Oxfam's Iraq Program Update

Oxfam-America
Thursday, 10 July 2003

Southern Iraq Program

Oxfam has two offices in southern Iraq: one operational base in Nassiriyah and a coordination office in Basra.

In Nassiriyah, Oxfam is continuing to work on Quick-Impact Projects (QUIPS) with the local water and sewage departments. This currently involves repairing major leaks and breakages in a system that normally supplies 60% of the city's water needs. One of the QUIPs involves repairs to a station that pumps sewage for about 85,000 people. At a cost of $20,000, electrical control panels that were damaged during looting have been repaired; four pumps are being overhauled; and a pump room is being built for the operator. Once fully functional, this station will help remove sewage that has built up in the system and is overflowing onto the streets.

Oxfam is also collaborating with the Department of the Environment on a residual chlorine testing program, and we are using the local television station to issue health promotion messages focusing on diarrheal disease prevention.

Oxfam public health promoters in southern Iraq are working closely with other aid agencies and local health professionals to encourage integration and cooperation among doctors, clinics, and hospitals. Training sessions on water testing have been carried out with the Department of Environment, and the training of thirty health education workers has now been completed. Oxfam is also providing equipment and vocational training to address endemic illnesses in some of the primary health care clinics in Nassiriyah's poorest slums.

It is now leishmaniasis season, and the incidence rate is up. This parasitic, sandfly-borne disease mainly affects children under five years old. Oxfam is assisting with a leishmaniasis prevention and control program in the area, and preventive spraying is now being carried out. The program will cover the whole of Thi Qar governorate and rural areas where the need is greatest and the incidence of leishmaniasis is most prevalent.

Central Iraq Program

Oxfam is launching water and public health assessments across central Iraq from its newly opened office in Hillah. The Karbala assessment will be followed by assessments of other governorates in the area. The Oxfam team has carried out rapid food and nutrition assessments in Babil and Karbala and have found that the general nutrition status in these areas is adequate. Three quick-impact water projects have been identified in Babil Governorate, to be undertaken shortly:

1. $25,000 to provide the Babylon Water Directory with equipment, spare parts, and material for the water treatment plant and four Compact Units (water pumps) serving a population of 61,282 people in the towns within the Alhashemia Municipality;

2. $5,000 to provide five aquatic grass cutters urgently needed to clean water channels and increase water flows that are crucial for drinking water supplies, irrigation, and livestock watering in semi-urban and rural areas of Babil Governorate; and

3. $10,000 to repair six existing excavators for cleaning fresh water channels in Babil Governorate

The team discovered one village that had received no water from the Water Department's trucking company for 100 days. Oxfam is seeking an immediate solution to this problem.

Jordan

Oxfam has a sub-regional office in Amman, Jordan and has had staff in Jordan since January 2003. Our assistance to refugees in the Ruweished camp in Jordan and the Karama camp in the no-man's land at the Jordanian border is being handed over to a Jordanian NGO. Oxfam has raised concerns over the level of protection in the camp in the no-man's land and is following this up locally and in Geneva. Oxfam has installed water tanks and tap stands for water distribution and has carried out health promotion work in these camps.

For more information, or to contact Oxfam-America, see their website at: www.oxfamamerica.org