UAE to host Iraq reconstruction donors' conference; $15 billion pledged

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Feb. 23 -- A minimum of 40 countries pledging at least $10 million each toward Iraq's reconstruction will attend a UAE donors' conference Feb. 28-29 in Abu Dhabi, reported OPEC News Agency Wednesday.

The conference is a follow-up to a like meeting held in Madrid in October 2003 at which the World Bank and the United Nations established two funds totaling $15 billion in loans and donations by countries other than the US toward the $56 billion that will be needed over the next few years to rebuild Iraq and provide aid for the Iraqi people. Washington, separately from these funds, has allocated about $18 billion as bilateral aid, OPECNA reported.

The UAE conference will activate the Madrid-pledged funds, which will be run by the World Bank and the United Nations.

Aid management, oversight
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has set up an international board to monitor the US-led management of funding and revenues in Iraq to provide greater transparency, OPECNA reported. In addition to the UN and the World Bank, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq (IAMB) includes representatives of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the International Monetary Fund.

In Washington last week, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) briefed IAMB on the financial functions and operations for the Development Fund for Iraq, which "shall be used in a transparent manner to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq, and for the costs of Iraqi civilian administration," among other benefits for the Iraqi people. CPA has invited proposals for external audit, and IAMB will be responsible for approving qualified external auditors.