August 30th, 2010 by Anna

Recent reports have highlighted Iraq’s struggles to provide adequate social services to its citizens. For al-Jazeera yesterday, Victoria Fine profiled the troubled health care system in Iraqi Kurdistan. She describes the obstacles that patients face in getting access to doctors, surgeries, and other state-based medical services, which are officially free in Iraq. To cope, Fine writes, many citizens have turned to “a loose network of NGOs,” including international humanitarian organizations, to access care. In part, the obstacles in accessing medical services stem from a shortage of surgeons and urgent care physicians. Political realities also pose difficulties, according to Fine - a constituent of a particular political party, for example, might “run into problems” by appealing to another party for funding or services.

In a story on Iraq’s recent electricity shortages, Charles Recknagel writes for Radio Free Europe that “the amount [of electricity generated in Iraq] is still woefully inadequate to meet ordinary Iraqis’ needs,” despite improvements in recent years. Historically, electricity shortages have been blamed on the insurgency - the considerable weakening of the insurgency, however, “puts the spotlight for the electricity problems squarely on the government’s ability to deliver a better future.” Ali al-Saffar, an Iraq expert at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, estimates that Iraq is meeting only 46% of the demand for electricity, and blames “government bureaucracy, corruption, and unwillingness to get things done.” Recknagel concludes that eliminating some of the “bureaucratic entanglements” limiting power supply might “put Iraq more firmly on the free-market course it needs to become economically and politically strong enough to survive as a democracy.”

Posted in Iraq, NGOs, Political Parties |