Iraq: Empowering Citizens, Engaging Governments, Rebuilding Communities Series

Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities
IRAQ
Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities
International Relief & Development in Iraq 20032009
CASE STUDIES IN COMMUNITY STABILIZATION
Copyright by International Relief & Development (IRD) 2012 All rights reserved. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the US Agency for International Development or of the US government. IRD is a nonprofit humanitarian, stabilization, and development organization whose mission is to reduce the suffering of the worlds most vulnerable groups and provide the tools and resources needed to increase their self-sufficiency. Design, editing, and production by Communications Development Incorporated, Washington, DC, and Peter Grundy Art & Design, London, UK.
Contents
Forewordv Overview1 Chapter 1Building community trust6 ICAP: The first step to rebuilding civil society 8 Establishing services, assisting civilians, creating jobs 13 Insecurity: Operational limitations in an unstable environment 16 Chapter 2 A complete stabilization package 22 CSP origins: A new approach for international development 23 Breaking down CSPs design 26 The complete package: Programmatic and military integration 28 Chapter 3Successes and setbacks34 Community infrastructure and essential services: CSPs entry point 35 Business development programs: Light at the end of the tunnel 40 Vocational training: A sustainable program when we left 44 Youth activities: Different from everything else 49 Chapter 4 Converting roadblocks into a roadmap 54 CSPs three-year life cycle as a forcemultiplier 56 Strategic recommendations for future COIN programs 58 Epilogue66 Acronyms68 Notes69 Boxes 1 ICAP: Program and results 9 2 Awni Quandour: IRDs original elder statesman 11 3 The evolution of ICAP, USAIDs longest-running program in Iraq 20 4 CSP: At a glance 25 5 CSP: Project development process 29 6 CSP: Results36 7 Enhancing internal controls and program oversight 41 8 CSP and the changing perception of sustainability 46 9 Stabilization in Iraq: 20 tactical lessons 63 Figure 1 Self-sustaining project work cycle 31
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In memory of Awni Quandour, whose relationships with local communities in Iraq were invaluable to making IRDs programs work, and who was instrumental in establishing IRDs presence in the Middle East. His legacy lives on through the organizational strategy he helped craft.
Foreword
Recent civil stabilization successes can be traced to efforts launched in the Balkans in the 1990s. There, civil society groups became critical partners in sustaining and strengthening the peace. The communitybased model employed in that region is now being applied in other conflict and postconflict zones, including West Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan. A fairly new development is that NGOs now cooperate and coordinate directly with US and international security forces, along with bilateral and multilateral donor agencies. In places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the coordination has been so close that the NGOs work has been viewed as examples of effective counterinsurgency. As military and civilian leaders have pointed out, civilian agencies are best equipped to understand and work directly with local communities, and they are generally better received by local governments and populations. While some development organizations say civ-mil partnerships would compromise their neutrality, beneficiaries recognize the consistency of such partnerships with the NGO communitys mission to assist the worlds vulnerable populationseven those caught in armed conflict. This publication explores the Community Stabilization Program (CSP) in Iraq, a successful civ-mil partnership. This cooperative agreement between USAID and IRD initially funded stabilization activities in Baghdad and then expanded nationwide. At the height of the program, IRD had 1,800 staff (more than 90 percent local employees) in 15 cities and was implementing $21 million a month in programming. Where CSP went, multiple USAID audits, military, and USAID experts say that stability tended to follow. CSP relied on more than civ-mil partnership, however. The program also built on the experience IRD gained
from its Community Revitalization through Democratic Action (CRDA) program in the Balkans. IRD applied lessons about mobilizing war-weary populations to reestablish self-governance, community organization, and democratic principles. CSP benefited from IRDs on-the-ground presence and record of success in Iraq, as well as the earned trust of local communities. The program supported basic training on principles of governance, promoted civil society institutions, and instituted a rapid participatory appraisal process to get projects moving quickly. With this capacity development, Iraqi community groups developed action plans and implemented them in coordination with the military and local provincial reconstruction teams as well as local ministry officialshelping legitimize the government and establish lines of trust and communication between leaders and citizens. This publication offers an unvarnished examination of CSP and its precursor program in Iraqthe approaches, challenges, results, and impacts. The story is told in the voice of the many people who implemented it as well as by the beneficiaries who appreciated its contributions to improving security, government services, and the quality of life in conflictaffected areas. In my view CSP provides evidence to support the assertion that social and economic development does help sustain peace and stability.
Dr. Arthur B. Keys Jr.
Overview
General David Petraeus, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, and IRD staffers meet with members of the Ramadi Womens Center
Stabilization and reconstruction missions occur in a range of circumstancessometimes in hostile security environments, sometimes in permissive ones, and sometimes in environments somewhere in between. The mission to s tabilize and reconstruct a nation is one that civilians must lead.
John Negroponte
Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and subsequent US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, traditional relief and development programs, historically the province of a small group of civilian and voluntary agencies, expanded dramatically in scale and scope, touching nearly every government department, including the US military. Whereas the primary focus of assistance operations generally had been centered on providing humanitarian aid, rebuilding services, and enhancing civil society, the evolving efforts reached beyond basic relief measures, aiming to stabilize and rebuild populations during a period of conflict and, in some instances, while military operations were ongoing. At the same time that the US government was expanding into stabilization operations, American military leadership, informed by the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was recognizing its own needand current structural limitationsin these areas. In 2006, the US Army and Marine Corps released a new field manual covering counterinsurgency operations, the first time in more than two decades that either had addressed counterinsurgency (COIN) exclusively in a manual. The primary purpose of the document was to lay out a blueprint for the militarys approach to a more contemporary form of warfare, an approach that General David

Petraeus, one of the manuals chief authors, recognized as inextricably tied to nonmilitary resources. A counterinsurgency campaign, Petraeus wrote, requires soldiers and marines to employ a mix of familiar combat tasks and skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies and to be prepared for extensive coordination and cooperation with many intergovernmental, host-nation, and international agencies. The second chapter of the manual is devoted to integrating civilian and military activities, beginning with a kind of acquiescence to the limits of industrial might in unstable environments. Military efforts are necessary to fight insurgents, the manual states, but they are only effective when integrated into a larger strategy intended to meet the needs of the local population and win community support. Testifying before Congress in 2008, John Negroponte, the US ambassador to Iraq (200405), noted there had been 17 significant stabilization and reconstruction missions over the preceding 20 years in which too much of the effort was borne by our men and women in uniform. Negroponte was lobbying for State Department funding for what would become the Civilian Response Corps, but the message was cleardespite greater need, neither the military
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what made CSP stand out was the close cooperation between the US military and USAIDs implementing partner, IRDa collaboration at both the strategic and operational levels
nor the government had the necessary knowledge or capacity in conflict development and stabilization methods to carry out an expanded civilian-military partnership. Our civilian-military partnership is strong, beneficial, and appropriate, he said. But, he added, the mission to stabilize and reconstruct a nation is one that civilians must lead.
Civ-mil cooperation: A new way forward

With the military actively involved in trying to win hearts and minds in conflict zones, civilian agencies, such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID), were coordinating among themselves and with the military at unprecedented levels to push the new approach forward. That intersection of overlapping concerns is the centerpiece of civ-mil partnerships. One of the largest and most important examples of this new type of partnership was the Community Stabilization Program (CSP) in Iraq, a sweeping $644 million initiative awarded to International Relief & Development (IRD) and designed to support quickimpact projects, a nonlethal counterinsurgency program that reduces the incentives for participation in violent conflict by employing or engaging at-risk youth between the ages of 17 and 35, according to the agreement language. CSP was a landmark investment in both time and resources. Not only did it mark USAIDs first largescale commitment to a stabilization program in an active conflict zone, it was also the largest USAIDfunded cooperative agreement ever to date. The scale of this was unusual, said Jeanne Pryor, USAIDs deputy director of Iraq reconstruction, at a 2009 US Institute of Peace symposium on CSP. Pryor noted that the amount of money devoted to CSP was oftentimes appropriated for an entire continent, let alone one program in three years.
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Aside from the funding, what made CSP stand out was the close cooperation between the US military and USAIDs implementing partner, IRDa collaboration at both the strategic and operational levels that helped bring economic development and community stabilization in a conflict environment squarely within the US governments COIN strategy. Unlike traditional relief and development programs where security may be one of many equally important factors, CSP operations depended wholly on some level of security to succeed. Collaborative decisionmaking among the many parties involved was crucial. Provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and local government entities often generated ideas that then became CSP projects, such as a fun-run sporting event for youth or the reconstruction of the Abu Ghraib Old Market in Baghdad, but that collaboration relied on a secure operating environment. In most situations, though, once the military had cleared an area in a city and secured its relative safety, CSP projects would begin immediate implementation by rebuilding the communitys physical and economic infrastructure. In short, CSP provided the final component of the militarys clear-hold-build strategy. That very popular phrase, that was the sort of concept that drove the interrelationship between the military and what followed, said James Kunder, a former senior official with USAID and now an advisor to IRD. The CSP program kind of wove in through the hold and build phases. It was part of the hold, that people would have something to do and wouldnt start firing at the forces that were trying to maintain security. But also, it could be the beginning of a longer term development program that might actually change the place. CSP launched in Baghdad, but after only six months its early success led to a rapid rollout in other cities across Iraq, 15 in all. With the program quickly under way, CSP began focusing on Iraqi communities with the specific purpose of helping the military stabilize
Through its ICAP work, IRD had an established base of operations in Baghdad and an important logistical springboard for launching the much larger and more complex CSP
them. IRDs rapid response for relief and reconstruction work, in both kinetic and nonkinetic environments and often alongside military personnel, exemplified the changing face of development and the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Earning local trust

IRD was able to launch and expand CSP quickly because it had been operating in Baghdad for three years implementing the Iraq Community Action Program (ICAP). By going into some of Baghdads most dangerous and at-risk neighborhoods when no other relief agencies were around, IRD began to gain local favor as it assisted a war-weary population to rebuild civil society. ICAP began operations in May 2003, as a way to mobilize Iraqi communities after decades of repression and to help communities identify, prioritize, and address their most pressing civic needs. Projects focused on rebuilding economic and social infrastructure, boosting business development, and providing assistance to civilian victims of war. Most important, the projects werent decreed by IRD, but decided in conjunction with locally organized community action groups. In Baghdad neighborhoods, where no legitimate sense of grassroots activism or democratic engagement had existed for years, community action groups gave ordinary citizens a direct role in a kind of decentralized decisionmaking that had been mostly missing from Iraq. With the help of these community groups, IRD completed almost 2,400 ICAP projects between 2003 and 2006, at a value of more than $73 million. The program required an in-kind Iraqi contribution of 25 percent of project funds, but that number was exceeded by almost $10 millionanother sign of Iraqis eagerness to be involved in their planning and development processes. Through community action

groups, IRD helped put individual citizens directly in touch with government leaders during a time of upheaval and uncertainty. Even tenuous links between public and private interests, IRD believed, would help citizens regain some sense of trust in their local political system and open doors to broader improvements in their communities physical and social infrastructure. IRDs close working relationship with the community continued throughout the evolution of ICAP, which ran concurrently with CSP and continued for years afterward as an even more robust mobilization and participatory program. After three years of focused community interaction with civilians and local leaders under ICAP, IRD had enough credibility among Iraqis to take on a program as large and military-dependent as CSPand to make it work.
Stabilizing communities
CSP kicked off in June 2006, a few months ahead of a highly publicized military surge by US and international forces. It ended more than three years later, in late 2009. Throughout implementation, IRD staff found themselves under pressure, pulled in a variety of directions by competing and sometimes contradictory demands from multiple stakeholders. But they also implemented hundreds of projects that brought order and economic revitalization to an oppressed population in the middle of a war zone. CSPs main goal can be summarized in one statement: reduce or eliminate incentives for individuals to participate in insurgent activities by creating employment opportunities and fostering community engagement. In Iraq, people were desperate for jobs, so employment is where CSP focused its financial muscle. More than 90 percent of the programs funds were geared toward short- and long-term employment. As the implementing
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By the end of the program, the business development component had generated 74 percent of the 57,109 long-term jobs documented by CSP
agency, IRD was responsible for the civilian-led effort to reach CSPs goal. IRD strove to provide a complete package of services that optimized the natural overlap between the four program components that made up CSPs operational design: creating short-term jobs through community infrastructure and essential services, creating long-term jobs through business development grants, establishing robust vocational training and apprenticeship services, and engaging Iraqi youth through community and cultural programs. The IRD approach and program components linked CSP projects with military strategy and community needs. The Community Infrastructure and Essential Services (CIES) program component was divided into two general project areasinfrastructure rehabilitation and essential services work, which required unskilled labor on quick-impact projects such as trash collection and rubble removal. CSP supported scores of these projects during the programs first year. By the middle of the second year, IRD began to transfer oversight of projects back to municipal governments. Approximately 1,600 CIES projects generated more than 525,000 documented person-months of shortterm employment20 percent above the target. Given the high value placed on providing some kind of job to as many Iraqi men as possible, as fast as possible, person-months of employment was a critical indicator of immediate impact. By this calculation, CSP succeededthe program exceeded this target during every year of operation. However, there were unavoidable challenges in implementing a rapid, cash-for-work component like CIES, including documentation. Generally, laborers were paid in daily financial transactions, but payments were not always possible to track or fully account for. Subsequently, the trash collection projects became a lightning rod for CSP critics. Some of IRDs early administrative missteps also created obstacles.
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With the business development program, IRD aimed to provide long-term jobs, business training to grantees, and assistance to vocational training and apprenticeship graduates to transition into regular employment. Of the more than 10,000 grants awarded, 97 percent were classified in the micro and small categories, most commonly to family-owned businesses. By the end of the program, the business development component had generated 74 percent of the 57,109 long-term jobs documented by CSP. Once the program was up and running in the different cities, the grants program produced most jobs fairly quickly, and about 25,000 jobs were created during the first two years. Trade and service sector grants were found to be the most efficient: quick-impact but longer term employment opportunities proved extremely supportive of the COIN strategy. The primary goal of CSPs vocational training and apprenticeship program, also referred to as employment generation, was to stimulate economic stability by providing Iraqis with employable skills that could lead to long-term jobs. That goal was reached, with more than 41,400 graduates completing course training in construction and nonconstruction trades. Through the innovative methods IRD used to link training courses to market demand and unemployed citizens to employment opportunities, more than 8,000 vocational training graduates landed long-term jobs as a direct result of their training. Yet the vocational training program accomplished much more than reaching a benchmark. It also had a profound effect on Iraqs institutional capacityone of CSPs most notable achievements. The CSP design, like the COIN strategy in general, presumed that the strength of Iraqs cultural and community network was at least equal to employment as a factor in the countrys overall stability and social cohesion. Organizing safe and secure communal activities was perceived to be a critical step
most important, citizens were impressed. A sizable number of Iraqis, regardless of whether they were directly involved in the program, credit CSP with improving security and government services
in reducing sectarian strife. Therefore, CSPs youth activities component aimed for something more personal than jobsit aimed to help young Iraqis connect to their identity, culture, and community and to give them enhanced opportunities to form social bonds that would be stronger than the pull of the insurgency. Altogether, IRDs youth activities engaged more than 350,000 participants through soccer matches and tournaments and a wide range of other activities.
and a reduction in violence, the poll results show that a sizable number of Iraqis, regardless of whether they were directly involved in the program, credit CSP with improving security and government services: 84 percent of CSP-type program participants said their community was safer in 2009 than in 2006 because of CSP, an assessment shared by 70 percent of nonparticipants. 69 percent of program participants said CSP helped improve government services. 60 percent of participants credited CSP with bettering relations between religious and ethnic groups. According to USAIDs Jeanne Pryor, the results showed that It worked. All four components worked. Polling data, in addition to the outputs that had been measured, reported that beneficiaries did notice a positive impact in their community. *** This report revisits IRDs work in Iraq from the beginning of ICAP in 2003 to the close of CSP in 2009. It is not a project performance assessment but an examination of the approach and the results, informed primarily by the people who carried it out. In considering the impact of ICAP and CSP, its important to consider factors in addition to outcomes and indicators, to grasp the weight of individual moments that made up the collective whole. These observations are important, because they put a human face on the anonymous beneficiary and the generic staffer. For an endeavor like CSP, heavily debated and controversial, they also offer a complete way of seeing the programits accomplishments, its shortcomings, and, more importantly, its lasting impact.
A legacy of positive perceptions

IRD staff, from field workers to leadership, exude pride when talking about CSP, but the program had many other fans as well. Former Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew said CSP was considered one of the most effective counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. Arizona Senator John McCain, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, General Petraeus, and others made visits to CSP project sites firsthand. And Ryan Crocker, during his 200709 tenure as the US ambassador to Iraq, repeatedly lauded CSPs track record of job creation. Ive had discussions with the [Iraqi] government, Crocker said in late 2007, midway through CSPs implementation. What they want, they want jobs. They want something that looks like a stable future.... Theyre saying, I want gainful employment. And we know how to do this because weve done it with community stabilization. Perhaps most important, Iraqi citizens were impressed. At the programs conclusion, evaluators worked with two independent Iraqi polling companies to survey almost 1,400 CSP participants and nonparticipants about the perceived effectiveness of CSP activities, how well community needs were addressed, and the local support for those activities. While economic and security variables make it impossible to establish direct causality between CSP activities
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through action, empowerment, and commitment
Building community trust
ICAP offered Iraqi women new skills to support their families
Local leaders were not paying attention to everyday people. They would focus on their relatives or close friends. It wasnt the real people in need. And with ICAP we went directly to the people in need.
Iqbal al-Juboori
Economic sanctions against Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War meant fewer economic and political opportunities, while decreasing quality in public education led to a surge in adult illiteracy among Iraqi womenas high as 45 percent by 2000, according to United Nations (UN) estimates. After the US-led invasion in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority was charged to advance womens rights and to leverage womens skill and knowledge in the revival of their country. But in aftermath of the occupation, the reality on the ground was that huge numbers of Iraqi women had to support their families, and they had to do so after decades of diminished educational opportunities had severely thwarted their technical skills and capabilities. Early on, I met a widow who was responsible for feeding her two sons and one daughter, her father, her mother, and her two sisters, said Iqbal al-Juboori, who at the time was an IRD business development program officer in Baghdad. She was the head of the family. Her parents were too old to work, her children too young, and her sisters couldnt. Her husband was killed during the war, and she didnt know what to do. Then she heard about IRD. Al-Juboori, who is Iraqi, joined IRD in July 2005, two years after IRD had established its presence in Baghdad with ICAP. One of ICAPs cross-cutting objectives was to encourage the inclusion and empowerment

of women in all activities. The community action groups at the center of ICAP emphasized ensuring the equality of mens and womens voices, while program grants and employment programs gave women an opportunity to engage in the local economy. Internally, IRD hired, trained, and promoted women employees for nontraditional management roles with ICAP, including al-Juboori. IRD staff would often concentrate on widows, treating them as people in need. When determining grant awards, program officers would make home visits to meet them and assess the individual circumstances. When al-Juboori visited this particular widow, she found a home no larger than a shelter, a single room with little furniture housing the full family. The widow was receiving nominal help, such as used clothes and food, but as she met with al-Juboori, she remained defiantly prideful. I dont believe anyone can help us, she said. What makes you so special? What makes you so different? All I need is a decent income for my family. As an Iraqi woman, al-Juboori knew that she had an exceptional opportunity to relate to this widow, standing there in the middle of her home. Youve got nothing to lose, she said. So try us. As with many Iraqi women, the widow had no discernible skills or earning power. Al-Juboori described one of ICAPs business development opportunities, a home-based sewing program in which IRD would
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The community believed in what we were doing and in our ability to help Iqbal al-Juboori
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supply equipment as long as the recipient maintained consistent production. You have to learn to be a tailor, she told the widow. If youre good, and if you learn, then were going to come back and monitor you, and were going to ask you how much youre selling. This process was an established part of the ICAP program. But a more immediate problem quickly became apparentthe house was so small, there was no place to put the equipment. All I have is this house, the widow said. And its only one room. So where am I going to do this? IRD had access to revenue-generating equipment, procedures in place to disburse grants, and a results-based system of accountability to maximize a beneficiarys chance at success. If an issue required a programmatic solution, IRD had an answer. But overcoming the physical limitations of poverty and an overcrowded one-room house? That was another issue entirely. Still, IRD found a solution. Once the widows friends and neighbors learned of her plight, they got together and found a workspace to donate, provided IRD followed through with giving her the grant. The community believed in what we were doing, al-Juboori said, and in our ability to help. She got the grant, and then she learned to sew. The widow began selling coats, and over the course of the grants process, IRD workers delighted in watching her grow professionally and personally. The first time she received actual money from one of her coats, she came to me, crying, and she hugged me, al-Juboori said. And she looked at me and said, Ive struggled for my whole life, and no one has ever helped me like this. I dont feel alone anymore.
of the first Arab kingdom, and its where agriculture was born. The region boasted accomplishments in the arts, agriculture, architecture, law, and medicine. But Iraqs rich heritage proved of little value for much of the twentieth century, as political turbulence and war took a severe toll. After post-World War I British rule ended, 58 separate governments ruled Iraq over 37 years, until a 1958 revolution overthrew the monarchy.1 After the Baath party took power in a 1963 coup, a brief period of stability and prosperity produced a secular state with a thriving oil economy, a rising GDP, and a burgeoning education system. After Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979 and almost immediately launched a war with Iran, the countrys economic and social infrastructure began to deteriorate. In a short time, Iraq descended from affluence to a country in which the standard of living was reduced to a subsistence level, according to the UNs Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.2 As a closed society, Iraqs GDP plunged by more than $50 billion in less than 10 years, food and agricultural production slowed, and 60 percent of the population depended on government rations. Malnutrition, a leading contributor to rising infant mortality rate, grew rampant.3 Essential services slowed due to years of poor maintenance or outright neglect. Approximately half the population did not have regular access to potable drinking water, and even fewer households were connected to a functioning sewage system. Iraq was a failing state even before the Hussein government fell in March 2003. In April 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority was established as a transitional government. One month later, USAID awarded cooperative agreements to five American NGOs to implement ICAP, a central element of USAIDs overall relief and reconstruction mission in Iraq. ICAP was conceived as a community action and mobilization initiative to foster civic pride in Iraqis and to try and reconnect them to an operational civil society (box 1). IRD, chosen to implement the program
ICAP: The first step to rebuilding civil society

