Roland Huguenin-Benjamin has spent nearly 20 years representing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Arab world and since October 2002 he has been ICRC information delegate in Baghdad. He describes how the ICRC has helped Iraq cope with deteriorating water services as a result of U.N. sanctions in force for the past 12 years.
BAGHDAD - In January 1991, life in the modern city of Baghdad became a struggle for survival for four million inhabitants suddenly deprived of electricity and fuel by the onset of the Gulf war. Access to water soon became crucial, as pumping stations and water treatment plants could hardly operate.
The ICRC reacted quickly and organised the importation of water-bagging machines capable of producing drinking water at the rate of one bag per second. Compared with the daily needs of a whole city, this was a drop in the ocean.
Moreover, the consequences of international trade sanctions, imposed on Iraq in August 1990 and still in force, gave rise to a growing lack of cash, expertise and spare parts, provoking a slow but steady deterioration of one of the most modern infrastructures in the Middle East.
Over the past 12 years, the ICRC's water and sanitation programme in Iraq has become one of the organisation's major involvements in that field worldwide.
The backbone of the ICRC's emergency response strategy in Iraq is to break the continuous spiral generated by the deteriorating water services.
Dozens of ICRC engineers have joined forces with their Iraqi counterparts to monitor the situation and help identify and design appropriate techniques for solving recurrent problems.
Prior to implementation of the oil-for-food programme (in December 1996), the ICRC had to import all spare parts and equipment needed to ensure basic maintenance of water stations.
Since 1996, the ICRC has been able to focus its efforts on supplying expertise to assess needs and designing plans for rehabilitation works. During the severe drought seasons, notably in 1999, the ICRC had to carry out emergency interventions to keep plants operating.
ONGOING PROJECTS
The ICRC is still carrying out major repair and renovation work in various parts of the country.
To date, it has been involved in rehabilitating 38 water treatment plants and 16 sewage stations. Basic equipment, such as pumps and pipes, are provided under the oil-for-food programme while spare parts are purchased on the local market.
One current major project of the ICRC is in the northern city of Kirkuk (population 650,000), where leaking pipes caused subsidence under two large ground storage tanks.
The ICRC addressed the cause of the problem by repairing the water leaks and halted its consequences by stabilising the big tanks. The intervention started a year ago and is still under way.
Supplying drinking water to small rural communities, through an easily manageable system and without the use of chemicals, is a technical challenge that has been met by the introduction of roughing filtration (a non-chemical method of removing solids from water, using filter material such as gravel).
In Iraq, ICRC engineers adjusted this technique to local conditions and have successfully implemented five projects so far.
Villages in the governorates of Wasit, Muthanna, Missan, Basrah and Anbar, which had long had no direct access to drinking water, now enjoy permanent access to this scarce resource.
Most of the Iraqi population outside the big cities still has to live with insufficient quantities of drinking water and what is available is of low quality.
Although specific interventions can have a positive effect on water and sewage services, or even help avert a disaster, one should be aware that these measures are only partial.
Humanitarian exemptions through the oil-for-food programme have indeed offered the civilian population some relief. Yet, aid can in no way substitute for the economy of what was one of the richest oil-producing countries in the world. Neither can it meet the needs of 22 million people nor ensure the maintenance of the collapsing infrastructure of a whole country.
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