Baghdad job fair aims to help security, discourage insurgency

Twenty-five companies and some international business recently attended a job fair in Iraq in an effort to reduce unemployment and provide alternatives to joining the insurgency, IRIN reported Tuesday. The Baghdad-based Karkh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a non-governmental organization, hosted the fair.

“We intended to put companies in direct touch with the unemployed. The unemployed should invest their energy in working in their neighborhoods instead of joining the insurgents,” said Ali Jamil Latif, the leader of the Karkh Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Unemployment rates are now range between 60-70 percent and those without jobs have few options to provide for themselves and their families. Consequently, many have turned to the insurgency.

The Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund has been given $21 billion dollars for rebuilding Iraq, making it the largest U.S. foreign aid project since the Marshall plan. However, the article notes that according to an audit conducted earlier this year by the office of the Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction, “insecurity, corruption among Iraqi officials, and weak U.S. contract management,” are responsible for the loss of tens of millions missing of dollars from the Iraq reconstruction fund.

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