Often called the cradle of civilization, modern day Iraq is a country steeped in rich cultural and historical heritage. Ancient Mesopotamia gave rise to some of the worlds earliest cities, including Hatra, the capital
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Under the initial ICAP intervention, IRD completed 2,381 projects benefiting more than 20 million people and worth more than $73 million
Box 1 ICAP: Program and results

ICAP began in May 2003 as a mechanism to mobilize Iraqi communities to identify, prioritize, and address their most pressing civic needs. IRD oversaw operations in Baghdad; the rest of the country was divided among four other implementing agencies. IRD helped establish locally organized community action groups to drive project work, which was filtered through three broad program components: economic and social infrastructure to build and repair roads and public buildings; business development to provide grant support to micro, small, and medium businesses; and the Assistance to Civilian Victims Fund, which provided social and financial aid to innocent individuals and communities injured or afflicted by military forces. Under the initial ICAP intervention (200306), IRD completed 2,381 projects benefiting more than 20 million people and worth more than $73 millionalmost 40 percent of which was covered by Iraqi communities and the government through in-kind contributions. ICAP laid the foundation for the larger and more complex development and stabilization projects to come, and it yielded a number of positive performance measurements. At its conclusion, ICAP had: Generated more than 5,600 short-term jobs and almost 23,000 long-term jobs. Employment generation steadily rose for both shortand long-term jobs for each year of the program. Established 441 community action groups with approximately 5,500 membersa third of whom were women. Completed more than 700 infrastructure projects, including the construction or rehabilitation of 278 schools, 75 health centers and hospitals, 65 water and sewage facilities, 60 roads, and 38 sports and recreation facilities. Invested $8 million in more than 1,100 business development projects, covering competitive grants, technical assistance, vocational and managerial training, marketplaces, cooperative grants, and handicap activities. Aided more than 760,000 Baghdad residents through 515 projects assisting civilian victims.
Mahmoudiya Al-Rasheed Abu Ghraib Taji Al-Istiqlal Al-Tarmiya
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Baghdad governorate districts and city districts
Kadhmiya
Adhamiya Sadr City Karkh 9 Nissan Karada Al-Madan
Taji
Community action groups stood at the core of ICAP. They were formed in conjunction with community mobilizers that IRD deployed in districts in and around Baghdad
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in Baghdad, began operations immediately, fewer than two months after the countrys government structure had been completely wiped away. Community action groupsa common thread for IRD IRD drew from some relevant experience in formulating its ICAP implementation strategy. At the time, IRDs Community Revitalization through Democratic Action (CRDA) program in Serbia was nearing the end of its second year, and the organization had learned many lessons about mobilizing war-weary populations to reestablish basic concepts of self-governance, community organization, and democratic principles. As part of the CRDA design, IRD at the outset established community committees, chosen entirely by a larger population, to serve as implementation partners, before later establishing even larger municipal working groups to aid in the critical development of public-private partnerships. IRD succeeded under trying conditions during CRDAs earliest months, and that record of accomplishment in postconflict Serbia played a role in USAIDs decision to award ICAP toIRD. Community action groups, the primary organizational tool of ICAP, bore a close resemblance to the community groups IRD helped organize under CRDA. The community groups, known locally as CAGs, stood at the core of ICAP. They were formed in conjunction with community mobilizers that IRD deployed in districts in and around Baghdad. The mobilizers provided basic training on civil society, rules of order, and a rapid participatory appraisal process to get ICAP-funded projects moving quickly. Using these newfound skills, the community groups worked to develop action plans based on their own prioritized needs. Like CRDA, the ICAP plan called for a rapid startup to show quick results, not only to the donors but to local citizens. Additional funding from the US PRTs aided in the ability to make a quick impact.
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Another commonality between CRDA and ICAP was the guiding principle that success depended on mutual trust between IRD and the community. In Serbia, IRD worked to build social capital among people who, due to a variety of factors, were predisposed to distrust. In Iraq, IRD faced a similar sociopolitical structure, albeit with a gaping difference: Iraq was not postconflict. Rather, it was an unstable, occupied country with rapidly shifting political and religious alliances. Still, in each setting, relying on community groups to build strong relationships proved productive in moving projects forward. In Baghdads local communities, where no legitimate sense of grassroots activism or democratic engagement had existed for years, community action groups gave ordinary citizens a direct role in a decentralized decisionmaking process that had been missing from Iraq for years. Offered this opportunity, citizens responded. Within four years, 5,500 Baghdad citizens were members of community action groups. Altogether, IRD helped organize 441 of these groups during the initial program phase that ran between 2003 and 2006. (ICAP had been extended multiple times and continued to grow and evolve as a community empowerment program.) As the organizational engine of ICAP, the community groups were critical to project implementation. In the beginning, however, they were not easily formed. Each group had to have a minimum of nine members along with the community mobilizer, who typically lived in the local neighborhood as a show of commitment and, ideally, to win the confidence and trust of local leaders. Program design was easier said than done, since Baghdads political structure was still in a transitional state and many leaders viewed the community groups as a political threat. At the time, there was some rudimentary selection process by Baghdad leadership for the city council members across all the districts, said Awni Quandour, who filled numerous roles on ICAP, including chief of party
Quandour joined IRD in June 2003, for the beginning of ICAP. He took a leap of faith with IRD, an organization barely 5 years old but under intense pressure to show quick results
Box 2 Awni Quandour: IRDs original elder statesman

It was June 2009, and Gary Kinney had spent almost two months in Baghdad on temporary assignment, anxious to get home. Neither sandstorms nor faulty documentation would have been welcome delays, Kinney wrote in an email, detailing his bumpy exit from Iraq via Jordan. Kinney, who at the time was IRDs contracts and grants manager, avoided a sandstorm, but his documentation proved more troublesome. Passport control officers at the Baghdad airport flagged his visa for being incomplete or incorrect. Whatever the reason, Kinney found himself stuck. Two officers were in the booth, handing my passport back and forth, without any ability to solve the problem, he said. Eventually, the men called for their supervisor, who came and led Kinney to a private airport office. Do you have a CAC card? the official asked, referring to the Common Access Card issued as a standard identification by the Department of Defense. No, Kinney replied, he did not. Do you have an MNF-I card? he then asked, referring to another type of identification issued to workers entering and leaving Iraq. Kinney didnt have one of those either. What he did have, however, was his IRD identification badge, which he pulled from his wallet. The Iraqi official gave it a quick glance and then, after verifying that Kinney was traveling to Amman, promptly returned the ID. Then, without further delay and in one brisk motion, he approved the visa, stamped the passport, and cleared Kinney to leavewith a parting message: Tell Mr. Awni that Captain Zain sends his regards. A few months later, Awni Quandour, 56, died of lung cancer at a hospital in Amman. Instrumental in helping IRD set up its initial operations in the Middle East, Quandour at the time was serving as IRDs country director in Jordan, where his family had lived for more than 100 years and where he had built a respected reputation doing communitybased economic development work, including for the Noor Hussein Foundation. During a 2008 Capitol Hill ceremony celebrating IRDs 10-year anniversary, Jordans Queen Noor publicly commended Quandour for his work. Awni was a great man, said Dr. Arthur B. Keys, IRDs founder and president, and a major source of insight and information to many, many key decisionmakers. Quandour joined IRD in June 2003, for the beginning of ICAP. He had already spent a lot of time in Iraq, working for Catholic Relief Services during the 1990s, and he had an in-depth knowledge of the country and its people. He took a leap of faith with IRD, an organization barely 5 years old but under intense pressure to show quick results in an unstable country where it had no organizational footprintor local staff. Quandour came on board anyway. He first met Keys in Amman, at a USAID organizing meeting for ICAP implementing agencies. IRD volunteered to work in the capital, where the needs were most widespread and immediate. Awni and I traveled across the desert in a fast, unarmed convoy to set up IRDs initial ICAP program in Baghdad, Keys said. We went out into the neighborhoods, visited families in their homes, visited mosques and universities. (continued) 11
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Many colleagues have told me that Awni gave IRD a lot of credibility in that region of the world Dr. Arthur B. Keys
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Box 2 Awni Quandour: IRDs original elder statesman (continued)

At the time, aside from foreign military, they were the only non-Iraqis around. Quandours experience and familiarity with the country, however, proved crucial in getting ICAP and IRDs regional operations established quickly. Dr. Keys said that he wanted to go to the poor areas of Baghdad first, before the others, Quandour said. I told him that all the areas were poor. Quandour and Keys knocked on doors and talked to the residents, and they learned that in some areas people were sleeping on their rooftops because their houses were flooded with sewage. With trash and debris everywhere, and with sewage backed up as high as a foot or more on some roads, we determined that just cleaning the streets would be our first project, after listening to people talk about how they were living. In the matter of a few weeks, Quandour and ICAPs chief of party, Terry Leary, hired their staff, created a training plan, began street-cleaning and trash-removal operations, and started organizing ICAPs first community action group. People were desperate and wanted some type of sign that life would improve, Quandour said. We gave them hope. Quandours first position with IRD was as ICAPs community outreach director. Before long, he became the programs deputy chief of party before assuming the chief of party role. He hired and trained IRDs initial Iraqi staff, many of whom still work with IRD almost a decade later. He played a critical role in adapting the ICAP model on a wider scale-up when IRD began implementing CSP in 2006. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, and other locations, Quandour helped hone IRDs project work in unstable environments, and many current staff credit him with being the founding father of IRDs community development and stabilization programs. Many colleagues have told me that Awni gave IRD a lot of credibility in that region of the world, Keys said. His relationships with local communities were invaluable to making the Iraq programs work. Local staff looked up to Awni as an elder statesman. He was ready to go back to Iraq, saying that when he regained his strength, he would return to that country. While Quandour never had the opportunity to return to Iraq, his legacy and his work live on through the organizational strategy he helped craft and through his own personal tieshis daughter Zain and his niece Farah both work on IRD projects in Jordan.
(box 2). According to Quandour, as the community groups flourished, tension developed between IRD and local political leaders, some of whom accused Quandour of causing problems and subsequently used their power to delay the approval of projects.
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There was some rivalry between the council members and the community action groups, he said, because the CAGs suddenly had the ability to create projects that werent part of the councils administrative structure.
The first few years of ICAP projects directly benefited more than 20 million Iraqis and generated 23,000 longterm jobs and 5,600 short-term jobs
With the help of these community groups, IRD completed almost 2,400 ICAP projects over 200306, at a value of more than $73 million. The program required that 25 percent of project funds be in-kind donations from local Iraqi communities, but this number was exceeded by almost $10million another sign of local citizens eagerness to be part of the planning and development of their communities.
Establishing services, assisting civilians, creating jobs

Once a community action group formed, IRD mobilizers would provide basic training on rules and procedures and a condensed form of the appraisal process. With this introductory training complete, members began writing bylaws to guide their work. Again, the mobilizers oversaw and helped run this activity. Throughout the program, IRD provided training to community groups on computer skills, core business skills, first aid, and conflict mitigation. This training incentivized members to continue their participation while bolstering the groups ability to create quality reports and applications and recommend grant candidates to IRD. Once trained, group members helped shepherd community projects through three main program areas: Economic and social infrastructure projects to build and repair roads and public buildings as well as restore essential services. Business development grant support to micro, small, and medium businesses. Assistance to civilian victims and communities injured, impaired, or otherwise negatively affected by coalition forces.

The first few years of ICAP projects directly benefited more than 20 million Iraqis and generated 23,000 long-term jobs and 5,600 short-term jobs.4 ICAP was a unique program, at least in Iraq because it was community-based, al-Juboori said. Wed reach out to the grassroots level, and at that time, no one was representing anyone. There was no effective local government. Even though neighborhoods had a lot of needs, nobody was reaching out to those people. There was no government. There was nobody. According to al-Juboori, even after the rudimentary Baghdad councils had been established, the basic needs of ordinary citizens were often overlooked due to the rampant nepotism or favoritism that had become ingrained in Iraqi political and social structure. Local leaders were not paying attention to everyday people, she said. They would focus on their relatives or close friends. It wasnt the real people in need. And with ICAP we went directly to the people in need. A chance for citizens to rebuild basic services Many of those people in need lived in the Sadr district, one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in Baghdad. With little access to basic services, residents in two districts encompassing roughly 25,000 people formed the Al Bir community action group. In its first year, the group completed 15 projects ranging from the administration of small business grants to the creation of public parks and playgrounds on vacant lots. The group also organized neighborhood cleanups and public health campaigns. In a very short time, the Al Bir group became a vocal advocate for its citizens, and, in doing so, formed a critical link between individuals and their municipal government leadership. As part of its effort to boost the local infrastructure and business environment, the Al Bir community group reached out to create a dialogue with its neighborhood
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IRDs health advisor referred Omar Mohammad Abas to a hospital that specialized in treating amputees, where he was fitted with an artificial leg and underwent an intensive fiveweek physical therapy program
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advisory council, the local governing authority. In doing so, the group learned of an effort to provide needy families with cooking oil and propane. But that effort had not been extended to Al Bir due to the lack of municipal capacitysimply put, the local government had no way to distribute the goods. So the citizen group responded, first by conducting a house-by-house needs assessment, then organizing a distribution network consisting of donated warehouse space and vehicles staffed by volunteers. Once the network was in place, the community action group developed a distribution schedule and a publicity campaign to inform residents about the program. Through the community action group, IRD helped put individual citizens directly in touch with government leaders. Even tenuous links between public and private interests, IRD believed, would help citizens regain trust in their local political system and open doors to broader improvements in the physical and social infrastructure. The Al Bir group, for instance, had a broad impact. In addition to helping distribute cooking materials, it also helped coordinate a public health campaign to provide safe and sanitary circumcisions for young boys. IRD assisted the group in organizing qualified practitioners and nurses to come directly to families homes and perform the operation free of charge. The program proved very popular in the community: it was both low cost, and it improved local capacity to deliver health and social services, especially for children. With Iraqs essential services in poor shape even before the 2003 invasion, community action group members placed their greatest priority on initiatives that would, among other things, revitalize roads, schools, medical facilities, sports facilities, sewage systems, and electricity delivery. Even with the improvements needed for services like water treatment and power supply, more than a third of the economic and social infrastructure budget was
directed to school rehabilitation. A total of 278 school projects were completed through the infrastructure component. But with so much work to be done and so many people in need, program components often overlapped. Years into the conflict, Iraqs Ministry of Education built a school in the Sadr district for 500 children orphaned by the war. But the ministry did not have money to purchase generators, computers, or administrative supplies. After being contacted by the local community action group, IRD furnished the school with its missing equipment through ICAPs Assistance to Civilian Victims (ACV) program. Addressing the needs of innocent victims Omar Mohammad Abas, an Iraqi university student, was standing outside his familys home in May 2003, when a gunner on an American Humvee opened fire. Abas was not the intended target, but the gunfire struck him in the left leg. His injury was severe, and doctors were forced to amputate above his left knee. Almost two years later, in February 2005, the community action group representing Abass neighborhood brought his story to the attention of IRD mobilizers. IRDs health advisor referred Abas to a hospital that specialized in treating amputees, where he was fitted with an artificial leg and underwent an intensive fiveweek physical therapy program. IRD financed Abass treatment and prosthetic leg with ACV funds. Launched during ICAPs second year, the civilian assistance program was conceived as a way to provide relief for Iraqi civilians who were harmed as a direct result of US military operations. The congressionally earmarked funds were intended to benefit a wide range of Iraqis, from individual citizens to large families to entire communities. Projects were divided into a number of categoriescommunity-based activities included reconstructing or expanding local civil services, such as orphanages, hospitals, or centers for the disabled; rebuilding or refurbishing individual
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After being told of Marwa Naims situation, IRD staff began working on an assistance plan that ended with Marwa being transported to the United States for reconstructive surgery
homes that had been damaged or destroyed by the military; and providing support and necessary equipment, such as wheelchairs or prosthetics, for medical procedures like the one that benefited Abas. The program, which was not part of the original ICAP design, enabled IRD and other ICAP implementers to build trust with Iraqis. The funds were made available primarily through the efforts of international aid worker Marla Ruzicka, who had successfully petitioned Congress to provide financial assistance to civilian victims of war. Ruzickas relentless efforts to focus international attention on civilian hardships made her something of a celebrity. She won over journalists, diplomats, activists, and politicians, including Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who pushed the victims compensation package through Congress and said Ruzicka was as close to a living saint as they come. The ACV program began in 2004, but in April 2005, Ruzicka was killed on a Baghdad road by a suicide bomber. Her death drew greater attention to civilian assistance efforts in general Rolling Stone called her perhaps the most famous American aid worker to die in any conflict of the past 10 or 20 years. The organizations implementing ICAP were charged with putting the ACV funds to the most effective and efficient use, and IRD found no shortage of people in need. One year after Ruzicka died, the activist organization she founded, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), played an important role in assisting IRD with one of its most high-profile beneficiaries, the young Marwa Naim. Much like Omar Mohammad Abasand scores of other IraqisMarwa benefited from the commitment of her local community action group. Her father first learned of the civilian assistance program through his neighborhood group. Nearly destitute, he received a grant to open a small grocery store. As part of the monitoring process, IRD workers visited Naim regularly

