Rebuilding a Broken Land

This article highlights the joint efforts of the US military divisions and government programs in rebuilding Bab al-Sham in Iraq. Beginning in March 2009, the Industrial Advisor from Baghdad ePRT Northeast, embedded with the US Army’s First Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division, began to work in an industrial center called Bab al-Sham, on the northern edge of Baghdad. The development team helped formalize a group into a registered nongovernmental organization called Noor Association representing Bab al-Sham’s factory owners. The three main problems—inadequate electrical power, competition with imports, and lack of loan capital—were largely beyond the reach of the project team; however, the team worked with Noor Association to address them. The project team and Noor Association began an effort to lobby the Ministry of Electricity to provide power in a continuous block of eight hours during the business day. It is believed that perhaps the key factor in the project’s success was that the project team served to enable efforts already underway, and worked within legal and cultural constraints to empower individuals to help themselves.