The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division in Iraq has created two initiatives to expand Iraqi businesswomen's ability to gain work with GRD. The initiatives were unveiled at a GRD conference March 21 in Baghdad.
U.S. Navy Capt. Joseph Konicki, GRD director of military programs, told the 50-member audience the Division set aside a percentage of contracts in the Foreign Military Sales and Iraqi Security Force Funds programs for women-owned businesses in Iraq.
The contract set-asides mark the first time GRD is tapping a portion of its Foreign Military Sales program, which is funded by the Iraqi government to build its own military-related infrastructure. The additional Iraqi Security Force Funds program, which will also have a set-aside portion for Iraqi businesswomen, is U.S-funded.
Konicki said Iraqi businesswomen are welcome to bid on contracts for any projects they feel competent to complete, not just the percentage of work specifically set aside for them.
The conference, organized by Azza Humadi, program manager for GRD's Women's Advocate Initiative Program, opened a dialogue for strategies to keep the program running when U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq.
"The conference title, 'Women-Owned Business and the Future,' means we have finished an era, and are entering a new one," Humadi told the audience. She said the drawdown of the U.S. presence in Iraq will certainly affect her program, as fewer people will require help from Iraqis who provide service and construction work.
Americans and Iraqis who have supported the initiative want to ensure the program is stable and able to continue in the years to come.
"I personally believe that we have made great strides in the last few years of supporting Iraqi women-owned business," said Brig. Gen. William Philips, commander, JCC-I/A. "In the end, I do not think that what we have done is enough.
"I think it is important that we maintain the momentum that we have achieved to date of making women a stronger and larger contributor to the Iraqi economy," Philips said.
That theme also was expressed by representatives of the government of Iraq.
"We feel we are on the threshold of a new era in which the woman is looking forward to playing a big role in political, economic, social, and cultural life," said Iraqi Member of Parliament Shatha al-Musawi. "The global financial crisis and low oil prices have forced the government of Iraq to resort to an ascetic budget. That stopped the hiring of new civil servants, so we are looking forward to the private sector to hire the unemployed."
Iraqi Minister of Human Rights Wijdan Mikhael said, "Women's rush to the fields of work and production enables them to establish a new reality that cannot be denied."
Mikhael referred to a survey by the Central Oranization for Statistics, noting that "37 percent of (Iraqi) women are unemployed, and 19 percent of men are jobless. It is pitiful to see women and children being employed in some factories just because they are used to getting low wages."
The impoverished status of Iraqi women, especially the many widows in the nation, was reflected in a survey published by Oxfam International on March 8. Oxfam reported that 52 percent of the women in its survey were unemployed.
The Joint Contracting Command-Iraq and Afghanistan created the Women's Advocate Initiative in 2005. Stanley Baker Hill operates the program under contract with GRD to market and recruit Iraqi businesswomen. JCC I/A conducts the training for requirements and all the mechanics of announcing and awarding the women's contracts, as part of its much larger mission.
Since 2004, the Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division has completed 4,400 projects in Iraq, valued at nearly $7 billion. About $450 million has been awarded to women-owned businesses since 2005, when the program began. Women-owned businesses in Iraq were awarded $187 million in contracts during fiscal 2008.
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