at his home. During one of these visits, someone from IRD asked about the shy girl who would always hide when visitors arrived. The girl was his daughter; she hid, Naim explained, because she was ashamed of her severe injuries. When coalition forces entered Baghdad in April 2003, an errant rocket struck the Naim home with the family huddled inside. Marwas mother was killed; Marwa, 9 years old at the time, was disfigured, losing part of her nose and her right thumb. Local doctors treated the injuries, but little else could be done to reconstruct her appearance. Sad and selfconscious, Marwa became withdrawn. After being told of Marwas situation, IRD staff began working on an assistance plan that started with a series of medical assessments and ended with Marwa being transported to the United States for reconstructive surgery. Working with two other nonprofits, the Palestinian Childrens Relief Fund and CIVIC, IRD located a surgical team at the UCLA Medical Center willing to perform the operations free of charge. In early 2006, doctors at UCLA reconstructed Marwas face in a series of surgeries conducted over four months. IRD also arranged for Iraqi foster families to host Marwa during her time in California. In 2009, Marwa returned to Los Angeles for a follow-up procedure.5 Her story garnered international attention for innocent civilian victims in need of help. In many of the communities where the ACV program was established, IRD and community action groups were the only ones offering social services and assistance during most violent period of the countrys insurgency. Through the initial ICAP period, the number of ACV beneficiaries soared to 770,000a remarkable achievement for a total cost of $5.1 million. ACV continued to be a major part of ICAPs ongoing work in Baghdad, and its impact grew even more. For example, more than 200 hospital and clinic renovations supported by ACV helped millions of Iraqi citizens access more reliable healthcare.
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IRD placed a premium on diversity not just gender diversity, but also a diversity of business and geography
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Small steps toward economic renewal Civilian assistance cases like Marwas were instrumental in creating community trust. But social infrastructure projects accounted for the bulk of IRDs early work, totaling more than $31 million through ICAPs first phase. These projects also generated the largest employment numbers, though ICAPs business development program was designed specifically to target the need for jobs. The infrastructure and job components carried their own operational designs, but they clearly overlapped, which not only aided IRDs efforts with ICAP but also served as a useful precursor to the even more integrated program design of CSP. IRD focused on job creation through small and medium enterprise development, such as giving private enterprise grants, forming cooperative societies, establishing market links, and extending technical assistance and business management training. Grants would range from a few hundred dollars to help supply a small shop to more than $100,000 to establish a new factory. Most grants, like the one Bakir Mohammed received, fell somewhere in between. Bakir, a livestock farmer in the rural but highly volatile Taji district of Baghdad, received a $24,000 grant in the form of cattle. He personally put up another $12,000 in facility rehabilitation costs to bring his farm up to standards and make it fully operational. Agriculture and livestock farms had always been primary contributors to Tajis commercial engine, and, with this grant, Bakir was able to reestablish his farm as a local employer and as a sizable beef producer. Within a short time, Bakir hired a dozen workers, more than half women, and began producing enough meat products to meet the demand of nearly 15,000 people. In working with community action groups to administer business development grants, IRD placed a premium
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on diversity. Not just gender diversity, though high value was given to ensuring equal opportunity for women, but also a diversity of business and geography. A slate of business opportunities was necessary to maximize employment generation. While staff took pride in helping an unskilled widow learn a trade and set up a small sewing business, larger agricultural, manufacturing, and service sector investments accounted for more than 80 percent of approved grants. Those grants provided the highest probability of large-scale economic renewal and, as a result, the greatest opportunity for community impact. For regional diversity, business grant opportunities were given throughout Baghdad. The total business development budget was spent disproportionately, the result of a variety of factors such as the dearth of viable entrepreneurs and different capacities between community action groups. The main issue, however, can be attributed to a lack of access due to insecure or nonpermissive working environments. This hurdle, unfortunately, was a common thread throughout all of IRDs work in Iraq. While IRD tried to balance business development and spending as evenly as possible across Baghdads districts, the task proved difficult due to violence in some areas. Overall, IRD was able to maintain significant activity throughout the life of the program in all but two districts. Yet, even in those dangerous areas, community action groups functioned as intended, and the interrelated program components worked together to provide relief and support.
Insecurity: Operational limitations in an unstable environment

In the Ibn Zuhr neighborhood of the Madaen district, IRD held a town hall meeting in May 2004 to form a community group. From that initial meeting, 19 local Iraqis were directly elected by their fellow citizens to represent the neighborhood. Working with the local
Regarded as Iraqs preeminent facility for the treatment of communicable diseases, the Ibn Zuhr Hospital was the countrys only hospital with specialized equipment and staff trained to treat patients with HIV or AIDS
mobilizer, the group set about identifying and ranking needs to develop program proposals. They then worked with IRD to put together a realistic implementation plan for projects that the group could organize and fund through their own resources. The projects ranged from small neighborhood cleanups to work on a much larger scale, like the restoration of facilities at their renowned but war-damaged neighborhood hospital. Regarded as Iraqs preeminent facility for the treatment of communicable diseases, the Ibn Zuhr Hospital was the countrys only hospital with specialized equipment and staff trained to treat patients with HIV or AIDS. During 2003, looters stole vital equipment, supplies, and drugs. They also started fires, smashed windows, and damaged equipment. After the looting, some hospital staff set out on their own to restore the facilitys capabilities by scrounging medical equipment from other Baghdad locations and, in some cases, purchasing supplies with their own money. The destruction of the hospital was a bitter blow to the communitys residents, who not only viewed the hospitals work as a source of pride but also relied on the facility to provide emergency room services and primary healthcare. The Ibn Zuhr community group designated the restoration of the hospital, a vital piece of the communitys infrastructure, as its top priority. Group members met with hospital staff to determine the most urgent needs and worked with mobilizers to develop a proposal. ICAP provided the hospital with much needed equipment, such as diagnostic tools and machinery for sterilizing medical instruments. For the community contribution, the Ministry of Health provided the hospital with additional equipment and office furniture. At the same time, group members developed their own project to dovetail with the ICAP-backed project. Canvassing the neighborhood, members raised donations and signed volunteers to

repaint rooms and make basic carpentry repairs. Using equipment donated from local businesses, volunteer electricians repaired the hospitals damaged electrical system, not only restoring its functionality but also bringing the wiring up to international standards. The enterprising Ibn Zuhr community group, continuing its independent work, soon created its own NGO to provide assistance to the disabled. Relying solely on community donations, the newly formed NGO began providing clothing, wheelchairs, and medical care to hundreds of disabled children living in the Madaen district. Members contacted IRD for ongoing guidance on projects and fundraising strategies, while mobilizers continued to provide capacity development support. Those residents didnt wait for someone from outside their community to tell them what they needed or how to proceed, said Ernest Leonardo, the chief of party for ICAP. They took the initiative to organize themselves and to get to work. This kind of grassroots activism is at the heart of civil society. The Ibn Zuhr community group exemplified the positive outcomes that a program like ICAP, intended to reengage citizens through stronger civil society, can achieve. Just as impressive was the commitment of the Ibn Zuhr group to restoring order even as the larger societal fabric in the Madaen district began to unravel. On April 20, 2005, less than a year after the formation of the Ibn Zuhr action group, 57 bodies were fished from the Tigris River downstream of Madaen; residents said that hundreds more were in the water. Days before that discovery, insurgents had taken control of Madaen district streets, and the local government reported 150 Shia men and women had been kidnapped.6 The evidence pointed to a systematic killing believed to have taken place over several months, during the same time that Ibn Zuhr residents and IRD staff had been taking steps to rebuild the areas civic pride and functionality.
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Whenever harm befell a community action group member, or a member of their own team, IRD staff would cope by banding together for encouragement and support
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Perseverance in the face of adversity IRD was not immune to violent incidents. Also in April 2005, two community mobilizers were kidnapped as they left a scheduled community meeting in the Makasib neighborhood of the Rashid district. The IRD employees were held for 15 days and released after their families intervened. The evidence pointed to members of the community collaborating with the kidnappers. After the incident, IRD decided to terminate operations in the village and the surrounding area. While this incident came to a peaceful conclusion, this was not always the case. Musharaf Jabar Alwan, the Iraqi chairman of a community action group in Rashid, was executed along with his family for working with the Americans, according to local accounts. Altogether, seven community action group members were murdered for their involvement with community action groups and ICAP. As Iraqs sectarian violence ramped up, the worsening security was a central concern for project management, which took a number of steps to try and ensure the safety of staff, participants, and beneficiaries. Security personnel were contracted and given ongoing training, and staff members were informed daily of security events throughout the city. When an area became too hot for project activity, work was stopped, and field staff were reassigned to less dangerous areas. Some of the numbers detail the danger: 115 infrastructure projects worth $9.3 million were canceled for security reasons. At least 40 employees resigned because of death threats. Five employees were kidnapped: three were released, one was killed, and one was never found.
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Five employees were killed outside work; four more died in work-related incidents. While working on IRD projects, five contractors and six laborers were killed; seven IRD employees were shot or injured by shrapnel. Baghdads increasing violence cost the program in many ways. IRD spent $2.2 million for concrete blast walls, razor wire, security lighting, communications equipment, body armor, and guards and security coordination. Many times, offices had to be closed due to security concerns and curfews, with the longest closure lasting 23 days. Security closures cost an estimated $11,000 a day in salaries and other expenses. Aside from office shutdowns, individual staff members often had to take security leave days when circumstances prevented them from traveling to the office. During peaks in the violence, as much as 20percent of labor was lost to curfews and security leave. Less quantifiable was the impact that fear and depression had on morale. Once, a mock improvised explosive device was placed adjacent to the IRD compound, an example of the intimidation directed at workers. Many staff were forced to move from their homes, sometimes in response to specific death threats. Nearly everyone lost a friend or relative to violence. Whenever harm befell a community action group member, or a member of their own team, IRD staff would cope by banding together for encouragement and support. In December 2005, Iqbal alJubooris house was attacked by militants, and they left with her brother, part of a mass kidnapping that day of men in her neighborhood. Dazed, shaken, and scared, she found herself walking directly to the IRD office, where she shared her ordeal with co workers. She was told to go home and rest, but she had no desire to do that: I was already where I felt the safestat work, with others. Her brother was never found.
Even with the insecurity and growing threats, significant reductions or elimination of operations in neighborhoods and districts were rare, and IRD remained committed to the project
People had learned to trust us In 2006, the final year of ICAPs initial program and the beginning of CSP, staff turnover exceeded 25 percent. The costs of recruiting, hiring, and training new workers, in addition to operating without a full staff, were high. During one two-month period, ICAP lost six of its seven monitoring and evaluation officers as well as its top three finance officers. Many staff members were called upon to help launch CSP, but the insecurity drove many others away. When CSP became operational, staff turnover and emotional distress became even larger issues. For one reason, CSP was nationwide, not just Baghdad, which, despite the insecurity, was still safer than many of the countrys other cities and provinces. IRD management continued to work to minimize risk by adjusting protocol and activities, and, despite protests from staff in some instances, canceling projects or ceasing operations in certain areas. When IRD stopped working in the Makasib region of the Rashid district after the staff kidnappings, more than a dozen home reconstruction projects had been completed and staff had to abandon a good working relationship with community members because one or two community members were conspiring with insurgents against IRD. Even with the insecurity and growing threats, significant reductions or elimination of operations in neighborhoods and districts were rare, and IRD remained committed to the project. When I talk about that time, I compare IRD to the UN or Red Cross, said Vigeen Dola, an Iraqi national who joined IRD as a monitoring and evaluation manager after CSP started up. Before that, he worked for the Red Cross while his wife was working with the UN. Both were stationed in Iraq. On August 19, 2003, Dolas wife was at work when a suicide bomber drove a cement mixer into the side of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing 23, wounding more than 100, and collapsing three floors of the facility.7 His wife was only wounded.

Following the attack, the UN withdrew most of its Baghdad staff. After another attack in October left 12 more workers dead, the UN pulled out of Baghdad completely. The UN dropped everything and left, Dola said. They had no obvious activities in the conflictzone areas. They had activities in the peaceful areas, in the north. But people in these conflict zones didnt even have drinking water; they didnt have electricity. Two months later, the Red Cross was bombed, and they did the same thing; they pulled out. I was there, working with them. I was not only confused, but angry. Iqbal al-Juboori, who had not yet joined IRDs staff and was working for the UN, was among the 50 or so UN employees who remained in Baghdad after the first attack. All UN operations had been suspended, and she had to work from home, conducting business through email correspondence. Al-Juboori said she understood why the UN had to pull out: It was not a light decision for them to withdraw from Baghdad. A lot of people had died. However, like Dola, she said the UN needed to at least maintain some kind of public presence in Baghdad to send a message to the Iraqi people as well as to those who intended to do them harm. IRD, due in some combination to its size, flexibility, and organizational commitment, stuck around, even if it had to adjust operations. To local Iraqis and other aid professionals, such as Dola and al-Juboori, this commitment helped set IRD apart in the eyes of citizens who might be naturally disinclined to trust outsiders. I joined IRD in 2005, and Ive seen some really bad days, al-Juboori said. But whenever we encountered tragedy or trouble, IRD would become more fixed and determined, no matter what the obstacles or the challenges were. And there were great, great challenges. But people had learned to trust us. IRDs close working relationship with the community continued throughout the evolution of ICAP, which was extended and which not only ran concurrently
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Scheduled to wind down in 2012 after more than eight years, ICAP is USAIDs longest running development program in Iraq
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with CSP but also continued for years afterward as an even more robust mobilization and participatory program (box 3). Through its ICAP work, IRD had an established base of operations in Baghdad, which proved an important logistical springboard for
launching the much larger and complex CSP. More important, after three years of focused community interaction with civilians and local leaders, IRD had the credibility to take on a program as large and military-dependent as CSP.
Box 3 The evolution of ICAP, USAIDs longest-running program in Iraq

ICAP spanned the initial turbulence of postinvasion Iraq, the subsequent outbreak of sectarian violence and civil war, the flow of foreign insurgents, the US military surge, and the uncertain first steps of a new national government. But it originally was scheduled to end December 31, 2006. At the time, 68 projects worth roughly $2.5 million had not closed out, though some had ended operations. The others were near completion but had been prevented from closing out due to security problems. More than 90 percent of ICAP projects had been completed by the original close-out date, despite the surging violence. ICAPs achievements, particularly the successful formation of community action groups (CAGs) and the groups growing role in civil society, led USAID to extend the program, and IRD continued to play an important implementation role. USAID extended ICAP once, pushing its project total to more than 1,200 and the number of beneficiaries to more than 12 million. A second extension began in 2009 amid improving security conditions. Scheduled to wind down in 2012 after more than eight years, ICAP is USAIDs longest running development program in Iraq. With that eight-year record of bringing together citizens to identify their needs, mobilize resources, and lobby local government representatives, Baghdads community action groups grew into a lynchpin of IRDs development legacy in Iraq. At the end of 2011, Baghdad had more than 120 CAGs with a total membership exceeding 1,800 Iraqi citizens across more than 100 residential communities. The organizational growth and development of the CAGs as a civil force is impressive. Since the original ICAP program began, the groups have evolved from committed but informal collectives to elected membership bodies that are governed by bylaws, hold regular public meetings, and abide by institutionalized processes that help give voice to millions of Iraqi citizens. These groups are Iraqs largest and most organized network of local change agents, from homemakers to professionals, said ICAP Chief of Party Ernest Leonardo. They understand local needs, and they advocate for those needs at the neighborhood and district government levels. In the process, they do more than provide a vital link between citizens and their governmentthey foster transparency, responsiveness, and, most critically, public confidence. (continued)
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Through ICAP, community groups have become a bellwether of democratic participation, giving everyday citizens an outlet to identify needs and the means to address them Ernest Leonardo
CSPs operational design incorporated many elements of ICAP, but, as a straight stabilization mission, it was fundamentally different. It was shaped by the near total collapse of Iraqs internal political and social infrastructure and the ensuing breakdown in
securitythe same elements that threatened ICAP and other relief and development programs. But unlike traditional relief programs, normally divided among a group of implementers, CSP was given only to IRD to manage and run.
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Box 3 The evolution of ICAP, USAIDs longest-running program in Iraq (continued)

The community action groups, which remain at the core of the ICAP design, were able to change because the overall program mission changed. In the early days, with communities facing a critical lack of basic services, ICAP focused on quick-impact projects designed to stave off a range of impending crises, from outbreaks of cholera to widespread truancy. Thanks to the continuing dedication of group members, the CAGs moved from stop-gap measures and toward the kind of robust, participatory planning processes that create sustainable bonds between citizens and their leaders. By the end of 2011, all community action groups had completed comprehensive community action plans to inform long-term district development strategies for Baghdads 15 governmental districts. At week-long planning workshops, under IRDs guidance, group members worked with government officials at the neighborhood, district, and province levels to outline long-term, districtwide strategies for improving basic services and livelihoods, especially for women, youths, and the internally displaced. By the end of its program date, ICAP was expected to shepherd more than 600 projects identified in the official action plans through completion. ICAPs broader agenda not only sharpened the mission of community groups, it fostered more diverse program successes, including better assistance outreach for Baghdads internally displaced population, and enhanced measures to reach the estimated 5 million Iraqis who had Internet access by mid-2011. IRD worked with all 15 district councils to build dynamic websites featuring useful information on government services and contact details and spearheaded technology and skills training for information technology specialists from each council. And as part of a very inventive and groundbreaking donor marketplace, representatives from more than 20 international funding agenciesincluding the UN, the International Organization for Migration, the US Institute for Peace, and groups from Japan, the Republic of Korea, and northern Europegathered with community action group members to discuss funding priorities and local community needs. The ICAP-sponsored event was the first time donors had the opportunity to engage directly with community leaders around a locally owned plan for social and economic development. Through ICAP, community groups have become a bellwether of democratic participation, giving everyday citizens an outlet to identify needs and the means to address them, said Leonardo. Their efforts, despite violence and limited resources, have helped make responsive, bottom-up planning a respected and acceptable practice in Baghdad.
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A complete stabilization package
of programmatic and military integration
A CSP soccer league holds its grand opening ceremony
That dramatic difference that life was getting better, it all had to do with CSP. Neighborhoods were being cleaned up, soccer leagues were starting, and businesses were opening. It wasnt all done by the military. The partnership with CSP made all these things possible.
Andrew Wilson
In his influential work, political scientist John Kingdon explored the sources of initiative that create unique opportunities for change, either incremental or radical, in the sociopolitical sphere. These policy windows present themselves when internal and external government forces come into temporary alignment. Despite their rarity, Kingdon said, major changes in public policy result from the appearance of these opportunities. To stakeholder participants, action is often imminent when an issue is really getting hot. By November 2005, as violence worsened in Iraq, the direction of US policy in the country had gotten very hot. The US Senate voted overwhelmingly to require that the White House submit quarterly, unclassified reports to Congress on the wars progress and, in a rare show of bipartisanship, agreed that Iraqi forces should begin to assume the lead in the war effort in 2006, calling for a campaign plan that would outline the phased withdrawal of troops. In the House, Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha, a well-known ex-Marine who had supported the war, issued a public call for the immediate withdrawal of US troops. The war in Iraq is not going as advertised, he said. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. Murtha was referring to

public opinion, which had moved solidly against the war. A Newsweek survey released the same month showed support for the administrations handling of Iraq had reversed since May 2003. We cannot continue on the present course, Murtha said. In late November, The Economist declared this time Americas most bitter period of debate over the Iraq war so far. The policy window was wide open.
CSP origins: A new approach for international development

