05 November 2003
Iraqi American Helping to Bring Democracy to Baghdad
Organizes neighborhood councils where Iraqis make the decisions
By Kathryn McConnell
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Neighborhood by neighborhood, Ban Saraf is helping to bring democracy to Iraq.
Saraf, an Iraqi American working in Baghdad for the non-profit RTI International, said in a recent interview with a Washington File reporter that the city's 88 neighborhood councils she helped organize are making steady progress in identifying their communities' priorities, including those of groups previously excluded from local decision-making and allocation of resources. The neighborhood councils represent residents to the city's nine district councils.
RTI is a North Carolina-based contractor of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Baghdad's neighborhood and district councils are interim bodies that will eventually become elected groups, after Saraf and her U.S. and Iraqi colleagues further increase residents' awareness of the councils' existence and election systems are established, Saraf said.
Iraqi councils are providing an unprecedented degree of citizen participation, according to RTI. Strong local governments and civil organizations are able to respond to a broad range of issues such as basic service delivery, it noted.
Saraf first left Baghdad with her family in 1970 as an 8-year-old, approximately two years after Saddam Hussein came to power. After living in Beirut, then England, and then Beirut again, she returned to Iraq in 1983 because she had grown weary of living amid civil war in Lebanon.
But after just one day in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, she said, she knew she wanted to leave. It took her three years of negotiating with Iraq's passport office to gain the document that would permit her to do so.
"I swore I would never go back," she said. But after talking to other Iraqi Americans after Hussein's fall from power, she changed her mind. She decided she wanted to be "part of the solution" and help invigorate new democratic and economic systems in Iraq.
"I appreciate all that I have now as a U.S. citizen -- the choices I have compared to the fear and humiliation that Iraqis felt under Hussein and I want Iraqis to have the same choices," Saraf said during a brief vacation in Washington.
Saraf was recruited by an Iraqi American woman living in Iraq; her RTI assignment began in June, she said.
Baghdad RTI staff members live in trailers on the grounds of Hussein's former Republican Palace, now the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headed by L. Paul Bremer. At the time of the interview, Saraf's civil society team consisted of six members -- U.S. citizens and Iraqis -- but she said she expected that number to grow in coming weeks.
RTI currently has 140 people from 30 countries throughout Iraq, of whom 60 percent speak Arabic, according to Sally Johnson, the company's vice president for corporate affairs. The company also employs over 600 Iraqis in its local governance project, she said.
"The key message of RTI's work in Iraq is that Iraqis -- with help from the U.S. government -- are taking the initiative to form responsive local governments," Johnson said.
Saraf said Iraqis initially were skeptical of what the councils would do. But as Iraqis begin to attend council meetings and learn about the groups' work, most people's views change, she added.
RTI funded the establishment of the councils' computer-equipped offices. The CPA is beginning to pay stipends to council members, Saraf said.
Saraf -- who owns her own computer software company -- said her project's early success was due to the teamwork approach of RTI and CPA personnel, council members and a growing number of Iraqi nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
She said her business background has been very valuable in negotiating with council members on issues. She said using a direct approach is the best way to communicate with councils. Saraf said she wants women's input reflected in all aspects of local and national governance decision-making. But, she added, it is her hope the government does not create a separate ministry of women's affairs, as Afghanistan has done.
Saraf said being an Iraqi American fluent in Iraqi Arabic is both an advantage and disadvantage working in Iraq. Occasionally, when she first meets an Iraqi, that person may question her sincerity because she chose to live outside the country, she said. But she refuses to engage in "a comparison of misery," she said.
Another advantage of her language skills, she said, it that she is able to determine when an Iraqi translator is not fully understanding the point someone is trying to make and she can step in to clarify.
Saraf said is quickly showing signs of economic recovery, and restaurants of all types are opening throughout the city, as well as Internet cafes, nightclubs and street vendor stalls.
But she said for the country's reconstruction to fully succeed, the new Iraqi government will need to take on even more responsibility in the future. "It's time Iraqis now take their own risks and not go back to the misery," she said.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=November&x=20031105120636emmoccmk0.6887628&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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