The Role of Development Aid in the Afghanistan Campaign.

by: Shahmahmood Miakhel On March 11, 2010 USIP´s Chief of Party in Afghanistan Shahmahmood Miakhel gave a speech at the Wilton Park Conference 1022 ´´Winning ´Hearts and Minds´ in Afghanistan: Assessing the Effectiveness of Development Aid in COIN (Counter Insurgency) Operations.´´ His speech was entitled ´´The Role of Development Aid in the Afghanistan Campaign.´´ ________________________________________ Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen: It is an honor for me to be part of this distinguished panel, including H.E. Mark Sedwill, Civilian Representative of NATO in Afghanistan, Gen. Nick Parker, Deputy Commander of ISAF and Mr. Mark Lowcock, Director General of Country Programs of DFID. I would like to share my personal experience as a practitioner that has witnessed developments in Afghanistan since 2001. I will give you an analogy that I have repeated many times in the last eight years, if we compare Afghanistan with a patient. When a patient goes to a doctor, the doctor asks for the history of the symptoms. Then the doctor recommends some lab work or an x-ray and, after diagnosing the problem, the doctor gives a prescription. The patient and doctor should make sure that the full dose of the prescription is used otherwise the symptoms will return. If the symptoms return, the next time the doctor will prescribe a stronger dose of medicine. If the prescription does not address the symptoms, it will have side effects no matter how high or low the dose. In the case of Afghanistan, there have been no good diagnoses of the problems, and the wrong medicine was prescribed which has had so many side effects and now the symptoms have returned and need the right dose prescribed. I don´t want to challenge good ideas or programs but the problem is that this patient ´´Afghanistan´´ is on life support, needs to be saved, and status of this patient should be changed from critical to stable condition. After that we can implement good ideas or programs in the long run. As long as this patient is on life support, we need a stability agenda for Afghanistan to change the status of this patient from critical to stable condition. I would like to suggest today that the best way to revive the patient is to ensure that the stability agenda should be understandable to the Afghans, should be implementable, should be affordable and should be sustainable. Whatever the international community and Afghan government want to achieve in Afghanistan, they have to answer to the above four criteria. If the answer is no for each one of this criteria, however, they should not implement those programs. Also, I don´t want to talk about shortages of the Bonn Agreement but, from the outset of the collapse of Taliban regime, there was limited focus on institutional building especially in the case of the Afghan National Police. Actual resources to police were only allocated in 2006 - four years after the collapse of the Taliban. By the time resources were allocated to ANP or other institutions, Afghanistan was no longer a post-conflict country but a country in conflict, which it still is. Unfortunately, all security, governance and development programs in Afghanistan are designed for a post-conflict situation and cannot address the current challenges of insecurity in Afghanistan. Also, most of these programs are designed by external consultants with little to no consultation with professional Afghans. I have witnessed the development of many documents such as the Afghanistan Compact, Afghanistan National Development Strategy, Afghanistan Sub-National Governance Policy, Counter Narcotics and Anti-Corruption strategies and so on. All nice words were put into these documents like Christmas trees but were far from the reality on the ground and lacked implementation plans. For example, in the Afghanistan Compact under the Governance, Rule of Law and Human Rights section it states: ´´establish a more effective, accountable and transparent administration at all levels of Government; and implement measurable improvements in fighting corruption, upholding justice and the rule of law and promoting respect for the human rights of all Afghans´´. If we examine this paragraph of the Afghanistan Compact, the goals mentioned cannot realistically be implemented for decades. I will give you another analogy of this consultancy which is shared by one of our colleagues in UNAMA at the conclusion of his work. He compared this consultancy in Afghanistan to a game of Afghan Buzkashi where horsemen competed for scores individually, even though they are part of the same team. He wrote, when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and find a new horse. But the aid and donor organizations in Afghanistan, instead of changing horses, set up committee to study the horse; arrange to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses; lower the standards so that dead horses can be included; reclassify the dead horse as living ´´impaired´´; hire outside contractors who claim they can ride the dead horses; harness several dead horses together to increase their speed; provide additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse´s performance; perform a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse´s performance; declare that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the mission of the organization than do some other horses; rewrite the expected performance requirements for all horses; and-if all else fails- set up a workshop with paid attendants on the subject of riding dead horses in post-conflict settings. This is, of course, a joke, but it´s the kind of joke that is mostly true. Therefore, I would like to now discuss how to bring stability to Afghanistan. If we use existing capacity, resources, institutions, rules and regulations, laws and mechanism in the right way, and communicate our goals and objectives in one voice to ordinary Afghans and government machinery, I strongly believe that we can bring stability to Afghanistan. Most countries in the world measure progress by their GNP or GDP (Gross Development Product) but Bhutanis measure their progress by GNH (Gross National Happiness). Just this week I went to Kunar province, where I am originally from, and, in my lifetime, I could not imagine that I would see this kind of development. The problem is that the gross happiness factor is missing in the design of all programs in Afghanistan because of supply driven needs or short-term objectives. In most cases, short-term objectives are the enemy of long term goals. The five main reasons for this gross unhappiness among Afghans are: 1. There is no transparency in the process of governance and implementation of all programs and projects, as well as in the political process. When there is no transparency, people believe rumors, misinformation, disinformation and even conspiracy theories that international community does not want stability in Afghanistan. 