On November 30, 2005, President George W. Bush unveiled the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, a 38-page plan outlining an endgame for the American military and an exit strategy intended to minimize further destabilization. The integrated strategy of the plan focused on a security track for neutralizing the insurgency, a political track for building democratic governance, and an economic track for creating a sound and self-sustaining economy. The strategic objectives underlying each track consisted of missions and tasks assigned to both military and civilian units. Although many had contributed to the document, The New York Times noted the strategy strongly reflected
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As planning for CSP unfolded, the security situation in Iraq worsened, including the deadly bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006. USAID had to move quickly, and it needed an experienced implementation partner
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a new voice in the administration, Peter D. Feaver, a special adviser to the National Security Council and a political scientist who had studied and written extensively on civilian-military relations. The US government recognized its objectives could not be accomplished through security interventions alone. Shortly thereafter, USAID released its Iraq Transition Strategy Plan (200608), which outlined three objectives in support of the administrations security-political-economic delineation. The first of these objectives called for the stabilization of strategic cities and the improvement of local governments ability to provide services through short- and long-term job creation programs and through close working association with provincial councils. Linking stability with development will reduce incentives for violence and integrate key cities into longer term development initiatives, the plan stated. Out of this strategy, CSP was born (box4). From the beginning, CSP differed from most international development programs and particularly from USAID programs. The scope of work said that: Rather than focusing on traditional long-term sustainable development, CSP is a short-term COIN program with a concentration on employing or engaging mass numbers of at-risk, unemployed males. Designed to be run in close coordination with the [US] military, provincial reconstruction teams, and with local civilian counterparts, CSP brought into one program the US governments most comprehensive postwar strategy plan to date, as well as the militarys emerging outlook on civ-mil partnerships for carrying out COIN strategies. In January 2007, the president announced the stabilization plan during an internationally televised address, detailing how the embedded PRTs would place development experts inside brigade combat teams, the civilian surge to accompany the military
surge of 20,000 troops. Initially, there was a struggle within the administration as to which department or agency would take the lead in civilian-led stabilization and reconstruction. Should it be housed at the Pentagon? Implementation cells could be placed within the combatant command responsible for Iraq, but concern was expressed over how much flexibility the civilian workers would have. Should it be housed at the State Department? At the time, the department did not have any scalable programmatic capability for stabilizationthe Civilian Response Corps was still a few years away. But some high-ranking State Department officials pushed for it, arguing that the department was already overseeing democracy building and programs for internally displaced persons, and that those programs could be transitioned into stabilization activities. USAID, without a Cabinet-level voice, lacked the influence of other departments, but its mission practices offered an obvious alignment with CSPs programming requirements. Not everyone in the administration agreed, of course. But after prolonged discussion, administration officials decided to house the program at USAID. The reconstruction activities that were put forward for USAID to implement focused on the areas where the government believed it could get the best goodwill from Iraqi citizens, the best places where we could engage Iraqis in a constructive manner so theyre not taking up arms, explained a senior IRD official. In the context of government decisionmaking, CSP was moving forward rapidly, despite the jockeying for oversight. Momentum for focused stabilization had been building, but as early planning for CSP unfolded, the security situation in Iraq worsened. The al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra in February 2006 led to an estimated 1,300 deaths, ignited ethnic tensions, and plunged Iraq into a spiral of violence. USAID had to move quickly, and it needed an implementation
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IRD oversaw CSP operations in 15cities nationwide, reaching millions of Iraqis through employment, training, business development, and youth projects
Box 4 CSP: At a glance

Awarded to IRD by USAID in 2006, CSP grew into a $644 million delivery mechanism for quick-impact projects, a nonlethal, counterinsurgency program that reduces the incentives for participation in violent conflict by employing or engaging at risk youth between the ages of 17 and 35, according to the contracts scope of work. In short, CSP was designed to address the root cause of the insurgency through a four-pronged strategy that focused on: Assisting the government of Iraq at all levels in fulfilling its duties, thus improving citizens perceptions of government efficacy and legitimacy. Mitigating the major economic factors contributing to the insurgency. Stimulating preconditions for economic stability. Facilitating constructive dialogue and peaceful interactions through civic education and community-oriented activities. To implement this strategy, IRD focused on activities intended to create jobs and rebuild relationships among young Iraqis from different ethnic backgrounds. Projects were closely coordinated with the military and local PRTs. In addition, CSP staff, the vast majority native Iraqis, collaborated with local and ministry officials as part of a larger effort to legitimize the government and establish lines of trust and communication between leaders and citizens. This community interaction played a critical role in building CSP. The years IRD had spent cultivating relationships at the grassroots through ICAP allowed it to leverage its resources and local standing into a quick start in Baghdad, enabling a nationwide rollout of CSP within six months. Altogether, IRD oversaw CSP operations in 15 cities nationwide, reaching millions of Iraqis through employment, training, business development, and youth projects. Although IRD used the same program design in each of the cities, the funding and length of engagement varied widely based on a number of factors, primarily local need and level of local security.
Ramadi Nov 06Mar 09 Hit Oct 07Jan 09 Haditha Oct 07Jan 09 Mosul/Tal Afar Nov 06Sep 09 Beiji Feb 08Jun 09 Tikrit Feb 08Jun 09 Samarra Feb 08Jun 09 Baquba Jul 07Sep 09 Baghdad May 06Jun 09 Babil Jan 08Mar 09
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CSP operations by city

Kirkuk Nov 06Mar 09
Al Qaim Nov 06Jan 09
Habbaniyah Oct 07Jan 09 Fallujah Nov 06Mar 09
Basra Nov 06Jul 09
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There were no similar programs. CSP was historic from the first day. The scale, the ability, the necessity to work with the military in a kinetic environment Dar Warmke
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partner with experience doing this kind of work and a host of other criteria as well, including a willingness to work with the military, rapid-start capability, and flexibility to manage a project that was expected to grow significantly over its life. On May 29, 2006, it chose IRD. USAID looked specifically at two key IRD credentials its successful operation of ICAP in Baghdad, where CSP would be headquartered and where IRD already had established relationships with local councils and community leaders; and IRDs work in Serbia and Montenegro under the CRDA program. However, Serbia and Montenegro were not the same as Iraq. The mission was not remotely on the same scale, and it was not the same model. IRDs work in the Balkans took place in a postwar setting. Iraq, by contrast, was in full insurrection, and IRD was to work alongside the US military to provide relief and to help mitigate the conflict itself. There were no similar programs, said Dar Warmke, who ran CSP operations for IRD in Basra and, later, Mosul. CSP was historic from the first day. The scale, the ability, the necessity to work with the military in a kinetic environment.... I worked through the whole Bosnian war, with another organization, but we were not trying to do stability work at the same time. There was no clear and hold. CSP was unprecedented in its design, and the result was a stabilization program widely credited by military and diplomatic leaders for meeting its primary goals creating jobs and helping make some of Iraqs most devastated communities safer. It also stretched IRDs capacity, wound down in controversy, and left many of the organizations staff simultaneously praising it for its successes and criticizing it for its missteps. Ultimately, it offered a blueprint for civilian participation in COIN operations, and a case study of the complexities inherent in assisting the military and militarizing assistance.
Breaking down CSPs design

As CSP was being designed, a consensus emerged that high unemployment contributed to citizens negative perception of local and national government capacity. CSP focused primarily on males ages 1735 years because that group made up the highest percentage of the unemployed, marginalized, and disaffected and because they were most vulnerable to joining insurgent groups. By reaching the most-at-risk members of the population, CSP reasoned, violence would be mitigated. At the end of the day, said Michele Lemmon, an IRD senior program officer, it was all about one thing: jobs, jobs, jobs. It wasnt to do charity work, and it wasnt to give handouts. It was to help people get back to what they were doing before. Jessica Cho, an IRD field program coordinator, conducted a series of postprogram interviews with CSP beneficiaries and local staff. Cho said one of the clearest takeaways was a basic sense of appreciation for the number of jobs that were created in some of these circumstances. In most cities, Cho said, CSP was truly successful in combining nonskill public works projects with rehabilitation of basic infrastructure, then using those successes to promote businesses development and vocational training. Together, it all led to longer term jobs and to some sense of stability. CSPs four core programmatic componentsinfrastructure and services, vocational training, business development, and youth engagementclosely resembled traditional development strategy. Yet the underlying goal in three of the four areas was that employment generation intended to: Create short-term (fewer than 90days) jobs through community infrastructure and essential services projects,such as rehabilitation of schools, streets, health clinics, public gardens, soccer fields,
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At the end of the day, it was all about one thing: jobs, jobs, jobs. It was to help people get back to what they were doing before Michele Lemmon
sewage and drainage canals, and water treatment plants for safe drinking water. These projects were the fastest to get off the ground and showed the quickest results, and they included the trash cleanup campaigns that were a hallmark of the early part of the program. Internally, this component was known as CIES. Generate long-term (more than three months) jobs by establishing vocational training and employment service centers,particularly for young and unemployed Iraqi males. Other groups considered high risk for recruitment into insurgency, such as widowed women, were also targeted. Training was given for construction and nonconstruction trades, as well as in courses such as sewing and cosmetology intended to bring in women. Apprenticeships and follow-up employment assistance services were also offered. Encourage business development and local ownership through management training courses and grants to new or current businesses in agriculture, industry, manufacturing, and trade services. These business development grants, which ranged from $500 to $100,000 and were in the form of equipment and materials, were based on the potential for job creation, higher incomes, positive impact on the community, and the grantees own contribution. Some of the most visible examples of these grants are the hundreds of shops that were rebuilt after being destroyed or damaged in violent market attacks. Mitigate conflict by engaging Iraqis socially and culturally.Young men (and to a lesser extent women) were the intended targets, but IRD aimed higher, hoping its activities would also contribute to bringing together citizens from different religious, ethnic, and political backgrounds. In coordination with local community leaders and civic groups, IRD

sponsored community programs, such as athletic events, art programs, computer training, and healthy living courses. Successful implementation depended on the ability of IRDs program team to work with the provincial councils, neighborhood advisory councils, and district advisory councils to establish component-specific strategies. Although the partners varied between cities, CSP consistently worked through all levels of local government leaders to identify and implement projects. The councils were formed after the Coalition Provisional Authority took over administration of the Iraqi government, and they served as a primary governing body in many localities before eventually becoming part of the provincial government. A balance between military strategy and community need Although many IRD staff recalled extreme challenges while working with council members, including personal threats and bribe requests, the councils were necessary to the implementation process, especially during the first year. CSP didnt select the projects, said Awni Quandour, who left ICAP to become a transitional chief of party for CSP. They were strictly the choice of council members. Quandour made regular visits to city officials in Baghdad to try and overcome one of the programs earliest challengesthe citys deep religious divides. Projects in Sunni neighborhoods still had to get approval from the Shia council members, and vice versa. CSP tried to be as fair as possible, Quandour said, but in some cases it wasnt fair; it was politics. Because of the pressure IRD applied on local leaders to ensure the program moved forward, Quandour said they were able to proceed without alienating Sunni or Shia neighborhoods. IRD always talks about its focus on communitybased, or community-led, development work, and I think thats where it made the big difference, said
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2
the most successful projects were those in which there was tight community and national coordination between the different program components
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Andrew Wilson, an IRD senior program officer. Wilson worked with CSP in Iraq as a civil affairs captain in the US Army, attached to several battalions working throughout Ramadi in 2006 and 2007. He said he saw firsthand the value of IRDs experience in navigating local political structures and its connection with the grassroots. You know in the military, we just went out there and made it happen. Wed go in and say, Hey, whos the elder? And some guy would raise his hand, and wed tell him, Okay, were gonna clean up these streets and now youre in charge of this, and you need to tell us whos who and whats what. We were empowering whoever would stand up and raise his hand. CSP really took that to the next level, because IRD had experience working with the government, working with the mayors, or the different ministries. In general, CSP strategies were passed down from provincial ministries to the directorate level, and the directorates for a specific city would then submit proposals. Working closely with local councils, PRTs, and the military, IRD would establish a general planning process for project work. Once that process was determined, each CSP program component worked with local partners specific to the city and setting (box5): Infrastructure projects were tendered competitively and awarded and implemented in coordination with the municipal governments in areas like park and recreational facility rehabilitation. The business development team distributed grant applications through the district and neighborhood councils. Applicants were then chosen by a committee of business development program staff. Youth activities were coordinated through local sports clubs and the Directorate of Youth. In cities where the directorate was not fully functional, IRD partnered with local NGOs.
The CSP employment generation staff worked with councils, community groups, and local leaders to recruit students for vocational training and apprenticeships. Wilson said IRD linked CSP projects to military strategy and community needs, which helped close the gap between the objectives of the military and those of local populations. Through CSP, IRD put an Iraqi face on [stabilization], he said. They started doing some of the soccer leagues and vocational training things the military didnt have expertise in. IRD made it hum, but the local people owned it.
The complete package: Programmatic and military integration

Operationally, CSP comprised four distinct program areas, but IRD strove to provide a complete package of services that optimized the overlaps. For example, irrigation and canal restoration projects were undertaken in regions where residents could build greenhouses to grow and market fresh produce locally. Economic zones were identified so that roads and market areas could be rehabilitated for CSP grantees to open new businesses. A final analysis of CSP program data showed that the most successful projects were those in which there was tight community and national coordination between the different program components. The first strategy was to get out there and employ people, said Travis Gartner, IRDs deputy chief of party for program operations with CSP. From there, we could begin building on other components, such as talking about needs in other areas. Once the streets were cleaned, we started an infusion of cash to stimulate local economy. Then we looked at a small grants program, moving from a quick fix to engaging people on a medium term. We started looking for ways
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Given the volatile sociopolitical environment CSP operated in, a planning process that included all relevant local leaders and officials was crucial
Box 5 CSP: Project development process

Given the volatile sociopolitical environment CSP operated in, a planning process that included all relevant local leaders and officials was crucial for expediting project work, demonstrating transparency, and promoting fairness. CSP activities varied from city to city; and even within cities, the development process would vary. Staff and senior leadership strove for as much consistency as possible, and all projects relied in some way on collaborative efforts with different stakeholders. CSP in Baghdad followed this basic development process for community infrastructure and essential service projects.
Hold introductory meeting with provincial council and district and neighborhood advisory councils. Agree upon initial project ideas.
2
Project idea
Send project idea to Amanat, the local overseer of public works projects
Send project idea to appropriate government ministry for approval and coordination
Send scope of work to Amanat for approval
Submit scope of work to appropriate government ministry for approval and coordination
Develop scope of work with directorate general
Send project idea to directorate general for approval
Conduct technical review of project idea
Complete project proposal packet
Begin provincial program process
Project implementation
Tendering, contracting, performance, monitoring, completion, and handover
to take cash-for-work laborers and move them into training programs and sports activities like soccer. We were looking for other means of engaging people and bringing them together, so we could talk to them about their needs and what they felt was really important. This is our way forward Once the site of youth sports competitions, Tameem Quarter Soccer Field in Ramadi had become a dump. Garbage trucks couldnt get to it because the towns narrow streets were controlled by insurgents and

littered with debris and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Tameem Quarters field was just one example of how city servicesand civil society in generalhad collapsed in Ramadi by 2006. Homes and shops, from bakeries to clothing stores to kebab stands, were abandoned. Empty or shelled-out buildings lined desolate streets. I remember projects that CSP conducted in our area, youth sports and the like, Wilson said. In part of Ramadi, they cleaned out whole areas of neighborhoods. That place was like Stalingrad. Every street you went down, every first row of homes was destroyed, blown up, almost in rubble. The streets
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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
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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 playersand 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 CSPs 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 teamswith help from community leaders, sports union members, and local teachersas part of CSPs youth activities program.
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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 citizens, 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 lessonsactivities 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 Kirkuks 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
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 projects 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 (figure1). 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 Figure 1
Self-sustaining project work cycle
more than Ramadi. The dramatic turnaround began in mid-2006, during the Sunni Awakening and the militarys 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 citys 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
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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 nd permanent or long-term employment, which could be secured through...
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[Colonel John Charlton] was the first person who bought into what CSP was intended to do. And that has to be stressed, that the military must buy into it Travis Gartner
2
would set up a smaller area of operations with a joint security station. The area could be as small as five city blocks, its total coverage often dictated by the military presence needed to clear and hold it. The militarys idea was that youd take over an abandoned house or compound, turn it into your safe house, secure it, and then start doing missions, Wilson said. But we also had to build relationships with the local leaders. We prioritized different quick-reaction projects, stabilization, COIN-type spending. We did a lot of that in the early days, like the trash cleanup. But you know, right after fighting, we didnt have the capacity to do it on the right level, or with a local face. We filled the gap until a better option came along. Thats when CSP came into the mix. By November 2006, the Marines had seized a multi story, dilapidated building at a key vantage point in Ramadi. Dubbed the 17th Street Security Station, the building became a critical outpost for US and Iraqi security forces. With an operational security base established for the military to hold the surrounding area, the exact window of opportunity CSP was designed for opened up. The CSP team and local Iraqi leaders came together to implement a joint revitalization project to clean streets, reconstruct buildings, and repair sewage and electrical lines. The $2.1 million infrastructure project filled holes in the road and repaved sidewalks. It created hundreds of local construction jobs. While that was ongoing, IRD moved quickly to award more than 60 business grants to local entrepreneurs to encourage investment in the rebuilt market and create longer term employment. CSP was looked at by the military as a great partner, Wilson said, because they were willing to take risks and make things happen. If they had slowed down and said, Hey we cant do this because of X, Y, and Z, I dont think you wouldve seen the drastic turnaround you saw in Ramadi. Colonel John Charlton, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, headquartered in Ramadi,
was a vocal advocate for COIN-style community stabilization. In the 2008 Washington Post examination of the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds and revenue for reconstruction, Charlton reiterated the need to win [Iraqi] trust and the importance of investing in communities in tandem with securing the communities. He was the first person who bought into what CSP was intended to do, Gartner said. And that has to be stressed, that the military must buy into it. IRDs strong local ties in Baghdad, and the organizations adeptness at establishing community rapport, clearly played in CSPs favor. The IRD network in Baghdad and in the other provinces, especially in the very critical years of 2006 and 2007, was a difference-maker, said Alaa Ismael, who oversaw CSPs infrastructure and essential activities. In some of the districts we were working in, in which so many violent incidents happened, sometimes even the military found it very hard to work there.... Through our local networks, we were able to move into very dangerous communities. We were able to face those challenges because our staff was there on the ground. The heart of the insurgency was in Al-Anbar, and employing many people right away was the only option, Gartner said, to hold gains as they were made in places like Ramadi. The military is about to clear, and weve got resources, and they understand that were going to work with the municipalities and that were going to employ Iraqis, he said. So they buy into this, because they know it has to happen, and then they dont have to do it. Colonel Charlton kept asking, Where are your expats? Well there were no expats. There was me and $60 million in CSP funds. And I kept stressing to him point number one: that I would work with the Iraqis, and that we were gonna employ a lot of people, local people. According to Wilson, the military loved what CSP and Gartner were doing. They
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The partnership with CSP made these things possible. Finally, people saw that it was worth kicking out al Qaeda Andrew Wilson
never thought an NGO could operate like that, in that type of environment. We didnt go through any training where we were taught, Go find your local NGO. Theyre going to help you win the war. Theyd be stupid not to teach that now. A year after the Ramadi stabilization effort began, in October 2007, Gartner and Charlton were among more than 400 attendees at a grand opening ceremony for the Ramadi Business Center. Local leaders, Iraqi government officials, business owners, military personnel, US congressmen, and media attended the ceremony, which Ramadi Mayor Ayadah called a shining day in the history of the Al-Anbar governorate. Within two years, the center had become a locus of economic development. In November 2009, more than 4,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate representatives from Jordan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates and other countries gathered at the business center for the Al-Anbar Trade Fair. According to USAID, which offers ongoing support for the business center, more than 300 Iraqis a month were receiving vocational skills training at the same location in courses that range from secretarial skills to corporate sales and accounting, from how to apply for a job to how to write a business report. Qassim Mohammad Abed, governor of Anbar province, praised the trade fair and the business center for demonstrating that Ramadi
and the governorate of Al-Anbar were again open for business. The 17th Street Market, that was a huge turning point, Wilson said. Before long, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and people like that were coming to Anbar. That dramatic difference that life was getting better in Ramadi, it all had to do with CSP. Neighborhoods were being cleaned up, soccer leagues were starting, and businesses were opening. It wasnt all done by the military. The partnership with CSP made these things possible. And when you add them up, its like the straw that broke the camels back. Finally, people saw that it was worth kicking out al Qaeda. While many projects were driven by military or USAID considerations, the operational reality in Iraq was that close coordination of all CSP stakeholders was needed to complete projects. In a stabilization program, relationships, particularly with the military but really with any involved decisionmaker, are key success factors, Ismael said. CSP was unique in that USAID was working right alongside the military, Gartner said. The key to CSPs success was the military buying into it. If the military sees you as a resource, and you have resources to bring to the table to directly support counterinsurgency efforts, then it will work.
2
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3
in a counterinsurgency environment
Successes and setbacks
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. IRDs 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 didnt 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 communities, 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. Thats 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: CSPs 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 countrys 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
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CSP helped create a sense of normalcy among those who participated and across the population at large
3
Box 6 CSP: Results

