The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
By Aunohita Mojumdar, Correspondent
posted December 8, 2010 at 5:08 pm EST
Kabul, Afghanistan —
Nine years and billions of dollars into the Afghanistan war the US government is eager to show progress.
The US government estimates 6 million refugees have returned to the country and some 7 million children are back in school. And then there is the widely cited claim that 85 percent of Afghans that have access to healthcare, as in this recent report from the US Agency for International Development: “USAID and other donors have worked so that now more than 85 percent of the population has access to some form of health care, up from 9 percent in 2002."
There's just one problem, say healthcare officials in Afghanistan. That claim, also peddled by the British government’s aid agency, the World Bank and at times by the Afghan government, isn't true. And healthcare workers say it's created a false sense of accomplishment that's actually undermining efforts to improve health services for Afghans.
Though it's been repeated over and over, it's not hard to see how unlikely it is. If 85 percent of Afghan's did have access to healthcare, Afghanistan would be ahead of every country in the region after three-decades of almost non-stop war.
RELATED Monitor coverage on Afghanistan
Both the Afghan government’s Minister of Health as well as the Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Afghanistan say that the claim is misleading. According to the Ministry of Health, which provided the initial data, the claim stems from a misunderstanding of the fact that 85 percent of Afghanistan's districts have at least one basic health facility.
However a district can cover vast tracts of mountainous terrain, leaving district health facilities inaccessible to millions of Afghans.
“It does not mean 85 percent of Afghans have access or easy access or avail themselves of health facilities,” says Peter Graaff, the head of the WHO mission in Afghanistan.
Essentially, that would be akin to saying that just because every state in the US had a hospital, 100 percent of Americans had access to healthcare.
“The coverage of the basic primary health services in Afghanistan falls perilously short of the requirements of the population, leaving millions of Afghans with no or limited access to basic healthcare” read a UN statement Dec. 5, adding that according to its tally, “only 52 percent of the rural population have access to a health facility within one hour walking distance.”
To be sure, accurate healthcare figures are difficult to come by. The National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment carried out by the Afghan government with international support last year is the most accurate sampling of access to healthcare and came up with an estimate of 60 percent access.
Afghanistan’s acting Minister of Health Suraya Dalil insists that continuing to cite the 85 percent as harming efforts to improve health services. “According to the National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment around 60 percent of the population has access to health,” says Dr. Dalil. “I have questioned the 85 percent figure since I came into this office.”
Graaff says he implores aid officials not to use this statistic, “it is not wise to use these figures as a success story,” he says.
The false statistic has prevented adequate attention on the health sector from donors and the Afghan government says Dalil. The Afghan Finance Ministry, which channels much of Afghanistan's development aid, said: “You don’t need the money, you are well off. Donors tell us ‘you are so successful. You have reached 85 percent of the population. You don’t need additional resources,’ ” according to Dalil.
With a $10.92 per capita expenditure on health, Afghanistan is still way below a target of $15 to $30 per capita expenditure recommended by the WHO, especially for a country affected by protracted crisis. Other Afghan health indicators remain dismal.
“Although maternal mortality rates have been reduced from 1,600 deaths for every 100,000 live births in 2002 to 1,400 deaths in 2010, Afghanistan still has the second-highest maternal mortality ratio in the world after Sierra Leone” a joint statement issued by UNICEF, WHO, and UNFPA said at the Geneva Conference on Millennium Development Goals. "The same holds true for soaring infant and child mortality figures, although there has been a slight improvement in these numbers as well.”
December 09, 2010
December 03, 2010
Karzai Security Contractor Ban Could Assist Humanitarian Aid Work
Eurasianet, October 28, 2010
President Hamid Karzai’s plan to shut down private security forces in Afghanistan has many military contractors and assorted peace-builders in a panic. But some humanitarian aid workers in the country contend that a ban isn’t such a bad idea.
For years, non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan have condemned the militarization of humanitarian work, and have struggled to define a role that is distinct from the armed, for-profit development contractors in the conflict zone. Yet usually, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), contractors, humanitarians and development entrepreneurs have all been lumped together under the generic “aid worker” rubric. The Afghan government’s planned prohibition on private security companies (PSCs) could change that, helping to differentiate the humanitarians from other forms of development work.
Foreign for-profit development contractors have threatened to pull out of Afghanistan, since the August decree issued by Karzai would prevent them from relying on private security companies for protection. Instead, they would have to depend on the Afghan National Police to provide security. The only exceptions would be for military bases and diplomatic missions.
