Kurdistan, Netherlands municipalities sign deal

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Region’s municipality and tourism ministry signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday with the Netherlands Municipalities Association (VNG) for further cooperation in providing services, team training and to improve infrastructure.

“The MASAR (Maintaining Strength and Resilience) project is (for) a relatively short time and is quite ambitious,” Michel Ligthart, the MASAR team leader in the Kurdistan Region, said in a press conference on Saturday. 

“It tries to combine three elements which we think are quite important,” he stated. “Those three elements are about planning, service delivery and local economic development.”

The project aims to offer service and assistance to refugees and IDPs, to develop the economy, to offer technical support to municipalities’ offices and to provide job opportunities, among other goals, said Sasan Awni, the municipality and tourism minister, during the conference.

“Our relations with the government of the Netherlands will enter a better and more advanced stage,” Awni said.

Ligthart stated one of the elements of the project was to assist the government with infrastructure, adding it could be with water or the sewage system. He said one of the project’s aims was to not only operate but to maintain the infrastructure. 

The MASAR project began three years ago in the Kurdistan Region and is funded by the European Union, according to Ligthart. It has done most of its work in Duhok and Erbil. The organization said an Erbil-Kirkuk road was constructed under NVG’s supervision in January.

The Dutch consul general in Erbil, Hans Akerboom, told Rudaw in early May that the  Netherlands is working to expand the Kurdistan Region’s agriculture sector. 

"You have a lot of oil... but you also have a lot of good potential to increase your agricultural goods," Akerboom said. "We are helping you in doing so." 

The Dutch ambassador to Iraq, Michel Rentenaar was received by the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region, Masrour Barzani in February, alongside Akerboom to discuss Amsterdam-Erbil ties as well as bilateral developments between the two parties.