CSP had two overarching goals: increasing employment and mitigating conflict. CSP directly benefited Iraqi communities in areas most at risk by creating jobs, helping families generate income, rebuilding infrastructure, and implementing youth programs. The program helped create a sense of normalcy among those who participated and across the population at large. At its conclusion, CSP had: Generated more than 525,000 short-term jobs120 percent of program targets. CSP exceeded its targets for short-term person-months of employment each year of operation. Created or restored more than 57,100 long-term jobs134 percent of program targets. Completed more than 1,600 total projects that rebuilt, refurbished, or revitalized key pieces of community infrastructure. Created or expanded more than 10,000 businesses through micro, small, and medium enterprise grants and other program interventions. Provided business development and skills training to more than 15,000 entrepreneurs. Graduated 41,443 citizens from vocational training programs developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and covering a wide variety of marketable skills, including carpentry, construction, sewing, and electrical repair. The graduated number of trainees represented 112 percent of program targets. Placed more than 9,900 vocational skills trainees in apprenticeships, where they continued to gain valuable job training. Almost 20 percent of the apprentice placements went to women. Engaged more than 350,000 at-risk Iraqis ages 1735 in more than 500 youth participation activities, including team sports competition and arts training. The number of Iraqi youth taking part in CSP-sponsored events exceeded targets by 43 percent.
business grants and skills training and jobs created in direct support of the COIN strategy. With CSP, each served completely different purposes. Long-term employment primarily supported the business community and the more skilled type of laborer who was unemployed as a direct result of the warlike a shop owner whose business was destroyed and employees put out of work. Getting these Iraqis back to work supported medium- and long-range COIN objectives. Short-term employment, by contrast, proved effective in supporting the immediate COIN objectives crucial to the clear-hold-build strategy. This type of employment targeted unskilled or semiskilled laborers who would otherwise be open to recruitment into the insurgency. It also injected much-needed capital back into war-torn communities and helped rebuild a
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sense of community. If your city has been shot up, and somebody is at least sweeping up the rubble in the marketplace, it doesnt guarantee that life is going to be rosy, but it gives you some fragment of hope in a situation thats otherwise pretty hopeless, said James Kunder, an IRD advisor and former acting administrator of USAID. A cash-for-work jobs program, which was the central tenet of the CIES component, doesnt eliminate the placement of IEDs and things like that, Kunder said, but it gives people something productive to do other than plant IEDs, and it also gives some sense of hope for the future. A rapid, highly visible, and tangible impact The CIES program component was divided into two general project areasinfrastructure rehabilitation
A cash-for-work jobs program gives people something productive to do other than plant IEDs, and it also gives some sense of hope for the future James Kunder
and essential services work, which required unskilled labor on quick-impact projects such as trash collection and rubble removal. CSP supported scores of these quick-impact projects during the programs first year. By the middle of the second year, however, IRD began to transfer oversight of those projects back to municipal governments. If local governments were willing to support the continuation of some of these services, IRD would continue its involvement in cleanup activities on a limited basis. But the lack of concern or unwillingness of many municipalities to devote resources to basic services like timely trash removal beyond IRDs work worsened public opinion in many cities. Still, the short lead time needed to initiate service projects allowed cleanup and rubble removal to serve as a kind of spearhead for CSP as it expanded. The trash pickup campaigns were critical for establishing CSP, not just because they were cleaning the streets but because they were labor-intensive projects that covered entire neighborhoods, said Alaa Ismael, the head of program management for CIES activities. I have no doubt the cleanup activities were needed for the stabilization program to work in Iraq. In Ramadi, as previously noted, IRD launched a large-scale cleanup program directly on the heels of military action to remove insurgents. The goal was not only to provide immediate employment but also to restore frayed relations between local community leaders, tribal leaders, and the citizenry. The cleaning campaign was implemented through a local contractor responsible for providing laborers with equipment, organizing debris removal, and paying daily wages. For the Ramadi cleaning campaign, laborers earned $10 a day, which was the standard payment for CSP cleaning campaigns. Throughout Iraq, approximately 1,600 CIES projects generated more than 525,000 person-months of short-term employment20 percent above the target. Given the high value placed on providing some kind

of job to as many Iraqi men as possible, as fast as possible, person-months employment was a critical indicator of immediate impact. By this calculation, CSP exceeded its target in every year of operation. In addition, IRD found a great deal of qualitative evidence from interviews with local beneficiaries, media coverage, staff assessments, and final reports that the increase in short-term employment helped reduce violent incidents in some of the most unstable areas, such as Howija in Kirkuk. The early projects had a rapid, highly visible, and tangible impact greatly appreciated by the local government, said Alice Willard, formerly a senior monitoring and evaluation officer with IRD. The same programs helped validate CSP to local authorities and opened the door to more diversified collaboration in a short amount of time. That collaboration helped lead to widespread infrastructure rehabilitation, which, in contrast to essential service projects, relied on semiskilled and skilled laborers to help with rebuilding and construction projects relevant to local citizens, such as school restoration, hospital and health clinic refurbishment, irrigation canal restoration for agribusiness, and the rebuilding or enhancing of electricity, sewage, and water delivery services. These projects were undertaken with joint input from local community leaders, US military personnel, and PRTs. As IRD transitioned cleanup campaigns to local municipalities in the programs second year, the focus of CIES component work shifted primarily to infrastructure projects. In many instances, a single project encompassed both the cleanup and rehabilitation phases of CIES. One example is the Mosul Social Club for Families. Before the war, the club was a popular gathering spot for dining, entertainment, and community celebrations with on average more than 340 events a year. But as insurgent violence swallowed up Mosul, public socialization became too risky for most, and the number of club events plummeted to a few dozen. Before long, a lack of
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the renovation of the Mosul Social Club for Families generated more than 1,800 days of short-term employment, and the reopened facility created at least 25 long-term jobs
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funds made maintenance impossible and the facility fell into disrepair. As the security situation in Mosul began to stabilize, however, IRD staff believed that breathing new life into the club would be seen as a powerful symbol of Mosuls resurgence and might help return a sense of normalcy to a divided city. So IRD embarked on an extensive CIES project that began with cleaning the clubs grounds and removing years of debris and continued with building a new childrens playground and information kiosks. Building rehabilitation required skills ranging from basic demolition and wall repair to more complex electrical engineering. Altogether, the renovation of the Mosul Social Club for Families generated more than 1,800 days of short-term employment, and the reopened facility created at least 25 long-term jobs. On the ground, adapting to whats needed While the programs general pattern was to start with cleanup campaigns before moving to infrastructure and rehabilitation work, not every CSP city followed the same template. In volatile, unstable environments, IRDs city directors were responsible for balancing the realities on the ground against the CSP design. In a city like Baghdad, it was essential to ensure that the streets were clean because of IEDs, and the whole military strategy there was to ensure that every effort was made to improve essential service delivery, said Dar Warmke, who led the CSP expansion into Basra. When I arrived, it was very clear that Basra was a neglected city, and had been for years, and I realized from day one that it would make no difference to launch cleanup campaigns, that it would be throwing good money into a black hole. When CSP moved into Basra in 2007, the situation was not like Baghdad, Warmke said. You had 1.5 million people living in what was often referred to as the Sadr city of the south. The areas marshes had been drained under Saddam Hussein, and the districts rural dwellers had been forced into the city, where they were not allowed to raise animals. After
the fall of Husseins regime, the enforcement of that law ceased, and the natural cultural approach of a repressed population quickly took hold in Basras city streets, where thousands of goats and other small livestock began to subsist on garbage. No matter how much effort you put into cleaning streets and installing trash receptacles, in the next five minutes all that rubbish would be on the streets, Warmke said. It was clear to me that if we were trying to make an impact, this was not the way to go forward. I discussed it with our provincial reconstruction team, with the military and with others on the ground, and it was clear that we didnt see any value in taking our CSP money and doing cleanup. In Basra, the major concentration for immediate CIES work centered on cleaning and restoring canals, which the stakeholders determined to be the most urgent need, followed by rehabilitating schools and hospitals. Although Basra didnt follow the same template as other locations, local Iraqis were still being employed on projects that would ultimately allow further CSPsupported work. When USAID and the local PRT asked IRD to rehabilitate the Basra Childrens Hospital as the areas first project, for example, IRD staff also began designing a vocational training program with an eye toward future hospital staffing needs. So while CIES projects were often the most readily available stabilization tool in a COIN environment, they also functioned as the structural backbone of CSP. The cleanup campaigns yielded immediate dividends, while infrastructure repairs were often completed in a few months or less. They put Iraqis to work and, in the most successful cases, helped legitimize government services. They also laid the foundation for much of the later CSP work. Without streets free of debris or parks unencumbered by trash, or without basic civil infrastructure restored to some working level, the other CSP components simply could not have proceeded.
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the trash cleanup campaigns were very high profile, immediately improved life quality, and, with the rare exception of a city like Basra, represented CSPs initial foray into a community
Overcoming the messy realities of a COIN environment IRD faced challenges in implementing a rapid, cashfor-work component like CIES, including the issue of documentation. Laborers were generally paid in daily financial transactions, but payments were not always possible to track or fully account for, due to the frenetic pace of operating and the unwillingness of many Iraqi men to give their full names and supply contact information. Subsequently, the trash collection projects became a lightning rod for CSP critics, and IRDs own early administrative misstepslack of staff capacity, inadequate record keeping, miscommunication between headquarters and the fieldcreated additional obstacles. Internally, staff dealt with the frustration of having to balance bureaucratic requirements and IRDs own administrative limits with the demands of creating jobs. In Ramadi, we wrote a work plan in December 2006, but our first cash-for-work for 1,000 people wasnt until March 1. I was on the verge of losing all credibility with the military, said Travis Gartner, IRDs deputy chief of party. They took me where I wanted to go, they were trying to engage the local government, the community leaders, and they are bringing me to meetings, learning about the community. Weeks and weeks start to go by and they start asking me, Hey, when are you guys going to do something? You know, they had their CERP fund and would go to these communities and say, Who needs a job? Line em up. And Im working through a tendering process, and I have to vet a guy to make sure hes not a terrorist. For better or worse, the trash cleanup campaigns came to define CSP in many ways. They were high profile, immediately improved life quality, and, with the rare exception of a city like Basra, represented CSPs initial foray into a community. Removing rubble, trash, and debris in the wake of insurgent control or military exercises showed how peoples most basic needs, including security, could be immediately addressed in

the context of a COIN operation. The work also saved lives. The trash cleanup crews found IEDs hidden in the garbage, right there on the streets, said Andrew Wilson. Theyd be going along, cleaning a neighborhood out, and theyd find IEDs. That wasnt necessarily rare. Right there, youre saving lives, peoples lives. However, IEDs removed was not an indicator of program success, and items that were, such as person-months of employment, relied heavily on documentation to show progress and justify the high expenditures. At one point, CSP was disbursing up to $1 million a day, and much of that was for the CIES cash-for-work activities. Due to the sheer size of CSP, and the chaotic environment IRD was operating in, tracking each dollar and verifying the honesty of every local contractor was difficult. The cleanup campaign was effective but messy, said Mamadou Sidibe, who joined IRD as its director of monitoring and evaluation in 2008. Lets say you hired 100 employees a day, for two months. If you visit a site, youll only see an average of those workers. Sometimes youll see 60, other times it could be 180. These are extremely hard to monitor. But, Sidibe points out, cleanup activities are the kind of projects that the military likes best because it keeps unskilled laborers busy. CSP was designed the way it was for a reason, he said, and cash-for-work was an integral part of it, even if the ramifications werent completely thought through. CSP was pouring money into cleaning campaigns to make sure people have some income rather than be hired by al Qaeda. At the same time, it opened the door to some corruption. Even though CIES activities exceeded goals, serious concerns over the ability of cleanup campaigns to avoid fraud at the local level began to surface. In late 2007, these concerns led to an overall audit of CSP by a regional inspector general for USAID. Some USAID workers on the ground, and even some military leaders
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By combining his personal savings with a CSP grant for $24,000 worth of supplies, Saad Kathem opened a bakery in Al Mussayib that had customers lining up every morning
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who were not convinced of the programs effectiveness, alleged not only that IRD was documenting phantom workers to boost its employment numbers but also that the inability to follow the money, so to speak, meant that CSP dollars were being taken by corrupt individuals and funneled back to insurgents. The inspector generals office released the audit findings in March 2008, declaring parts of the program highly vulnerable to fraud and exploitation and recommending more than a dozen adjustments, but it did not present evidence of willful negligence or determine that a verifiable amount had been lost to corruption. Program operations in certain Baghdad neighborhoods were halted to mitigate the negative impact, and IRD took immediate steps to address the findings related to administrative shortcomings and poor communication (box 7). Some problems, especially with cash-for-work, were out of IRDs control. Multiple staff in the field reiterated just how common corruption, favoritism, and nepotism were among some local neighborhood and district councils. A lot of people were doing cash-forwork in the beginning of the program, Sidibe said, referring also to the multibillion-dollar military CERP funds. Cash-for-work and cleanup had to be the starting point, he added, because those activities support the overall strategy of reducing violence. There are only so many options available in a war. Once the level of violence starts going down, you can start doing more agriculture and development work. Then you can start building toward something.
facility, construct a drainage system, and purchase equipment to fulfill his dream of opening a full-service garage in Baghdad. After Dawood applied for CSP assistance, IRD awarded him a grant based on a business plan that would support at least 16 long-term employees. Within six months of opening, Dawood had more than 30 employees. Waleed Jan had been a musical instrument dealer in Baghdads Karrada district for more than 20 years. He also ran a successful music institute before insurgents burned down the institutes building. Jan had a strong relationship with the local district advisory council, however, and council members put him in touch with IRD. Within three months, he had reopened his conservatory and again was offering music lessons and training, with a focus on helping Iraqi youth learn to play and sing in front of a live audience. Jan immediately hired eight staff to offer piano, violin, guitar, drum, and lute lectures and instructions. Saad Kathem believed he could run a successful bakery; he just didnt have enough money to establish the business. He also couldnt find a job making pastries and baking breads that would pay enough to support his family. By combining his personal savings of $21,000 with a CSP grant for $24,000 worth of supplies, Kathem opened a bakery in Al Mussayib that had customers lining up every morning. Within a year, he had hired 15 bakers, completed business development training, and begun laying the groundwork to open a second bakery in nearby Karbala. Through CSPs business development program, IRD awarded grants to more than 10,000 Iraqi entrepreneurs like Dawood, Jan, and Kathem. The success stories that came out of those small grants were astonishing, said Dar Warmke. We believed we were creating longer term jobs by establishing businesses. The aim was to have a business running for as long as they were financially viable.
Business development programs: Light at the end of the tunnel

Amer Zaidan Dawood saw an opportunity to start a profitable, viable business for a large clientele. He had almost 20 years of experience managing car service centers in Jordan and Iraq, and he had $18,000 saved. But he needed more than twice that to rent a
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IRD transported all its CSP records into a three-story facility that it leased for the express purpose of allowing any auditor from any organization easy access to review the program files
Box 7 Enhancing internal controls and program oversight

Managing CSP in an active conflict zone required IRD to continuously improve internal controls and create layers of accountability and transparency. IRD acted quickly to address potential abuses at the local level and administrative weaknesses at the international level. In fact, the organization enhanced enough of its financial and programmatic policies before March 2008 that six of the recommendations had already been addressed before the final audit was released. We take any allegations of fraud and abuse extremely seriously and even more so when they involve concerns about the use of US taxpayer dollars, IRD President Dr. Arthur B. Keys said at the time. In addition to the suspension of the program in one of the Baghdad districts, the major recommendations from the inspector generals office included a comprehensive review of projects in other areas, enhancing coordination with program participants, establishing more detailed procedures for reporting potential system abuses, improving data quality management, and strengthening the programs monitoring and evaluation processes. By September 30, 2008, all recommendations had been fully implemented and certified by USAID and the Secretary of State. Speaking at a November 2009 symposium on CSP, Keys spoke about IRDs commitment to stabilization. Weve been in Iraq, in the Red Zone, since June 2003, when the Iraq Community Action Program started, he said. The reason CSP was undertaken, and why it was such a big program, is because it was a big job that had to be done. And all these projects were done with a very professional approach. But [USAID] didnt change the standards; they didnt change the regulations for CSP versus any other program in the world. As stabilization operations in Iraq and Afghanistan became more politicized, CSP became an even larger target. So IRD took the unprecedented step of opening a data warehousing and auditing facility in Amman, Jordan. The organization transported all its CSP records into a three-story facility that it leased for the express purpose of allowing any auditor from any organization easy access to review the program files, documentation, datasets, and contracts in a secure facility across the Iraqi border. After the program came to an official end, IRD moved all its final documentation to the warehouse. Despite the strongest possible oversight efforts and close coordination among IRD, USAID, and military counterparts, preventing misuse of funds or small-scale corruption at the program level in a country like Iraq remained a laborious task. As CSP progressed, additional allegations of misconduct arose in Mosul. IRD responded swiftly, launching its own internal investigation with the help of outside counsel and sending to the site an experienced investigative team comprising both senior IRD and external experts. IRD staff were interviewed by the US government, and the allegations were not substantiated.
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A unique purpose in support of COIN objectives The business development programs overall aim was to provide long-term jobs to those in CSPs focus population, to provide business training to grantees, and, ideally, to transition vocational training and

