British campaigners have welcomed a move by the US government to earmark aid for Christians and other minorities targeted by Islamic State in northern Iraq. USAid announced last week that the $55m (£40m) aid for the rebuilding of Nineveh Province would benefit “vulnerable religious and ethnic minority communities”, following a renegotiation of the US agreement with the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
A statement from USAid referred to a pledge made by Vice President Mike Pence in October at a dinner organised by the advocacy group In Defense of Christians. He said: “President [Donald] Trump has ordered the State Department to stop funding ineffective relief efforts at the United Nations.”
Stephen Rasche, the US-born legal counsel of the archdiocese of Erbil, told a House Foreign Affairs panel in Washington in October that there was “little evidence” of UNDP aid in Christian-majority towns and what work had been undertaken was “in most cases cosmetic”. Much of the reconstruction funding for those towns has come from religious charities such as the Knights of Columbus and Aid to the Church in Need, and the Hungarian government.
The $55m comes from a $75m contribution to a UNDP fund announced in July. A second $75m will be delivered “depend[ing] on UNDP’s success in putting in place additional accountability, transparency, and due-diligence measures”, the USAid statement continued.
Christian charities have for years argued that the UN’s aid policy of “need not creed” was failing in northern Iraq because Christians, Yezidis and other non-Muslims were too traumatised to live alongside Sunni Muslims in the UN camps where aid was distributed. However a UNDP spokesperson told The Tablet: “UNDP is listening to religious and community leaders, understanding the full range of problems facing Iraqi communities. UNDP has strong oversight over all contracts to ensure that all funds are spent transparently and with full value for money.”
In Britain, a group of 12 religious charities which have had several meetings with officials at the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development to urge them to similarly prioritise Christians, expressed hope that the UK would follow the US government’s lead.
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