By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS, March 15 (Reuters) - Iraq and the United Nations will present on Friday a five-year reconstruction plan that aims to wean Baghdad off international dependency and ease the poverty that has helped fuel an insurgency. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi are attending the conference on a Compact for Iraq, along with nearly 80 nations. Robert Kimmitt, the U.S. deputy Treasury secretary, Javad Zarif, Iran's U.N. ambassador, and Nizar Bin Obaid Madani, Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs, are among the delegates. "By holding this compact meeting we hope that this will give a substantially and politically important message to the Iraqi people so that they will be encouraged to bring peace and security to their country," Ban told reporters on Thursday. "We want to give a strong message that the international community is behind them to support their efforts," he said. Some officials and diplomats have described Friday's talks as an attempt to match the international community's reconstruction skills with areas where Iraq needs help until it realizes its own economic potential. They say it is not a meeting to secure more financial donations for the country. The 4-year-old war has devastated Iraq's economy and the country has relied on billions of dollars in foreign aid. Iraqi officials say economic hardship has driven people toward militant groups. The Iraq Compact, which needs to be authorized by a U.N. resolution, is expected to focus on key areas like the training of Iraq's security forces and reconstruction of the country's oil and agriculture industries. Al-Mahdi told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday the compact would "forge a partnership with the international community with the aim of promoting the economic development process as well as the political and social processes over the next five years in Iraq." Decades of economic mismanagement as well as U.N. sanctions under former President Saddam Hussein have bloated inefficient state-owned industries and created a web of government subsidies for food and gasoline which western advisers say hinders growth and fosters corruption. On the other hand, reforming state-run industries would inevitably mean throwing thousands of employees out of work and adding to the misery of ordinary Iraqis, while the benefits of reform may take years to appear.
