Information You Can Use: A Bi-monthly Service for the UN and Civil Society
Volume 1, Issue 3, June-July 2004
SDF vs. NGO -- an Iraqi tale of cost-effectiveness
16 May
2004
Source: The Japan Times
By : NAO SHIMOYACHI
SDF vs. NGO -- an Iraqi tale of cost-effectiveness
16 May
2004
Source: The Japan Times
By : NAO SHIMOYACHI
Self-Defense Forces troops are not the only ones using Japanese cash to provide
humanitarian aid in southern Iraq.
On April 20, the Foreign Ministry announced it would provide $353,000, or about
39 million yen, to a Paris-based nongovernmental aid group, the Agency for Technical
Cooperation and Development. ACTED has been engaged in a water-purification
project in Al-Muthanna Province since the United States declared last May that
major military operations in Iraq were over.
The ministry explained that the financial aid is part of a larger Japanese effort to help rebuild the war-ravaged country. But the decision has raised a fundamental question among the public and critics over whether the military, in terms of cost-effectiveness, is suited to humanitarian work.
With the grant, ACTED plans to supply 550 tons of safe water per day in the next six months to more than 64,000 people in 63 of the most needy villages in the province. Japan is the sole provider of funds for the project, which is aimed at easing an anticipated shortage of drinking water during the summer.
Most of the money would be spent on the rental fee for 35 water tankers, which would transport water from a major purification plant located in Al-Muthanna Province, according to the ministry.
By comparison, the Ground Self-Defense Force contingent in Samawah, the capital of the province, is providing 80 tons of water -- one-seventh of the amount ACTED plans to provide -- for 16,000 people a day by using the four purification units in the GSDF camp, according to the Defense Agency.
Japan has spent 40.3 billion yen -- 1,000 times as much as the aid granted to ACTED -- for the GSDF's humanitarian mission in Iraq so far, according to the government's fiscal 2003 and 2004 budgets.
Although the government did not provide details, a major part of the cost is expected to be taken up by transporting personnel and equipment from Japan and defense measures. The sum at least includes 6 billion yen for the building of the GSDF's fortified camp, as revealed during Diet discussions.
"This issue can't be judged by the measure of cost-effectiveness alone," Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Friday when asked about the efficiency of the GSDF mission. "You have to take into account other factors, like the quality of water and the situation of the area you work in.
"When you think about the benefits to the Iraqi people and the national interest of Japan, I think only the SDF can operate there," he said, adding that he feels no ill will toward the nongovernmental project.
The Foreign Ministry said the ACTED project is being carried out solely by local Iraqis, and no one from the NGO is working in Samawah.
The aid group's summer water-supply project has already started, a Foreign Ministry official said, as a phase of the water project that ACTED kicked off in Al-Muthanna last June.
Some major nongovernmental organizations, both in Japan and abroad, have long pointed to the inefficiency of humanitarian work by a military force.
They say the cost is unnecessarily high. They also say a military force cannot contribute to reviving a local economy by creating jobs -- often the main concern of people in devastated countries -- because of its self-contained nature.