Bill Murray from The Long War Journal has a good article about a new water distribution site in Baghdad. The $400,000 water facility will provide free water to 3,000 families and cover 60% of the need in the area. Two additional sites under construction will provide the remaining 40%. However, the most interesting fact about the facility is its location:
Water from the site, located within the walls of a US-operated Forward Operating Base, is then piped underneath the 15-foot-high reinforced concrete barriers surrounding the base to taps at a drive-through location.
In that community, Iraqis receive their water directly from a US FOB, a fact that speaks volumes about the securitization of services. Specifically, this is notable for two reasons. First, the placement of the water facility inside the FOB might very well discourage attacks, since an attack on the FOB is also, literally an attack on the community’s access to water. Second, the location gives US and Iraqi security forces full credit for providing the service. That is, the population physically visits the FOB to collect their water and knows clearly who provided it, winning hearts and minds. This point was apparently not lost on the Iraqi security forces:
As services return to the area after many years of sanctions, neglect and civil unrest, police expect increased access to information about the Shia insurgency, because the area has been a haven for arms caches and terrorist cells associated with Muqtada al Sadr’s Madhi Army and Iranian trained “Special Groups.”
Winning hearts and minds, gaining useful intelligence, and providing free, clean water to a poor community. That is a trio anyone can appreciate.
The 20/20 Health Systems Project just launched with a new web-accessible database of health systems statistics:
The Health Systems Database draws data from publicly available and internationally comparable databases. Sources are publications from the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). More recent data may be available from other sources including in-country sources. The user contribution section of this tool is designed to capture and share such information.
Hat tip to the Global Health Policy blog.
Full list of variables in the datasets after the break.