The ban was originally scheduled to take effect on December 17. But on October 27, Karzai agreed to push back the implementation deadline by two months. Karzai’s administration has come under intense pressure from Washington to relent on the ban.
Representatives of various humanitarian aid organizations are not worried by the looming ban to anywhere near the same extent as are the for-profit contractors. Many have long been living with high risk in order to deliver their services. Some even say the demise of private security companies would be beneficial.
“To the extent that it [the ban] helps to de-militarize the environment and to the extent that it reinforces the government’s monopoly on the use of force, I think ultimately it would be a positive thing,” Nic Lee, director of ANSO (Afghanistan NGO Safety Office), a non-profit humanitarian project that monitors safety conditions for the NGO sector, told EurasiaNet.org.
“There is no type of armed action that is conducive to humanitarian activity,” Lee continued. “So the less armed activity you have is always going to improve humanitarian space and humanitarian access.”
Many aid workers say they have a moral duty to work without armed protection in order to maintain their neutrality in a conflict zone. Of the 2,000 Afghan and 360 international NGOs operating across Afghanistan, “less than six use the services of a PSC, most commonly to provide unarmed guards at offices and homes,” according to ACBAR (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief), an NGO umbrella organization.
In a joint statement issued with ANSO on October 25, ACBAR sought to distance the non-profit NGO community from for-profit contractors, emphasizing “the ban on PSCs will have no negative impact on aid delivery by the vast majority of humanitarian NGOs.”
While NGOs rely on the communities where they work to ensure their safety, the for-profit “development contractors” often depend on PSCs. Donors support their work as part of NATO’s counter-insurgency strategy, thus bringing them between the military and Taliban militants, and also muddying the waters between non-profit humanitarian work and for-profit development.
These private development contractors receive the bulk of donor money flowing into Afghanistan largely from the US government’s development arm, USAID. Thus, major donors like USAID have been scrambling for a way to keep their “implementing partners” in the country. Some large USAID contractors like DAI (Development Alternatives, Inc.) have said they would have to close down some projects, if the ban is implemented. Other private development companies have complained to the US Embassy that their employees “will vote with their feet.”
Donors suggest that their ongoing discussions with the Afghan government will lead to a compromise. But Karzai, despite delaying implementation of the ban, still seems determined to lock private security firms out of Afghanistan, calling them a menace to stability.
Employing development contractors is a fundamental part of Gen. David Petraeus’ much-touted counter-insurgency strategy. Petraeus, the commander of all NATO forces in Afghanistan, is said to be lobbying Karzai’s government for an exception to the ban that covers a wide array of peace-building activities.
Even the United Nations is reviewing its programs to assess the ban’s potential impact. With UNAMA (the UN’s umbrella organization in Afghanistan) playing an overt political role, the mission has suffered increasing attacks. An attack on a UN guesthouse in Kabul last October left six international UN workers dead. On October 24, UN security repelled an attack on a UN guesthouse in Herat, killing four armed insurgents. The UN hopes its own security forces will be exempted from the new rule.
Not all donors use private security companies. The Indian Embassy, which has suffered two massive suicide bombings in the past three years, uses a combination of ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police, an Indian government paramilitary organization) and Afghan National Police to guard the embassy, as well as its projects.
The Canadian government also indicated that a ban would have a minimal impact on aid operations that it sponsors. “Most of our development assistance implementing partners do not use private security firms,” a spokeswoman for the Canadian Embassy said, adding that Ottawa had sought an implementation plan that would allow the international community to remain in Afghanistan while respecting the goals of the presidential decree.
President Hamid Karzai’s plan to shut down private security forces in Afghanistan has many military contractors and assorted peace-builders in a panic. But some humanitarian aid workers in the country contend that a ban isn’t such a bad idea.
For years, non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan have condemned the militarization of humanitarian work, and have struggled to define a role that is distinct from the armed, for-profit development contractors in the conflict zone. Yet usually, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), contractors, humanitarians and development entrepreneurs have all been lumped together under the generic “aid worker” rubric. The Afghan government’s planned prohibition on private security companies (PSCs) could change that, helping to differentiate the humanitarians from other forms of development work.
Foreign for-profit development contractors have threatened to pull out of Afghanistan, since the August decree issued by Karzai would prevent them from relying on private security companies for protection. Instead, they would have to depend on the Afghan National Police to provide security. The only exceptions would be for military bases and diplomatic missions.