apprenticeship graduates into regular employment. The grants, awarded as equipment and services rather than cash, ranged from micro to small to medium, starting as low as $150 and capping at $100,000. Of the more than 10,000 grants awarded, 97 percent were micro or small, most to family-owned
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Ninety-eight percent of grantee businesses up to that point were still operational one year after receiving their grants
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businesses. The small grants component was literally in-kind, Gartner said. If your storefront windows were missing, wed help replace them. If your bread-baking machine had been stolen or destroyed, wed get you a new one and get your business going. Of course, youd need to employ two or three people to keep it going. While business grants are a common development assistance tool, in CSP they served a unique purpose in support of COIN objectives. Micro grants, with a maximum allotment of $3,000, were largely designed for stabilization purposes to provide Iraqi households with enough activities to ensure basic food and economic security as the counterinsurgency program unfolded. Small grants, with a maximum award of $25,000, provided entrepreneurs the incentive and the means to invest in local economies and neighborhoods that had been cleared of insurgents. Medium grants extended to $100,000 and helped larger businesses willing to invest in Iraqs industry sector. To secure a grant, applicants had to prepare a proposal that included a detailed business plan and list of operating costs. Each proposal projected its impact on employment, a critical factor in determining which grants were funded and at which levels. Each grant required a community contribution, either in cash, in-kind, or labor, and all recipients were required to attend business skills trainingan adjustment IRD made based on lessons from the first year. The people most likely to join the militias have limited education and few prospects for sustained income, and those were the people we had to reach, Warmke said. So we had to provide this segment of the population with more than financial assistance to start or grow a fledgling business. Basic skills training greatly enhanced the likelihood of their business succeeding. Most did. According to a sample survey conducted in 2008, 98 percent of grantee businesses up to that point were still operational one year after receiving
their grants.8 After the program closed, a sample survey of CSPs database determined that 89 percent of award recipients stayed in business during the critical first three to six months after their grants were completed. Given the inherent risks in small businesses, which are prone to early failure even in the most stable environments, the success rate of CSP-supported initiatives was very encouraging. We had great success with business development programming, which was a bit shocking, because I intentionally kept our grants at an average of $3,000 to $4,000, said Warmke. I didnt let many $20,000 proposals pass, because I didnt believe we could do it properly and monitor results. With the micro grants, my original thinking was that wed have some impact, but it probably wouldnt be tremendous. I think I was proven wrong. Dealing with weaknesses and those who wanted to cheat the system IRD tried to staff the grants program in each city with workers who had specialized training in business, agriculture, and manufacturing. Sector specialists were best equipped to help applicants refine and review their proposal plansa recurring needand to provide counseling and assistance during the startup phase. Perhaps most important, sector specialists helped balance business diversity so that no neighborhood became saturated with too many similar shops. Location was critical: even a good idea like establishing a carwash would not be viable if another already existed. Innovation was equally important. If community members heard grants were being awarded for grocery stores, CSP staff would see a rush of applications for grocery stores. Coming up with new ideas was one of the programs biggest impediments. A required in-cash or in-kind contribution, which was equivalent to 2550 percent of the grant, depending on the funding level, posed one of the programs most
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the aggressive grants program yielded very strong long-term job numbers even as it addressed the pressing need of stabilizing business communities
significant challenges. The provision was a rather standard development assistance tenet regularly followed by NGOs. But in Iraq, the stipulation proved to be a barrier. IRD made a concerted effort to encourage apprentices and new vocational training graduates to apply for grants and start their own businesses, but few apprentices could match the grants required 2550 percent contribution. That was probably the weakness, the cost-share element, because it kept a lot of people out of the small grants program, said Gartner. There was a tendency among applicants to falsify documents to meet that cost-share criteria. [But] it wasnt the right time for cost-share buy-in. Thats a traditional development approach, that the community should own it, they should buy into it. In Iraq, I dont think that was appropriate at that time. I mean, lets just get their shops open first. In adapting to a COIN environment, the business development component faced challenges. Many stemmed from the same issues some CIES projects faced, such as the inability to fully police those who were out to cheat the system, as Mamadou Sidibe, IRDs director of monitoring and evaluation, put it. Sidibe joined IRD in March 2008, toward the end of CSPs implementation. His mandate was to clear up reporting inconsistencies and strengthen internal oversight of the monitoring process, especially crucial for ensuring the integrity of business grants. CSP would give you a grant on the basis of how many longterm jobs you would generate, but people could cheat on their grant proposal, Sidibe said. A businessman might say he would create five permanent jobs, but once he got the grant, instead of hiring five, he might hire two. Or instead of opening the business he proposed, he might do something else. Jessica Cho, who worked on IRDs post-CSP review, cited generators as a perfect example because they were such a commonly requested item for in-kind grantsand in such high demand due to Iraqs weak

energy infrastructure. Someone might say he had a small store and needed a generator to operate a freezer or refrigerator, but you know, you can use a generator for a lot of things, Cho said. They were not always used for their intended purposes, but because of the security situation, it was extremely difficult to monitor every specific item. Most of the problems that the business development component faced involved small and micro grants, often in the more dangerous and less secure locations, which were sometimes impossible for IRDs monitoring agents to visit regularly. For the kind of conflict environment in which CSP was operating, Sidibe said, it was simply impossible to eliminate every corrupt influence. And overall, the aggressive grants program yielded very strong long-term job numbers even as it addressed the pressing need of stabilizing business communities. Quick impact with a long-term view While the program sought to enhance knowledge of private enterprise, teach good business practices, and stimulate community-led growth, it focused primarily on shop owners whose established businesses had been destroyed or shuttered. In some cases, the shops had been abandoned. In others, the threat of violence drove shopkeepers away. And often, such as for street market rehabilitations, IRD used the grants program alongside CSPs infrastructure program as a means of generating a rapid response for quick results. In early 2007, a suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb in Baghdads Sadriya Market, a popular commercial district with more than 300 shops, cafes, and kiosks. More than 130 people were killed and more than 330 wounded. The day after the attack, two IRD grants officers headed to the market to evaluate the damage and talk to shop owners about applying for CSP grants to help rebuild their businesses. I just
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Dr. Noor Abdul Aziz Baqirs grant covered $3,800 worth of equipment, and it allowed her to quickly begin rebuilding her clinic, which was an important show of faith for her 19 workers
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felt that the whole world was destroyed, my dreams and my life were destroyed, said Dr. Noor Abdul Aziz Baqir, a dentist whose clinic had been at the market since 1983. As I went to see my clinic, I felt, This is the end of my career as a dentist. I couldnt afford to reopen it. Baqirs grant covered $3,800 worth of equipment, and it allowed her to quickly begin rebuilding, which was an important show of faith for her 19 workers. Reopening destroyed commercial districts like Sadriya often got high priority because of their visibility and importance to the community, but fast turnarounds like the quick grant Baqir received were not common. Given the intensive monitoring of the grant development and implementation process, a gap between the conception and execution of a grant was common. The minimum length was two months, but six months was the average. Still, the final evaluation of the program, conducted by International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI), noted the important role that development grants played in the COIN effort to quickly normalize communities struck by sudden violence. By the end of the program, the business development component had generated 74 percent of the 57,109 long-term jobs documented by CSP. Even with the lengthy startup time between application and award, the grants program actually produced most jobs fairly quickly. Approximately 25,000 jobs were created in the first two years. Trade and service sector grants were found to be the most efficient at enabling this dualityquick-impact yet longer term employment opportunities, which proved to be extremely supportive of the COIN strategy. While they offered fewer macro links with the rest of the economy than did small-scale manufacturing or agribusiness grants, and though administering and monitoring them occasionally proved problematic, these grants resonated profoundly with Iraqis, offering a path to the
kind of normalcy necessary to stabilize a community. The small grants program worked very well because that got the businesses owners back, Gartner said. They wanted their shops back but they didnt have any money to pay for all that damage, and besides, would you invest in reopening your shop? Theres a war going on. So here we are, encouraging them to come out and just provide us proof that they own it and will work at it. When her dental clinic was destroyed, Baqir said she felt just like that. She wasnt sure how she would continue to support her immediate and extended family, much less rebuild her destroyed business. But just one day after the bombing, when the two IRD staff approached her as she sifted through the rubble, she said her outlook changed, just that quickly. I felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, she said, not long after her clinic reopenedin spite of the misery and sadness.
Vocational training: A sustainable program when we left

In January 2009, IRD and USAID officers officially handed over administration of Iraqs rebuilt vocational training program to the governments Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA). The event coincided with the graduation ceremony for trainees in CSPsponsored courses at the Waziriya training facility in Baghdad. Ministry officials lauded IRD for rehabilitating the facility and restarting training programs. The handover was significant because it completed the swift rebirth of Iraqs ability to create a sustainable workforce at the community level. In 2006, one year before CSPs direct support, the ministry graduated 7,000 vocational trainees. In 2007, after one year with CSPs support, the number of graduates soared past 20,000. We had to work through the ministry to achieve our targets, but we basically built their capacity to provide continuing training, said Iqbal al-Juboori,
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IRD helped revise the curricula of each training center it supported and introduced new systems for tracking student performance and training local teachers
who worked in Baghdad as IRDs deputy director for employment generation and vocational training. There were no resources. Most of the centers were not even functioning properly. They didnt have equipment. They had trainers sitting around doing nothing. We built up their existing centers, and we even rehabilitated the bombed ones, which was an achievement. Training centers were sometimes targeted by terrorists, but many were destroyed or damaged simply because of their proximity to fighting. So even after a facility had been rebuilt, keeping it secure and operational was a challenge. Baghdads Al-Rashid Vocational Training Center had been looted and destroyed shortly after the war began in 2003. The center had been one of Iraqs busiest training facilities and served roughly 60percent of the citys potential workforce. But the high-density location, one of the most dangerous areas of Baghdad according to al-Juboori, proved problematic, because such areas routinely drew terrorist attention. So when CSP undertook to rebuild the facility, the project was far from smooth. During the rehabilitation process, Al-Rashid came under attack on three separate occasions, leading to cost overruns, long delays, and apprehension among the contractors and workers trying to restore the building. But given its importance to the community and its vital link in the local job chain, work pressed on. Rehabilitation was completed in March 2007, and six months later the training center was handed over to the ministry. Upon opening, it offered a dozen vocational courses with a capacity to train more than 700 people every two months. A lasting effect on institutions and processes The primary goal of CSPs vocational training and apprenticeship program, also referred to as the employment generation program, was to stimulate economic stability by providing Iraqis with employable

skills that could lead to long-term jobs (more than 90 days). That goal was reached, with more than 41,400 graduates completing course training in two general trade categories: Construction (masonry, carpentry, steel structuring, plastering, roofing, tiling, plumbing, and electrical installation). Nonconstruction (electronics, auto mechanics, welding, appliance repair, mobile phone maintenance, HVAC maintenance and servicing, computer maintenance and repair, and agribusiness equipment maintenance). Additional courses targeting women were offered in sewing, hairdressing, and cosmetology. The vocational training program had a profound effect on Iraqs institutional capacityone of CSPs more notable but often overlooked achievements. IRD helped revise the curricula of each training center it supported and introduced new systems for tracking student performance and training local teachers. MOLSA was IRDs principal partner during the first year of the project, but in the second year, a new alliance with the Ministry of Education enabled the program to expand its reach. IRD helped rehabilitate more than 45 training centers, both structurally and administratively, through the provision of new equipment and more thorough and efficient procedures. When we came to the ministry and the venues, they didnt have basic processes in place, al-Juboori said. For example, registering traineesyou might find documentation, and you might not find documentation on the students. How do you help them learn if you dont even know why theyre there? So wed sit down with [ministry officials] as they were meeting the trainee applicants. We worked with them and taught them how to follow protocols. Even before the war, Baghdad had an established vocational program, but by most modern standards
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all the training centers renovated under CSP were being used for some kind of vocational training more than two years after the program ended
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it wasnt effective. There were a lot of key elements lacking, according to al-Juboori, including the ability to pay trainee stipends or provide toolkits. Still, many residents in the capital were familiar with the benefits that vocational training provided, and that helped with recruiting. More than half the programs graduates came from Baghdad, but IRD still graduated trainees in 14 cities total. And, except for a building in Ramadi that was involved in an ownership dispute among Iraqi ministries, all the training centers renovated under CSP were being used for some kind of vocational training more than two years after the program ended. MOLSA continued the same way that we built it; they were doing everything we were doing, al-Juboori said. The systems that we put in place are inserted now
within the ministrys systems. Vocational training was a sustainable program when we left (box 8). High demand and demanding challenges Even with four dozen renovated training centers and an expanded curriculum at each location, demand exceeded supply in the most popular training courses. The final number of vocational graduates exceeded targets by almost 4,000. While some courses lasted up to four months, many standard courses were condensed to two months so more could be taught over a shorter time. Some program workers, many with years of experience administering vocational training, expressed concern over the compressed schedule.
Box 8 CSP and the changing perception of sustainability

Unlike results of many traditional COIN programs, CSPs achievements in jobs created, infrastructure rehabilitated, and businesses opened appear to be long-lasting. The projects final report notes this, as does the independent evaluation conducted by IBTCI, which commended CSP for evolving into a program in which sustainability of the various components was given greater emphasis, further noting that this sustainability was essential to success.1 USAIDs Office of Inspector General, as part of a program audit, also noted that various elements of CSP provide a... foundation for more sustainable development activities.2 Sustainability, an overriding concern of traditional development programs, was not a priority in the early days of CSP, which was designed, according to project documents as a short-term COIN initiative rather than a long-term sustainable development program. USAID kept saying This is stabilization, not development. Stabilization, not development, Jessica Cho said. They made it clear that we were a quick-action solution, while other programs were focusing on development for the long term. However, as CSP unfolded, it also became clear that the program could generate sustainable outcomes, bridging the gap between stabilization and development. While IRD didnt work against donor wishes, many of CSPs core activities had the potential for enduring impact. In separate studies examining the individual program methods of the CSP components, USAID came to a similar conclusionIRDs closely integrated design not only addressed immediate COIN support needs but naturally fostered sustainable outcomes. Graduating a certain number of Iraqis from vocational training courses, for example, fulfilled a key program mandate. But then those graduates took away skills that would serve them well beyond the CSP timeframe. And, as Iqbal al-Juboori explained, getting the vocational training centers up and running had the supplementary effect of increasing administrative capacity at the local and national (continued) 46
We showed the government the best ways to handle its services, we trained youth to think beyond the militias and about each other, and we trained business owners to market, grow, and expand their businesses. We accomplished things that would last Iqbal al-Juboori
Yet they also recognized that the primary goal was to get as many people as possible off the street, as quickly as possible. This is one of many examples of traditional development thinking butting heads with CSPs COIN objectives. Accepting the difference wasnt incumbent on IRDs implementation team alone. Despite the ministrys cooperation, MOLSA expressed its doubts about the compressed schedule. They would tell us, We love what youre doing, and we understand the importance of it, but lets try to do something longer term, al-Juboori said. Another challenge was translating the high demand for vocational skills into longer term employment within the projects short timeframe. Once training
was complete, CSP supported half the costs of placing trainees in local businesses as apprentices. Apprenticeships were expected to provide a bridge from training to permanent employment. Almost 9,500 trainees were placed in apprenticeships, but that number was lower than IRD targeted and less than 25 percent of total vocational graduates. Even with CSP offering a 50 percent subsidy of the apprentices stipends, local employers were reluctant to accept unknown persons as workers, preferring to hire friends or family members. IRD tried to get around the obstacles in several ways. Staff made a concerted effort to encourage graduates to apply for grants through CSPs business
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Box 8 CSP and the changing perception of sustainability (continued)

levels of government. The vocational centers also provided a way for citizens to engage directly with a government service that provided opportunities for individuals to turn their lives around. Since all the work that was done under CSP was attributed to local government, al-Juboori said, we helped legitimize public officials. The evolving perception of the importance of sustainability was perhaps best exemplified in the inspector general 2008 review, which was undertaken to address issues related to worker documentation and IRDs internal administrative process. Yet, of the audits two overarching objectives, one focused exclusively on whether CSP was designed and implemented to ensure that Iraqis continue to benefit from its activitiesa question the original program design dismissed. The inspector general report praised the linkages between various sectors as a way to promote sustainability, including clauses written in subcontracts that required that a certain number of vocational program graduates be hired. Also noted were the numerous buildings rebuilt as permanent structures rather than as temporary facilities and the close involvement and education of province- and ministry-level officials in program operations. According to al-Juboori, The real sustainability of CSP, even if it wasnt written into the program design, was how we showed the government the best ways to handle its services, how we trained youth to think beyond the militias and about each other, and how we trained business owners to market, grow, and expand their businesses. We accomplished things that would last. Notes 1. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACN461.pdf. 2. http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACN242.pdf.
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IRD embarked on its own job placement program, opening what was officially known as Community Outreach Offices inside the districts and staffing those offices with field workers
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development program and start their own businesses, though many graduates simply did not have the resources to meet the in-kind requirement. Individual CSP city programs promoted projects that would support vocational trainees as employees, but there was no formal transition process. The apprenticeships and job placement, those were the biggest challenges because they were new concepts, al-Juboori said. Nobody had done job placement before. We tried to link it to the councils, but they had their own local contractors who would bring in their own labor, so theyd tell us to go talk to the contractors. Eventually, we started doing that. As a result, some IRD staff became the equivalent of employment brokers, going to businesses or individuals to try and sell the skills of the programs recent vocational graduates. Sometimes, it paid off. In one case, staff visited a contractor who had a contract to rehabilitate part of Baghdads University of Technology, one of Iraqs largest schools. We convinced him to hire our people, for the good of Iraq we argued, al-Juboori recounted. And he took a lot of workers, so that was a success. But we definitely had to make adjustments. Mini employment centers all over the district One of the most notable and successful adjustments IRD made was in Baghdad, during the final year of CSP, as an effort to get around the job placement roadblocks. Because so many local officials remained attached to local workers or contractors, vocational trainees were not getting fair assessments. So IRD embarked on its own job placement program, opening what was officially known as Community Outreach Offices inside the districts and staffing those offices with field workers. We tried to directly serve the unemployed in that area, and, at the same time, convince local businesses to find jobs for those unemployed persons, al-Juboori said.
Although the setup may sound a lot like an employment agency, it wasnt, at least not officially, because an actual employment agency was not allowed under labor ministry rules. And since no work of this kind could be associated with IRD, the offices publicly fell under the umbrella of the local government. When CSP began its closeout, district leaders contacted IRD field workers, asking that the offices remain open. The civilian and military support apparatus in Iraq backed the job placement plan as well. A lot of PRTs loved the idea, and they even supported the outreach offices for two or three months when CSP phased out in some areas, al-Juboori said. They loved the idea, and they saw the impact. They were like mini employment centers all over the district. Register the unemployed, and at the same time, try to find them a job. The job placement program was the logical extension of the community outreach efforts that the IRD employment generation staff made throughout the duration of CSP. In the beginning, IRD found that many people most in need of vocational training simply did not trust the labor ministry. So staff, on behalf of the ministry so as not to be identified as IRD workers, began directly calling potential participants to explain the benefits of the program. A promotional campaign in Baghdad, including billboards, flyers, and other types of announcements, tried to raise awareness and increase participation, especially in neighborhoods where training centers had been closed for a long time or where they had been destroyed. Perhaps most important to the overall success of the program, IRD sent staff into neighborhoods to talk directly to citizens and business owners to find out what kind of skills were in demand. When establishing the vocational training program, IRD looked for the kinds of jobs available and if there was a market for the jobs, said IRDs Michele Lemmon. The first training we did was for electricians or people to repair generators. Because most of Iraq had no electricity, everybody was buying generators, but no one knew how to
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Working with local NGOs and government officials, IRD organized a 10-day summer peace camp for 150 young men and women. Their hope was that the retreat might be a gateway to fostering tolerance
maintain them. So we started vocational training by asking, What types of jobs are needed? The business development component created many more long-term jobs than did the vocational training and employment generation component, as intended. The vocational training was intended to help at-risk and unemployed Iraqis gain marketable skills. But through the innovative methods IRD used to link training courses to market demand and unemployed citizens to employment opportunities, more than 8,000 vocational training graduates landed long-term jobs as a result of their training. In addition, the more effective registration and tracking processes for trainees that IRD put in place at all the rehabilitated training centers helped the labor ministry rebuild its capacity not only to teach Iraqis skills but also to help translate those skills into jobs. We always tried to link the local market demand with what was provided at the vocational training centers, said al-Juboori. Because that was the objective. We needed to ensure that the unemployed youth would not be led back into the violence. We built the ministrys training capacity 100 percent to stay in business. And theyre still in business.
a simple program with a lofty aimto assemble area youth from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in an effort to bridge their cultural and religious gaps. Working with local NGOs and government officials, IRD organized a 10-day summer peace camp for 150 young men and women from across the province. Their hope was that the retreat, on a small scale, might be a gateway to fostering tolerance between groups who were increasingly seeing each other only as enemies, not as fellow Iraqis. The first day of camp was a near-disaster. Muslims, Christians, Arabs, and Kurds were all along for the retreat, but the different groups refused to come together, mirroring the tensions so prevalent in the province. IRD staff spent the first day and night simply teaching the concepts of tolerance, acceptance, and religious understanding. The youth programming was very different than everything else, said Barzan Ismaeel, IRDs national director for employment generation and youth. The outcome was not necessarily employment, but we were still training people how to live and interact. Through soccer, stronger social ties and teachable moments
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Youth activities: Different from everything else

Iraqs Ninewa province is among the countrys most ethnically diverse regions. Tragically, that diversity helped fuel the rise of the sectarian violence that gripped the area in 2007. A suicide bombing in a Shia neighborhood of Tal Afar was blamed for more than 150 deaths, making it at the time the single deadliest attack since coalition forces entered Iraq. The bombing led to a wave of retaliatory killings and kidnappings as gunmen stormed homes throughout Sunni neighborhoods. Meanwhile, in Mosul, the provincial capital, rising tensions between Arabs and Kurds led many Kurds to flee the city. As the situation deteriorated, Iraqi staff working for CSP in Ninewa developed