2. No communication strategy. Lack of transparency, which contributes to miscommunication regarding all issues. For example, the Taliban use Bluetooth technology more efficiently compared to ISAF´s multimillion dollar strategic communication program. 3. The former U.S. Speaker of the House, Tip O´Neill, once mentioned that all politics are local, which applies perfectly in Afghanistan. The gross unhappiness created in Afghanistan is because of the exclusion of a segment of people in the village, community or district level from decision making or participation in all aspects of governance; or local government officials and powerful individuals using government and international influence and assistance for personal use or against rivals. For example, the government officials and powerful individuals in the different areas control contracts, eradicate poppy fields of their rivals while asking their own people or tribe to cultivate as much as possible, and demonstrating the absence of applying rule of law equally in the country. 4. This gross happiness factor became a good opportunity for insurgents in Afghanistan to infiltrate communities and manipulate these situations. This created an atmosphere of mistrust and the distance between the people and government has significantly widened. We all know that the insurgency cannot grow in the country if there is no external support and if the internal environment doesn´t allow for them to grow. 5. Lack of a unified vision by the international community and the government of Afghanistan. A missing unified and agreed agenda by the government of Afghanistan and international community is another major factor that has created an environment of mistrust between the government and international community. Now, people don´t trust either of them. Perception does matter in all countries and among all communities but it does matter much more in Afghanistan. Now, the perception is that there is less development in Afghanistan, high corruption and no accountability on the part of the government and international community. This feeds into the conspiracy theory that international community doesn´t want to have peace and stability in Afghanistan, and politics of the blame game continue. Believing perception and rumors exacerbates insecurity, lack of trust and confidence in the government and international community. I recently had lunch with one of my friends, a classmate from Helmand province, and he told me that there is so much contradiction between words and action from the part of government and international community. People are confused and don´t know what to do. Initially, people in the Helmand province joined with insurgency because of local warlords or the brutality of the previous administration. But when the government officials or international community visit Marja these days, those individuals who are the main cause of insecurity accompany them. People do not know if they should support the Taliban because of fear of retribution, or if they should support the very government that they do not trust. Also, people say that on the one hand the government wants to have peace and reconciliation with Taliban but on the other hand they are fighting with them. We have a saying in the Pashto language regarding credibility that all unripe things can be cooked but when a person become unripe (meaning untrustworthy or not credible) it is hard to cook it. Now, the following questions should be answered in order to bring stability to Afghanistan: 1. How to regain credibility? 2. How the international community and government of Afghanistan can work together to create a stability agenda? Define the roles of each actor. 3. How to communicate this agenda to average Afghans and government machinery? Even on my level, I do not understand what is going on in Afghanistan. 4. How to merge different activities and balance top down with bottom up activities? 5. How to deliver assistance with a ´´do no harm” policy? I have written a small paper to answer the above questions which will be published soon by Center of International Governance and Innovation in Canada. I recommended ten specific steps needed to bring stability in districts throughout Afghanistan. Since I do not have time here, I cannot explain these points in detail but I will mention these points briefly: 1. There is a need to create several centers of gravity in Afghanistan and then to implement clear, hold and build formula of counter insurgency. 2. Form competent and representative team to each center of gravity. 3. Start implementation of stability plans in urban districts and expand to rural districts of Afghanistan. 4. Form one representative Shura in each district, not several which is the case now. 5. Conduct a security survey in each district to know about the exact need of security in each district. 6. Address local conflicts in each district through local mechanisms. 7. Establish benchmarks to reduce crimes in each district. 8. Ensure responsible district governance. 9. Implement community level district development projects. 10. Mobilize and organize engineering capacity to implement projects quickly as promised. Thank you for your attention. - بېرته شاته