The World Bank plans to embark on its first reconstruction projects in Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein by October, Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Banks Head of Mission for the Iraq program said on Monday, according to the World Bank press review Tuesday.
Hadad-Zervos said the projects would improve infrastructure in the war-scarred country: – The projects are in infrastructure rehabilitation, water and sanitation and school rehabilitation, he explained.
The banks interim reconstruction program for Iraq projects estimates the projects, which also include labor-intensive irrigation schemes, would cost between 400 and 600 million US dollar.
Hadad-Zervos said donors would review the World Bank infrastructure projects along with other UN programs undertaken in Iraq in a coordination meeting in Tokyo on October 12-14.
A 60 million US dollar emergency school rehabilitation project to undertake urgent repairs to some schools before the 2004/2005 school year would be signed before the Tokyo meeting.
Preparations were also underway to award contracts soon to Iraqi printers to publish 70 million school textbooks under a 40 million US dollar grant. – The provision of textbooks for the school year is understandably one of the key priorities for Iraqis, Hadad-Zervos said.
The World Bank was also lending help to ease Iraqs transition to a market economy. The financing comes from almost 400 million US dollar deposited in a UN-World Bank trust fund for Iraqi reconstruction set up by an international donors conference last October in Madrid.
The World Banks capacity building schemes had already trained 600 Iraqi officials under a 3,6 million dollar grant, mostly financed by the European Union.
– The nature of the banks program with Iraq is that we have to rely on local capacity to implement our projects. This has made it necessary for us to undertake a good deal of training with the Iraqis who have a great degree of core capital skills, Hadad-Zervos said.
Projects could be implemented despite security concerns by the increasing reliance on Iraqi expertise. But the return of World Bank staff to Baghdad was still unlikely in the foreseeable future, he added.
The banks Iraq Mission has been based in Amman since August 2003, when the international lender withdrew its staff from Baghdad following a bomb blast at the United Nations headquarters there.
– Until we have a permissive security environment that allows us to undertake the work of the program unabated and to function efficiently in Iraq, until we do that we will continue to work outside but ready to leave to Iraq as soon as possible, Hadad-Zervos said.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
