On September 25, the U.S. Government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Kurdish Regional Government's (KRG) of Iraq Ministries of Health and Planning supporting the KRG's efforts to improve primary health care, as called for under the U.S. - Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement. The MOU was signed by the KRG Minister of Health, Dr. Rekawt Hama Rasheed, KRG Minister of Planning, Dr. Ali Sindi, and the USAID Mission Director, Thomas Staal.
USAID is partnering with the KRG Ministry of Health to strengthen the delivery of primary health care services and ensure the availability of high quality healthcare to all of Iraq's citizens. The MOU highlights the commitment of both parties to improve Iraq's health care system through a collaborative working relationship and project co-financing.
The USAID Primary Health Care Project in Iraq operates in all of Iraq's 18 provinces, and is working to strengthen the management of the health care system, improve compliance with clinical service guidelines, and strengthen community participation in service delivery.
(Source: US State Department)
[...] Community media is described by Ellie Rennie (2006), in a broad sense, as "community communication."... and be directed at such a wide range of issues. The premise, however, that community media is a facilitative tool for discussion and engagement of the ordinary citizenry has some inherent implications. A major implication is that community media is for the most part independent of the market-driven commercial and mainstream media outlets. This, in turn, allows for different models of community media to offer either a wide open editorial policy or a more fine-tuned approach that is still loyal to the encouragement of community participation. The key characteristics of community media convey a more clear understanding of its definition as well as its depth and dimension in terms of how it takes shape in the civic landscape (Rennie, 2006: 208). [...]