---

Non-Governmental Organisations

Answer

The Department for International Development (DFID) provided funding directly to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Iraq over the last five years through two principal mechanisms: the Political Participation Fund and the Civil Society Fund.The £5 million Iraq Civil Society Fund (CSF) supported projects that strengthened the capacity of Iraqi, civil society organisations through partnerships with international NGOs. Funding was given to Christian Aid, Save the Children (UK), Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Help Age International, Women for Women International, Salvation Army, International Centre for Trade Union Rights, UNISON and the Women's National Commission. These NGOs, in turn, partnered a range of Iraqi organisations.The £7.5 million Political Participation Fund (PPF) provided grants to grass-roots Iraqi civil society organisations to enable potentially marginalised groups to participate in the political process. Under the PPF, the international NGOs we supported were AMAR, Arab Gulf Studies Centre, Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), and the Irish Human Rights Network.We have also contributed £55 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross for their humanitarian appeals during 2003-2009. We also provided recent funding directly to the BBC World Service Trust, to strengthen independent television and radio broadcasting in southern Iraq; and to the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), to support development of the Iraqi justice sector.Since 2003 DFID has also provided approximately £130 million of funding to UN agencies to support the most vulnerable people displaced inside Iraq and in the region. The UN agencies themselves pass the majority of these funds onto the international NGOs who act as the UN's implementing partners.Finally, DFID has agreed Partnership Programme Arrangements to provide core funding to a number of major international NGOs. Of those, Oxfam, Islamic Relief and CAFOD all have programmes in Iraq.The following table shows our direct disbursements to NGOs in Iraq during the last five financial years:

£ million
	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
Civil Society Fund (CSF)	2.2	1.7	1.05	0.02	0
Political Participation Fund (PPF)	1.7	2.3	0.06	1.5	0
BBC-WST	0.1	0.02	0	0	0
BBC Al Mirbad	1.6	2.5	2.6	0.9	1.2
Media IWPR	0.9	0.01	0	0	0
War Child	0.1	0	0	0	0
MAG	0.01	0	0	0	0
MAG North	0.2	0	0	0	0
ILAC	1.4	0.7	0.1	0	0
ACTED	0.2	0	0	0	0
AMAR	0.3	0.2	0	0	0
Solidarities Programme	0	0.07	0.08	0	0
International Committee of the Red Cross Appeals	16	10	4	7	6
SCF Security Enhancement	0.02	0.09	0.04	0.04	0
CARE	0.4	0.01	0	0	0
Total	25.1	17.6	7.9	9.4	7.2

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

491 c1423-4W; 270474

Session

2008-09

Subjects

Iraq Non-governmental organisations

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk