This weekend, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration announced that the U.S. will contribute an additional $1.5 billion to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and other organizations that assist internally displaced Iraqis and Iraqi refugees. A portion of this funding will go towards infrastructure improvement in Iraq, with a focus on water sanitation and employment opportunities.
Since 2007 the United States has allocated more than $1.3 billion to Iraqi refugee assistance. $1.3 billion may seem like a large number, but considering that at some points, the U.S. was spending more than $1.8 billion in one week on the war in Iraq, the figure seems small in comparison. The U.S. State Department anticipates that more funding will be allocated to organizations that assist Iraqi refugees before the end of the 2011 fiscal year in September.