When asked to name CSPs greatest success, IRD staffers repeatedly cited the number of jobs created. US political and diplomatic leaders, when discussing the program in public forums like congressional testimonies or media roundtables, used the same point of referencejobs. Employment numbers, after all, offered the most quantifiable statistic in an environment where measuring results was an erratic, dangerous, often unreliable process. But the CSP design (and COIN strategy in general) presumed that the strength of Iraqs cultural and community network was at least as important as employment for the countrys stability and social cohesion. Organizing safe and secure communal activities was a critical step on the road to reducing
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CSPs youth activities component aimed for something more than jobsit aimed to help young Iraqis connect to their identity, culture, and community
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sectarian strife. Therefore, CSPs youth activities component aimed for something more than jobsit aimed to help young Iraqis connect to their identity, culture, and community and to give them opportunities to form social bonds that might be strong enough to withstand the pull of the insurgency. Thousands and thousands of people were unemployed, at all age groups, but especially among the youth, Ismaeel said. They were a tool that militias used. Many would be recruited just by being given a cell phone. Heres a phone, now you can work for us. Nobody else was paying attention to them. CSP originally targeted young men and women ages 1725 for youth activities, but IRD recommended expanding the age range down to 12 and up to 35. Expanding the range allowed more activities to reach secondary schools and to capture a good number of unemployed, physically active men. In the eyes of the implementation team, all youth were assumed to be at risk. And since young males were far more likely to join a militia, most activities targeted ways to keep men engaged and occupied. Primarily, this goal was achieved with team sporting events and activities, most notably soccer. Before IRDs intervention, a five-year gap in organized sports had existed in most Iraqi cities. The local directorates of the Ministry of Youth Services had staff but no operating budgets. Meanwhile, most parks and recreational fields were in disrepair. Cleaning up and restoring these fields, work that fell under the community infrastructure component, was quite common during CSP. During the first quarter of 2009, for instance, 11 playgrounds and nine soccer fields were constructed in one district in the city of Kirkuk alone. Restoring the fields provided short-term jobs and created a common pathway for the communal activities envisioned in the CSP design. Even with fields repaired, a shortage of equipment was another hurdle to starting local leagues. By partnering
with another NGO that had a relationship with Nike, IRD sent a shipment of some 8,000 soccer balls to Iraq in November 2007. Later, additional shipments of equipment, including sports shoes and athletic gear, arrived. But having a refurbished field or new equipment did not always guarantee the safety of the space. One particular soccer match in Ramadi, one of Iraqs most unstable cities, ended with claims of cheating and unfair officiating. Unnerved by the rapid escalation of heated rhetoric, and spotting aggressive body language, IRD workers on site called Ismaeel to report a potential deadly conflict that was about to erupt. Local officials and CSP staff were able to diffuse the situation before it got out of hand, but the event led IRD to embed workers in other programs, like vocational training classes, to teach concepts like team building and sportsmanship along with employable skills. Since youth activities received less financial support than the rest of CSP, this kind of engagement was seen as a different way of mitigating conflict. The youth program activities represented only 10 percent of CSPs total funding for city programs, but many events, such as the popular soccer matches, had the spotlight and often benefited a large number of people directly and indirectly. According to Ismaeel, CSP was reaching 10,000 people a week through soccer matches and practices in Mosul. Mobilizing such larger numbers served a dual purpose: engaging different Iraqis in a common event and countering the militias. The elements that were trying to destabilize the cities as well as CSP activities actually had a lot in common with us, Ismaeel said. They were using youth, and they were trying to reach, in a negative way, a large number of people. So we simply had to make the greater impact. A broad approach to different needs Altogether, IRDs youth activities engaged more than 350,000 participants. Soccer matches and
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CSP was reaching 10,000 people a week through soccer matches and practices in Mosul. Mobilizing such larger numbers served a dual purpose: engaging different Iraqis in a common event and countering the militias
tournaments were common high-profile events, but CSP sponsored a wide range of activities intended to challenge, engage, and unify. Some events accommodated hundreds, such as a 6K fun run in Kirkuk that drew 1,500 participants, while others appealed to narrower interests, such as a chess program in Ramadi implemented in coordination with local schools. Youth also took part in CSP-sponsored basketball games, boxing and wrestling matches, martial arts training, and swim meets. Not all organized events were sports-related. Life skills, culture, and art activities included programs that taught poetry, sewing, calligraphy, and pottery; training in first aid techniques, basic computer use, and Arabic literacy; video and music festivals; and a community theater run through the Iraqi Union of Artists. There also were programs limited for women in the more urban and progressive regions of Iraq, where such activity was considered culturally acceptable. In Salah ad Din, a volleyball tournament cosponsored by the Department of Education attracted 240 female students. You couldnt apply every type of activity or approach in all areas, Ismaeel said, echoing a common theme among all IRD staff when discussing CSP projects. It was critical that we respond to the needs of the people, what they wanted and needed. One way that IRD did that was by stretching the boundaries for in-kind contributions, which most often were medical supplies or some kind of income-producing equipmenttools, appliances, machinery, and the like. With the World Vision organization, IRD supplied more than $9million worth of McGraw-Hill books, according to Igor Samac, a senior program officer in IRDs logistics and acquisitions department, to the University of Baghdads school library. With the Perkins School for the Blind, IRD supplied Perkins Braillers, essentially a Braille typewriter with keys corresponding to dots in the Braille code, to Baghdads Al-Noor School,

the citys only learning center for blind children. With the One Laptop Per Child organization, IRD supplied rugged, low-cost laptops to children throughout Iraqs various elementary schools. Altogether, CSPs in-kind gifts totaled $26.7 million, exceeding the goal of $20 million. According to Samac, IRD facilitated the shipment of 65 loads of goods to Iraq over the course of the three-year programan average of almost one shipment every two weeks. Of course, most of the in-kind donations helped support the other CSP program components and their primary focus on job generation, but, as Samac pointed out, the distribution of items like soccer balls or library books had a broad impact on youth activities at a relatively low cost. Many of these items were not of high value, he said, but they demonstrated a different approach to how in-kind contributions could address different needs. This shows a diversity that was important to carrying out CSPs broad mission. Tolerance as an alternative to violence To create a sense of local ownership and reduce corruption, CSP funded programs in collaboration with multiple government ministries, including the ministries of youth and sports, culture, environment, and health. In some areas, like Mosul, the working model was expanded to include partnerships and capacity building with local NGOs. These partnerships helped put an Iraqi imprint on the IRD-led activities, which was standard practice for CSP operations, and they taught local ministries how to efficiently organize sponsored sports teams, leagues, and events. One local civil society group in Haditha, following CSPs lead, prepared a six-month pipeline of activities on their own, to plan, implement, and oversee once IRD had left. Capacity building of NGOs and local leaders played an important role in our ability to stabilize these areas, Ismaeel said. In Haditha, they knew how to reach out. The ultimate goal was to engage
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most Iraqi citizens had an overwhelmingly positive association between CSP and reduced violence in their communities
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people for two or three years, but in many cases, we made a successful transition to keep activities going. CSP created jobs. CSP engaged youth. But at the local level, it really achieved something special. IRD staff and USAID evaluators know the youth engagement program was well received; the sheer number of people who turned out for these events, as well as citizens consistent statements of support and gratitude, made that clear. What was unclear was exactly how far this work went in mitigating conflict. The IBTCI
monitoring report suggested that future COIN-related programs should find a way to closely track changes in attitude and behavior, even though it acknowledged the difficulty in doing so, particularly in a conflict zone. Still, the report found that most Iraqi citizens had an overwhelmingly positive association between CSP and reduced violence in their communities. While the role of military and Iraqi security forces cannot be discounted or overlooked, all groups surveyed agreed that the program helped teach young people the value of tolerance as an alternative to violence.
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for future stabilization work
Converting roadblocks into a roadmap
A new road is cleared, paved, and reopened in Mosul
We had challenges, but with the challenges we also had great successes. We learned from our experiences, and we moved forward with a stronger and better understanding of stabilization.
Alaa Ismael
When asked to recall a single CSP project that stood out as unique, Barzan Ismaeel, IRDs national director for employment generation and youth, picked the restoration of a playground and athletic field in Mosuls Hay al-Thawrah neighborhood. At first, this project, which wrapped up in early 2009, might seem to be a mundane choice, since playgrounds and sports facilities were some of the most common projects initiated under CSP. But this particular project was different, Ismaeel said: It seemed to engage almost everyone, in a profound way. And in that location, at that time. By the beginning of 2009, Mosul could not be called a safe city, but it was nothing like it had been just a year before. In early 2008, Mosul was considered the last urban stronghold of al Qaeda in Iraq, with an estimated 2,000 insurgents involved in regular IED, suicide, and small-arms-fire attacks. An escalation of American military force culminated with an Iraqi-led security operation dubbed Lions Roar in May 2008, which was followed by Operation Mother of Two Springs, a continuing operation throughout the year to clear out insurgent forces. According to the Institute for the Study of War, attacks in Mosul declined from an average of 40 a day in the week before the official launch of operations to 46 a day in the weeks after. As the military transitioned from clear to hold and build, the CSP team was asked to immediately realign

the focus of all projects to help establish water and sewage, electricity, trash collection, healthcare, and education services. Projects that were not COINrelevant were canceled while alternative projects were developed in direct coordination with the US military. According to quarterly reports, military units so often requested CSPs direct assistance due to IRDs ability, experience, flexibility, and speed of project development. From April to June 2008, amid these major kinetic operations, IRD completed 68 infrastructure and essential services projects in Mosul, even as the military was still wrapping up the clear phase of the stabilization strategy. The mayor of Mosul routinely visited CSP public works sites to support local workers hired as part of the CIES program and to pass out I am Iraqi T-shirts. At the same time, other CSP program activities were taking place in the same area, such as a ribbon-cutting for a vocational computer training center and the summer youth peace camp. As in Baghdad, Ramadi, or any CSP city, IRD was trying to respond to immediate COIN needs while also bolstering the local sense of community. With the Hay al-Thawrah playground and athletic field, Ismaeel, an Iraqi native very sensitive to his countrys ethnic divisions and tensions, saw a project that happened in the right place at the right time. Less than a year after some of Mosuls most intense fighting, this park, he said, offered residents a
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Many people came out and participated in this project, from all ethnic backgrounds, from all ages. I saw a paradigm shift of people coming together. It was more than anyone thought CSP could be Barzan Ismaeel
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sense of cathartic relief and symbolized the idea that they could move beyond the past as a community. Mosul is a city with a great variety of people, Ismaeel said. When we opened this space, we had Muslim Sunnis, Muslim Shias, Christians, all together. So many people came out and participated in this project, from all ethnic backgrounds, from all ages. And it was not just the youth. In many places in Iraq, it had not been allowed for people to mix this way. I saw a paradigm shift of people coming together. This thing I witnessed was not something normal. It was more than anyone thought CSP could be.
represented some of the most frustrating roadblocks. Although IRD acted swiftly to implement extensive revisions to its own internal administrative operations in the wake of the previous years audit, USAIDs inspector general in February 2009 said it was looking into new allegations of fraud in Mosul. The independent evaluator IBTCI reviewed some of the program components in that city and on June 30 announced that it had found some reporting inconsistencies. The program was scheduled to close out in some cities, including Mosul, the following year, but on July 4, USAID suspended payments and called for an early shut down. There were huge constraints in Mosul, said Dar Warmke, who had managed CSP in Basra before transferring to Mosul where he oversaw the programs closeout in that city. When I got there, I was able to see small errors that could be traced back to year one. It wasnt rocket science, but it was all management-related. No one really saw it until year three. Warmke had the unique perspective of witnessing the entire life cycle of CSP implementation in full, from different cities. He said CSP administration can be divided into three stages, one for each year in operation. Year one was the ramp-up: The theme was spending a lot of money so we could start showing results. Year two allowed implementers to focus more closely on what we were doing and why we were doing it, he said, which brought with it more attention to fiscal accountability. Work plans and targets started to become the overall theme much more than simply spending money. By year three, compliance had become the overriding concern. There were certain elements we needed to pay more attention to, Warmke said. But I would say in Mosul, everybody was well-intentioned. The problems, he said, were cumulativeissues that built up year over year. You couldnt always go back and repair it.
CSPs three-year life cycle as a forcemultiplier

Ismaeels recollection is one of the distinctly human observations that, in quarterly reports, are blandly referenced as rehabilitations to a playground, a park, and soccer fields. For any of IRDs work on CSP, its important to grasp the weight of the individual moments that made up the $644 million collective whole. In my opinion, all the people that I worked with as a soldier loved CSP, Andrew Wilson said. We loved what IRD was doing because they were a force multiplier and they were affecting individual lives. CSP was keeping people employed and happy, giving them some hope and promise. The big things and all the little things added up. You could just see it on the faces of the people. During the first quarter of 2009 in Mosul, in addition to the Hay al-Thawrah playground, IRD implemented more than a dozen CIES projects, completed 63 business grants as part of a larger program to regenerate the citys market area, created almost 200 long-term jobs, and tallied more than 1,300 participants in youth activities. At the time, Mosul represented so much of what was good and successful about CSP, but it also
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CSP was unprecedented in scale, but it also withstood unprecedented criticism and second-guessing
How can an NGO work and associate with the military? Operating in a counterinsurgency environment poses monumental challenges, uncertainties, and risks, and getting projects off the ground became just the first step in an arduous, dangerous, and extremely complicated implementation process. Monitoring and managing those activities, as well as trying to ensure a transparent and accountable financial operation in a country with little capacity and rampant corruption, proved more difficult than initially conceived. Moreover, IRD soon learned not only that it was expected to implement extensive COIN activities in an unstable environment, but also it was being held to the same basic operational parameters as a traditional development program. The program was so big, and there were so many things that were not normal to an operating environment for an NGO, said Alice Willard, a former senior IRD monitoring and evaluation officer during CSP. The program was asked to provide standard information to the donor, USAID, but the military was also asking for the same informationon top of asking us directly to conduct different activities. Willard said the desire of so many different actors to play a primary role in project directionan unrelenting pressuremuddied the communication process and made it easier for critics to label CSP as unwieldy, disorganized, or ideologically compromised. To critics, an NGO working so closely with the military was anathema; indeed, some on IRDs own staff rejected the notion outright. The NGO community is very deeply divided as to whether people want to work with the military, Willard said. If you talk to one organization, theyll say Oh we never do this. Talk to another, and theyll say, Well we dont do this officially, but Finally, a third NGO might say, Of course were working with the military. If we can help them bring relief to vulnerable people, then how could we not? Michele Lemmon, an IRD senior program officer, was one of the first at IRD headquarters to begin work

on CSP, which included the immediate need to hire staff. It was very difficult to recruit people to work in Baghdad, she said. It seemed like the entire NGO community was against IRD at the time, because we were the first ones to work with the military. For critics, the sheer size and design of the program offered no shortage of opportunities to criticize. CSP was unprecedented in scale, but it also withstood unprecedented criticism and second-guessing. The program sharpened already widespread concern among the development community that the militarization of humanitarian assistance would further endanger the lives of aid workers already at risk by being in an unstable environment. Rather than being seen as impartial actors, critics say, workers can be viewed too easily as a party to the conflict. The debate only intensified during the latter part of the 2000s as aid worker deaths increased in Afghanistan and after the US Department of Defense unveiled a more formal civ-mil policy for aid organizations mandating cooperation in all aspects of foreign assistance activities where both civilian and military organizations are operating, and where civilian-military cooperation will advance [US government] foreign policy.9 In the end, extraordinary outcomes in the most difficult environments Most of the issues that led to the internal frustrations, the external red flags, and the public controversies were a combination of human oversightinadequate data collection, inconsistent monitoring, insufficient quality controland the reality of working in a conflict zone with the military as a partner. Some of the same qualities that military leaders praised about IRD, flexibility and speed, ran headlong into the systematic procurement, reporting, and approval processes that underpin traditional development work. Addressing this operational dichotomy up front, through processes and expectations that meet acceptable donor
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We learned from our experiences, and we moved forward with a stronger and better understanding of stabilization Alaa Ismael
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requirements while giving fieldworkers the flexibility to operate, became one of IRDs most important recommendations for future stabilization operations. With CSP, there were challenges that any other program an NGO would normally manage would never face, said Alaa Ismael, the nationwide manager for CIES activities. But that wasnt a reason to shy away, even if it was hard to manage. Administrative closeout of a typical development program can take up to three months to wrap up the bookkeeping, finalize the paperwork, square up the payroll, and so forth. Once that all happens, final audit teams from the donor will come in and do a closeout audit, which normally lasts anywhere from a few weeks to up to a year, depending on the size of the program. Given the cost and scale of CSP, as well as the extra attention it generated, the closeout process lasted for more than two years and endured three final closeout audits. For many IRD staff, the programs end marred what had been a productive and groundbreaking union of development principles and COIN objectives, which led to successful stabilization operations throughout Iraqexactly what CSP was intended to do. When you take a broad view of everything, it was definitely a success, Warmke said. By September 2011, the US government agreed. Two firms, the Defense Contract Audit Agency and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, had contested approximately $59 million in CSP costs and expenses. But in the end, IRD provided the full documentation required to have all but $239,000 disallowed. At just a tenth of 1 percent, the disallowance on CSP, the largest assistance program in USAID history, was well below the industry norm of 35 percent. In a staff memo announcing the final determination, IRD President Dr. Arthur B. Keys reaffirmed the organizations commitment to 100 percent compliance all the time on all programs, and he reiterated that the findings were a testament to IRDs ability to achieve extraordinary outcomes in difficult environments. We
had challenges, but with the challenges we also had great successes, Alaa Ismael said. We learned from our experiences, and we moved forward with a stronger and better understanding of stabilization.
Strategic recommendations for future COIN programs

