Japan's Official Development Assistance White Paper 2010
(2) Iraq
The international community has been extending assistance for Iraqi nation building to restore and establish peace and stability in Iraq. It is extremely important for the peace and stability of the international community, including the people of Iraq, the Middle East, and Japan, to rebuild Iraq as a peaceful democratic country. Iraq is currently transitioning from a stage in which it should be urgently handling its pressing reconstruction needs to a stage where it should be strategically working to address reconstruction and development from a medium-term perspective. The democratization process is also showing signs of progress, as evidenced by the fact that parliamentary elections in Iraq were carried out in March 2010 under its new election law.
<Japan’s Efforts>
Japan has provided approximately US$1.67 billion in total through grant aid as of the end of FY2009. Japan has also been assisting with the capacity building of Iraqi administrative officials and engineers through training programs in various areas. Regarding loan aid, Japan decided to spend approximately US$3.28 billion in total on 15 projects by the end of FY2009. Japan continues to perform detailed implementation promotion support to ensure the steady progress of the cooperation projects that are currently being implemented. Iraq and other aid agencies must aim for even closer cooperation in order to ensure that Japanese assistance is effectively incorporated into the medium-term reconstruction and development strategies for Iraq.
Furthermore, in order to address Iraq’s debt problems, an agreement was reached in 2004 at the Paris Club that 80% of Iraq’s total Paris Club debt of US$37.2 billion be reduced over three stages. Based on this agreement, an Exchange of Notes took place in November 2005 between Japan and Iraq, which would reduce Iraq’s total debt owed to Japan of approximately US$7.6 billion (Japan is the number one creditor nation to Iraq) by 80% in total over the three stages. Then, the debt reduction was completed for a total of approximately US$6.7 billion with the final reduction in December 2008.