Since mid-2005, Ockenden International has been carrying out community assistance projects in Missan governorate in south Iraq. We work with small communities, in neighbourhoods or villages surrounding Amarah city, to organize consultations on an activity for which the community can prove a real need, and can organise themselves, with the support of our staff. When you consider the massive levels of destruction which Iraq has experienced over the last few years, it is not surprising that in the vast majority of cases the community has opted for a construction project of some kind. This has so far been carried out in 6 communities, and has included projects ranging from the construction of a pedestrian bridge over a river, to the renovation and maintenance of the domestic sewage system. At the end of each community project, the management and maintenance of the finished project is handed over to the community group and the local government administration, and the hand-over ceremony includes financial reporting to the beneficiaries and other stakeholders.
A financial report is compiled specifying all the expenditure that had taken place on the community project activities, including transportation, photography and bank charges as well as the actual construction fees (or other direct costs) of the project activity. The funding for the community projects comes from larger programmes financed by the UNHCR and the International Organization on Migration (IOM), and other aspects of the programme are not reported to the beneficiaries. Training components, monitoring activities and the support costs of staff salaries and office expenses.
After the handover to the local authorities in charge of their maintenance, the financial report is distributed to the community during a public meeting that everyone can attend. (See attached a copy of one of the financial reports, in Arabic and English.)
The decision by the community groups of which project to seek assistance for has not always been reached by consensus and at times there have been disagreements between different parties. At the same time, the process of selecting those assistance projects which are suitable for the donor and realistic has meant that some requests for assistance have been rejected(1). There have therefore inevitably been some tensions at the time of reporting, but this has not related to the methods or amounts of expenditure, and has not been in any way serious or detrimental to relations, both within and between communities. It has however been decided that when a project involves assistance grants or projects for individuals or businesses, that public meetings will not be held, in order to minimize community tensions.
Note:
(1) An example here could be where one community group insisted that
their first priority was the construction of a football pitch, which was
unacceptable to our donors.