CSPs challenges included maintaining community support while simultaneously maintaining an effective military collaboration. At the same time, insecurity and local corruption exacerbated difficulties with monitoring and evaluation, staffing, and project management. These challenges, which have been highlighted throughout this review, offer invaluable learning opportunities for future COIN programs, or even for development work in a conflict zone. Community support: Invest in it The hold phase of COINs clear-hold-build strategy relies on gaining local support by assisting the population, and as military and civilian leaders repeatedly pointed out, civilian agencies are much better equipped to enable that outcome. The military was flooding Baghdad and other cities with CERP funds, which dwarfed CSPs expenditures, but that investment did not bring what CSP brought: an Iraqi face. From the beginning, IRD emphasized that CSP was implemented by and for Iraqis. IRD employed a large Iraqi national staff who could understand and empathize with the needs of the community. The importance of those years with ICAP cannot be understated, Iqbal al-Juboori said. The base of support we had in Baghdad ahead of CSP was so strong, thats what allowed us to expand. We already knew what it took to get people to trust us. They trusted us because we had worked with them. IRD applied what it learned about the importance of earning local trust in Serbia and Montenegro to its early days in Baghdad. IRD built on that knowledge with ICAP
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Without security, there is no development . So whos best trained for that, the soldiers with weapons or the people with project plans? IRD staff
and CSP, and it has since gone on to apply the knowledge to stabilization programming in volatile regions where it had no previous footprint, such as Afghanistan. Military collaboration: Make it work Working with the military is hell. But you have to. The military has its own way of doing things, not necessarily in harmony with NGO practices. They dont have boundaries. But if it helps people or saves lives, you do it. Stabilization is a totally different mindset. Without security, without the military, there is no development in Iraq or any conflict zone. So whos best trained for that, the soldiers with weapons or the people with project plans? These quotations, each from different IRD staff, are opposed in ideology, yet both are pragmatic in recognizing the importance of maintaining a working relationship with the military in conflict-affected areas. For the most part, differences were overcome to ensure the greater goal was reached. As al-Juboori said, Everyone has to be on the same side. But even to those on the same side, communicating, informationsharing, and chain-of-command barriers arose as the pace of military operations exceeded those of typical development processes. Clear communication was critical for operational success and basic safety, and it often relied on developing mutual trust and an awareness of individual responsibilities. If youre willing to support the militarys efforts directly, and they see you as an asset with resources to bring to the table, it will work, Travis Gartner said. If you dont show any value in what youre doing, if they see you as another person they have to provide with a cot and meals and move around, it wont work. Establishing communication channels was one hurdle. Managing them in a war setting was another. For

example, some of the protocols werent in place from the projects launch, including ensuring the military knew that USAID was the primary point of contact for IRD. A lot of times, the implementing team was asked to do something directly by the military or the embassy, Alice Willard said. You wind up then with city programs that are either coordinating with the military or taking orders from them. Either way, it puts staff at risk and complicates what has to be done on the back end. In future COIN programs, this has to be clarified. Security: Prepare for all scenarios During the implementation of ICAP in Baghdad, IRD had encountered threats and kidnappings, insecure project sites, and local partners of questionable character. But when CSP began, security was so bad in so many areas that it was seen as less an external force than as a basic cross-cutting obstacle to carrying out the program. IRD took all possible precautions, hired private security support, and maintained the final word on expatriate staff movement in the red zone with the military. Thorough security planning became costly and time-consuming. It would take one staffer anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours to get to the office in Baghdad, Willard said. Iraqi security checkpoints changed regularly, and you had to carry multiple IDs. If you were in a Sunni neighborhood, you had your Sunni ID. If you were in a Shia neighborhood, you had a Shia ID. Security protocols to get into international zones were inconsistent, and there were always the individual militias in different neighborhoods. We dont normally experience this in the development community. Local staff (and their family members) were also under constant threat of violence. Many staff engaged in daily routines associated more commonly with being a spy than an aid workervarying routes to work or lying to neighbors about their employment. Two of
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as long as CSP is studied, future COIN programming will be much better equipped to anticipate and manage civilian security issues
4
my team members were kidnapped for two days by an armed group before being released, Alaa Ismael said. That was one of our most challenging moments, but there were others like that. Ismael recalled almost continuous indirect intimidation of field staff: Sometimes a person, maybe a community leader or a council member or a contractor, would say something like dont come here; the militias are looking for you. But as Iraqis, we knew what that meant, that when a person tells you that, its a threat. USAID and IRD planned for a difficult security environment, but the mental, physical, and fiscal toll of operating in a war zone was greater than expected. Specialized vehicles, equipment, and support structures (such as safe rooms) became common for program workers. In addition, the need to travel to the field for project implementation and monitoring created a natural tension between program and security staff, increasing the need for strong communication and, above all, preparedness. When actual implementation is so dependent on the security environment, the donor and the implementing agency must make every effort to prepare in advance for whatever scenario they can envision, Willard said. She added that as long as CSP is studied, future COIN programming will be much better equipped to anticipate and manage civilian security issues. Corruption: Address it head on Corruption is always a challenge in development settings, more so during a conflict. The vast sums being spent in Iraq by military and civilian authorities attracted attention. The war had damaged banking capabilities, forcing projects to use cash in many instances and requiring careful controls. IRD took extraordinary efforts during implementation to compensate, but as many program workers learned, fighting corruption often meant overcoming longestablished systems of doing business. Corruption
and government officials were a big issue, Ismael said. Officials had seen aid projects, so they knew the system; they knew all the tricks. Immediately when wed start a project, theyd want it awarded to their own contractors, either relatives of the chairman or relatives or friends of somebodyor sometimes their own company. To overcome this, Ismael said, IRD had to legitimize the process. In one example, IRD had the district advisory councils and the district governorates or municipality agree to a single, unified list of approved contractors. While strong, consistent controls included frequent internal reviews and timely external ones, security challenges posed limits on IRDs ability to implement these controls. Because of security concerns, IRD could rarely conduct spot checks, unannounced site visits, and forensic auditing. These gaps provided a few locals an opening to game the system. Jessica Cho recounted a story involving poultry farms. Different farmers received grants for chickens, but the monitors trips were infrequent due to security, Cho said. So when monitors would go make visits to a farm, the contractor that was hired to provide the chickens would move the same group of birds from place to place. Corruption wasnt limited to beneficiaries or local politicians, either. IRD encountered its own problems in the field that gave the organization valuable insight on the best way to anticipate and minimize corruptive influences for future programs. Gartner helped launch IRDs stabilization work in Afghanistan, where no one hesitated to address the corruption issue head on, he said, adding that better quality assurance, quality control, and internal reporting systems were established from the very beginning. Mamadou Sidibe, a monitoring and evaluation director for CSP, said, You have to be realistic; you set procedures to minimize what will happen, but you cant
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IRDs staffing woes could be broken down into three categories: getting people hired, getting the right people hired, and keeping people on the job
control everything that will happen. Theres going to be corruption in a conflict zone. You should make every effort to minimize it, but you cant alter reality when its inconvenient. Monitoring and evaluation: Set the right baseline Insecurity and local corruption tied directly into some of IRDs most notable monitoring and evaluation (M&E) challenges. Many staff recounted the danger in traveling to site locations and, as Vigeen Dola said, this created unique challenges in trying to perform routine tasks, such as documenting work with photographic evidence. In certain areas in Iraq, you couldnt take a camera out because you would be easily identified, he said. So staffers would pretend to make phone calls and then take a grainy cell phone photo. Or theyd find someone from the same area, a beneficiary they trusted, and ask that person to take a photo. One of CSPs operational strengths was its development of an independent M&E framework and a rigorous system for ensuring the quality of the reported datavaluable tools for future work in a COIN setting. However, these steps didnt take place until the program was well under way, in multiple locations, and after the lessons of many months of insufficient practices had already been learned. Sidibe joined IRD with a mandate to correct the M&E problems and devise a stronger monitoring methodology. According to him, emphasis was placed on verifying and validating data, separating the M&E and quality control functions, standardizing processes and forms, training staff and collaborating with the CSP technical team (which captures the M&E data), and imparting the value of monitoring for results. Perhaps most important was the awareness IRD raised of the ineffectiveness of the initial program indicators. You have to set an appropriate baseline at the beginning, Sidibe said. You set a target, and after a certain period of time, compare what you realized with what you expected to realize; if

theres a problem, youll have the feedback to correct it. It takes a lot of discipline. Staffing: Identify needs and anticipate turnover IRD expected to face staffing hurdles while operating in a conflict zone, but one unexpected challenge was the high turnover among US government partners, which meant program directors were constantly spending time and resources bringing new civilian counterparts up to speed. As a result, maintaining institutional knowledge became a higher priority. The donor staffing changed radically for USAID from the beginning to the end, Willard said. People who went to Iraq were there for six months and then shifted out. That didnt give you a lot of time to do anything without feeling like you were starting over. Other staff echoed similar concerns with the PRTs, which were vital to CSP design but burdensome when staffed with representatives who were unfamiliar with CSP or untrained in conflict-zone operations. IRDs staffing woes could be broken down into three categories: getting people hired, getting the right people hired, and keeping people on the job. According to Michele Lemmon, staffing for stabilization operations was a consistent problem. Turnover is a big problem, she said, as are the quality of available staff and support for staff. Its because of the environment. You dont see that level of turnover with staff in traditional development projects, where retention is greater and recruiting is easier. CSPs final report suggests the best way to minimize these challenges is to plan for a significant investment in recruiting and training and then to focus on identifying and hiring for certain skills that are difficult to learn in a conflict setting. Lastly, organizations should anticipate and plan for extensive, and ongoing, training: Few staff will have a background in working under such conditions, and frequent rotation is required given the stress of the environment. Ensuring the continuity of
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4
Those comfortable with military procedures, willing to take measured personal risks, and committed to the community-based model of more traditional development approaches were most adept at navigating CSPs demands
4
program implementation requires broad-based training to give staff the flexibility to cover additional responsibilities [as they arise]. The most successful CSP workers tended to be unusual development professionals with at least some military serviceor maybe a stint in the Peace Corps. Those comfortable with military procedures, willing to take measured personal risks, and committed to the community-based model of more traditional development approaches were most adept at navigating CSPs demands. Project management: Prepare and communicate Because the environment in any setting where a stabilization program is being implemented is sure to be fluid, long-term work plans should be thought of as guidelines, Willard said. They should be reviewed constantly, even daily, and updated based on regular conversations with stakeholders. The interaction between the donor and implementing agency has to be regular, strong, and clear, and military considerations have to be taken into account withnot on top ofcivilian
decisionmaking. The key to dealing with such considerations before they escalate lies in the strength of preparation: basic systems of logistics, finance, compliance, administration, and staffing should be the first-out-of-the-gate elements put into place. As staff members are hired, they should find systems already functional and tuned to country realities. As a result of the many lessons learned in Iraq, IRD established comprehensive procedures for beginning and ending projects, including an expert startup team deployed to the field ahead of program launches (box 9). The team provides technical and financial management support, assists in hiring and training, and puts in place systematic processes guided by internal checklists and codified in an extensive startup manual that is unique in the NGO field for its detailed attention to standardization. The new startup team had a major impact during the launch of the $300 million extension of USAIDs Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Productive Agriculture program. And in January 2011, the team helped launch Cultural Bridges to Reconciliation in Iraq, a governance and community-assistance program.
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Many key tactical lessons have already been applied to IRDs stabilization programming in other areas, including Afghanistan and Africa
Box 9 Stabilization in Iraq: 20 tactical lessons

Reflecting on lessons during the course of any project implementation is especially important for such programs as ICAP and CSP, because both programs provide valuable points of reference when considering how to adapt and build on the stabilization work done in Iraq. The key tactical lessons here, divided into four operational areas, are culled from a combination of program reviews, external evaluations, and official and final reports submitted to USAID. Most important, they synthesize lessons learned by IRDs implementing teams on the ground. Many have already been applied to IRDs stabilization programming in other areas, including Afghanistan and Africa. Implementation strategies Anticipate the need to build the capacity of local partners and avoid transitioning projects until competent oversight is in place. This includes the capacity to maintain essential service and infrastructure projects as well as the capacity to oversee training, business, and job placement centers. Prioritize investment in vocational training to locations with established programs and strengthen on-the-job training and placement so that more unemployed or short-term workers are linked to long-term jobs. Include business development grants in the initial strategy for quick-start employment programs, with a special focus on medium-size grants in sectors with the greatest potential for creating jobs, such as agriculture and small-scale manufacturing. Develop a model for measuring the success of community-based youth activities that promote social cohesion, such as peace camps and sporting events. Anecdotal evidence in support of their impact is strong, but consistent data and indicators would yield empirical backing. Integrate program components into the initial design of any stabilization program so that projects reinforce mutual goals and flow from one stage to the next. In a conflict zone, uncertain security situations can hinder execution, but integration should be the default goal. Do not overlook the importance of women, particularly heads of households, as a key target audience in program design and implementation strategy. Management systems and staffing Develop a clear profile of the necessary staff skills most needed to build complementary and efficient program teams capable of overseeing COIN programming. Formalize the startup process, including program implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and compliance issues before field placement. Consider deploying a city program startup team to help city directors with hiring and putting management systems in place during the first few months. Harmonize basic management systems through institutional tools, such as training manuals, to offer consistent guidance and procedures on handling key operations, such as quality control, contracting, bidding, procurement, record keeping, and anticorruption measures. Anticipate the need for continuing training and appropriate mechanisms for providing training, even as project activities are ongoing. Options include on-site technical assistance, learning exchange visits, and formal training sessions.
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4
Box 9 Stabilization in Iraq: 20 tactical lessons (continued)

Reduce security risks to staff in all facets of their jobs: at their home community, on their commute to work, at the project site, and during field visits. In addition, careful consideration should be given to addressing the mental, physical, and psychological challenges that can strain staff, diminish morale, and increase turnover. Strengthen senior staff and backstop staff. Adding more senior staff positions as projects progress will motivate staff and minimize turnover. Additionally, future COIN programs must prepare an adequate budget for headquarters staff and technical assistance of field programs.
Military and PRT partnerships

Maintain open lines of communication with military leaders and PRTs. Dialogue between city program directors and the military can increase staff safety and improve project supervision in dangerous areas. Directors should seek regular extensive briefings to ensure that they have up-to-date intelligence on local social, political, and tribal shifts. Make sure lines of communication are clear, understood, and followed. Program directors should buffer staff members from direct contact with the military, however well intended. Similarly, PRTs should be made to follow requirements directing them to work through technical officers to provide direction to implementing partners. Encourage PRTs to take a more active review role on projects and site locations when projects are still in the stabilization phase.
Monitoring and evaluation

Develop a detailed monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan as part of the initial application process. In addition, the implementing agency should collaborate closely with the donor in developing and reporting appropriate performance indicators. Give top priority to hiring and training qualified M&E staff. Ensure that the program has an M&E director with an appropriate background in conflict situations. All relevant senior management and headquarters staff should be fully integrated into the M&E system design, and basic training in measurement and analysis processes should occur at least once a year. Build M&E staff capacity to allow both for independent measurement and analysis and for collaborative measurement with outside contractors. Focus on region-specific analyses when possible so project data in specific cities can be shared with program staff to assess local effectiveness and impact. Develop a project system for archiving city-specific documents, as well as all official reports and complementary data systems, and include this system as part of the basic startup management package in each city program. The CSP archive, developed by the CSP reporting and information officer, is an example of this lesson in practice.
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Epilogue
CSP was in part a social experiment and an innovation in development programming. The stylistic dissonance encountered in coordinating with a fast-paced, command-centered, rapid resultsdriven entity like the Department of Defenseall the while responding to USAIDs direction and administrative requirements called for agility and diplomacy. Yet the result is that CSP succeeded both as an exercise in military cooperation and as community-based engagement in a conflict zone. Hard Lessons, a 450-page report from the US governments special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, chronicles the relief efforts undertaken by the Department of Defense, Department of State, and USAID in Iraq.10 In the chapter recounting the civilian surge, the programmatic work IRD oversaw is praised repeatedly. Relationships with Iraqis that often eluded embassy personnel flourished just miles away in compounds maintained by USAID contractors, the report observed, a reference to IRDs implementation teams. A more explicit reference was then made to the positive impacts derived from both CSP and ICAP and how they directly underpinned the much larger stabilization efforts in Iraq. CSP and ICAP, the 2009 report states, employed Iraqis to work in neighborhoods not far from the Green Zone, as well as in other places across Iraq. By 2007, this approach to reconstructionthe strengthening of Iraqi civil society by operating within itwas viewed as a crucial tool....
Perhaps more than other reconstruction entities, USAID and its implementing partners believed that security could be achieved by muting the association with the coalition and by gaining community trust and cooperation. Hard Lessons referred to this belief as a sociological, rather than an exclusively physical conception of security. As an IRD monitoring and evaluation manager, Vigeen Dola would conduct site visits as often as the security situation allowed. But Dola still took extensive precautions, informed by his own past bad experience working for another organization many years prior and his cultural awareness as a native Iraqi. Whenever Id go into the field, I would always keep a low profile, he said. I used to hide everything in my socksmy IDs, papers, anything that would give me away. But one day in 2007, when Dola traveled to the western Iraqi city of Haditha in the dangerous Anbar province, he was taken aback when members of IRDs city staff, who were accompanying him into the field, took no measures to hide their badges. At a checkpoint, with their IDs in full display, the staff were allowed to pass unobstructed, without being questioned or asked for additional documentation. Everyone else had to go through a queue to be checkedbut we did not, Dola said. When they said we could go through, I asked why. The men at the checkpoint looked at me and said, Because IRD already has done more than the government to help rebuild our city.
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Acronyms
ACV CAG
Assistance to Civilian Victims Community action group
CERP Commanders Emergency Response Program CIES Community Infrastructure and Essential Services
CIVIC Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict COIN Counterinsurgency
CRDA Community Revitalization through Democratic Action CSP Community Stabilization Program
IBTCI International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. ICAP IED IRD M&E Iraq Community Action Program Improvised explosive device International Relief & Development Monitoring & evaluation
MOLSA Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs NGO PRT Nongovernmental organization Provincial reconstruction team
USAID US Agency for International Development
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Notes
1. www.sigir.mil/files/HardLessons/Hard_Lessons_Report.pdf. 2. www.humanitarianinfo.org/sanctions/handbook/docs_handbook/HR_im_es_iraq.pdf. 3. www.sigir.mil/files/HardLessons/Hard_Lessons_Report.pdf. 4. The total number of ICAP beneficiaries exceeded the population of Baghdad, then between 5 and 6 million, four times over, a result of multiple projects providing different benefits to the same people. 5. http://articles.latimes.com/print/2009/jul/13/local/me-streeter13. 6. www.economist.com/node/3936146. 7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/19/newsid_3504000/3504255.stm. 8. The sample survey of CSPs main database was conducted for CSPs final report and included all projects at the time of closeout. Some of the businesses included had not yet been in operation for six months. 9. www.huffingtonpost.com/virginia-moncrieff/military-civilian-policy_b_152749.html. 10. www.sigir.mil/files/HardLessons/Hard_Lessons_Report.pdf.
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This report details IRDs implementing role in Iraq from 2003 to 2009 on the US Agency for International Developments Iraq Community Action Program, which brought essential services and civic empowerment to citizens in the immediate aftermath of war, to the end of the Community Stabilization Program in 2009. Through rst-person accounts from those who were there, the report describes the need for a civilian-led component to counterinsurgency efforts and reviews how IRD built a strong enough foundation in Iraq to take on a $644 million program, overcome the risks and challenges of working in a con ict setting, and emerge with a wealth of applicable knowledge to share.
International Relief & Development 1621 North Kent Street. Fourth Floor Arlington, VA 22209 703-248-0161 703-248-0194 fax www.ird.org

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Iraq: Empowering Citizens, Engaging Governments, Rebuilding Communities Series

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Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities

Empowering citizens Engaging governments Rebuilding communities

International Relief & Development in Iraq 20032009

CASE STUDIES IN COMMUNITY STABILIZATION

Dr. Arthur B. Keys Jr.

Civ-mil cooperation: A new way forward

Earning local trust

A legacy of positive perceptions

Building community trust

ICAP offered Iraqi women new skills to support their families

ICAP: The first step to rebuilding civil society

Box 1 ICAP: Program and results

Baghdad governorate districts and city districts

Adhamiya Sadr City Karkh 9 Nissan Karada Al-Madan

Box 2 Awni Quandour: IRDs original elder statesman

Box 2 Awni Quandour: IRDs original elder statesman (continued)

Establishing services, assisting civilians, creating jobs

Insecurity: Operational limitations in an unstable environment

Box 3 The evolution of ICAP, USAIDs longest-running program in Iraq

Box 3 The evolution of ICAP, USAIDs longest-running program in Iraq (continued)

A CSP soccer league holds its grand opening ceremony

CSP origins: A new approach for international development

Box 4 CSP: At a glance

CSP operations by city

Al Qaim Nov 06Jan 09

Habbaniyah Oct 07Jan 09 Fallujah Nov 06Mar 09

Basra Nov 06Jul 09

Breaking down CSPs design

The complete package: Programmatic and military integration

Box 5 CSP: Project development process

Send scope of work to Amanat for approval

Develop scope of work with directorate general

Send project idea to directorate general for approval

Conduct technical review of project idea

Complete project proposal packet

Begin provincial program process

Successes and setbacks

Local workers rebuild a destroyed market in Jurf al Sakher

Community infrastructure and essential services: CSPs entry point

Box 6 CSP: Results

Business development programs: Light at the end of the tunnel

Box 7 Enhancing internal controls and program oversight

Vocational training: A sustainable program when we left

Box 8 CSP and the changing perception of sustainability

Box 8 CSP and the changing perception of sustainability (continued)

Youth activities: Different from everything else

Converting roadblocks into a roadmap

A new road is cleared, paved, and reopened in Mosul

CSPs three-year life cycle as a forcemultiplier

Strategic recommendations for future COIN programs

Box 9 Stabilization in Iraq: 20 tactical lessons

Box 9 Stabilization in Iraq: 20 tactical lessons (continued)

Military and PRT partnerships

Monitoring and evaluation

Assistance to Civilian Victims Community action group

CIVIC Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict COIN Counterinsurgency

USAID US Agency for International Development

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