically inconvenient for this government and others to acknowledge that there’s a humanitarian crisis of this scale.”

As they seek to generate awareness of the chaos, charities are also trying to obtain more money.

Some are calling for changes in how the U.S. government allocates money to assist Iraqis. The majority of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance don’t go to charities, but instead to private contractors and other entities through military units known as provincial-reconstruction teams.

Mr. Holdridge says that’s a poor strategy, because charities, in many cases, have long experience working with people in conflict zones. “Why would you create a new and different capacity to do economic development and governance,”he says, “when you have organizations like IRC that have 70 years of experience?”

Mr. Holdridge says that he believes charities could use twice as much government money for their Iraq work as they currently receive. (He estimates that nonprofit groups have spent about $1-billion in the country since 2003.)

Many nonprofit officials don’t see private donations as offering much of a solution to the shortage of money.

A few groups have had some success with corporate and foundation donors. The International Rescue Committee has won about $12-million in private donations since it made a push to raise money for its Iraq programs beginning last fall, including more than $3.5-million from the Tides Foundation, in San Francisco. The group is also asking for donations on its Web site, and will soon mail a fund-raising solicitation.

Mercy Corps has won large contributions from Nike and the Microsoft Corporation. But individuals haven’t provided much help to the charity.

“I think Americans just push Iraq away, in all aspects, and that’s really unfair,” says Mr. Holdridge. “They’re just folks trying to scratch out a living.”

Ms. Salbi agrees. “The international community has turned its back on Iraq. It’s given up, and that’s really dangerous.”