The ban was originally scheduled to take effect on December 17. But on October 27, Karzai agreed to push back the implementation deadline by two months. Karzai’s administration has come under intense pressure from Washington to relent on the ban.
Representatives of various humanitarian aid organizations are not worried by the looming ban to anywhere near the same extent as are the for-profit contractors. Many have long been living with high risk in order to deliver their services. Some even say the demise of private security companies would be beneficial.
“To the extent that it [the ban] helps to de-militarize the environment and to the extent that it reinforces the government’s monopoly on the use of force, I think ultimately it would be a positive thing,” Nic Lee, director of ANSO (Afghanistan NGO Safety Office), a non-profit humanitarian project that monitors safety conditions for the NGO sector, told EurasiaNet.org.
“There is no type of armed action that is conducive to humanitarian activity,” Lee continued. “So the less armed activity you have is always going to improve humanitarian space and humanitarian access.”
Many aid workers say they have a moral duty to work without armed protection in order to maintain their neutrality in a conflict zone. Of the 2,000 Afghan and 360 international NGOs operating across Afghanistan, “less than six use the services of a PSC, most commonly to provide unarmed guards at offices and homes,” according to ACBAR (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief), an NGO umbrella organization.
In a joint statement issued with ANSO on October 25, ACBAR sought to distance the non-profit NGO community from for-profit contractors, emphasizing “the ban on PSCs will have no negative impact on aid delivery by the vast majority of humanitarian NGOs.”
While NGOs rely on the communities where they work to ensure their safety, the for-profit “development contractors” often depend on PSCs. Donors support their work as part of NATO’s counter-insurgency strategy, thus bringing them between the military and Taliban militants, and also muddying the waters between non-profit humanitarian work and for-profit development.
These private development contractors receive the bulk of donor money flowing into Afghanistan largely from the US government’s development arm, USAID. Thus, major donors like USAID have been scrambling for a way to keep their “implementing partners” in the country. Some large USAID contractors like DAI (Development Alternatives, Inc.) have said they would have to close down some projects, if the ban is implemented. Other private development companies have complained to the US Embassy that their employees “will vote with their feet.”
Donors suggest that their ongoing discussions with the Afghan government will lead to a compromise. But Karzai, despite delaying implementation of the ban, still seems determined to lock private security firms out of Afghanistan, calling them a menace to stability.
Employing development contractors is a fundamental part of Gen. David Petraeus’ much-touted counter-insurgency strategy. Petraeus, the commander of all NATO forces in Afghanistan, is said to be lobbying Karzai’s government for an exception to the ban that covers a wide array of peace-building activities.
Even the United Nations is reviewing its programs to assess the ban’s potential impact. With UNAMA (the UN’s umbrella organization in Afghanistan) playing an overt political role, the mission has suffered increasing attacks. An attack on a UN guesthouse in Kabul last October left six international UN workers dead. On October 24, UN security repelled an attack on a UN guesthouse in Herat, killing four armed insurgents. The UN hopes its own security forces will be exempted from the new rule.
Not all donors use private security companies. The Indian Embassy, which has suffered two massive suicide bombings in the past three years, uses a combination of ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police, an Indian government paramilitary organization) and Afghan National Police to guard the embassy, as well as its projects.
The Canadian government also indicated that a ban would have a minimal impact on aid operations that it sponsors. “Most of our development assistance implementing partners do not use private security firms,” a spokeswoman for the Canadian Embassy said, adding that Ottawa had sought an implementation plan that would allow the international community to remain in Afghanistan while respecting the goals of the presidential decree.
Karzai Puts Peace Hopes in Hands of Warlords
Eurasianet, October 12, 2010
The High Peace Council, Afghanistan’s new vehicle for promoting reconciliation between President Hamid Karzai’s administration and Taliban militants, is set to convene on October 13. But even before its first session gets underway, civil society activists in the country are condemning the council as a charade.
The council comprises 70 members -- all appointed by Karzai. The president has indicated that the council will have broad authority to engage Taliban representatives in the search for an end to the Islamic militant insurgency. The council’s specific powers and duties have not yet been defined, although members on October 10 chose a chairman, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. An ethnic Tajik, Rabbani is closely associated with the Jamiat-e Islami faction, which gained fame for its resistance to Soviet occupying forces during the 1980s.
It is unclear whether the High Peace Council will act as an advisory body or whether its decisions will be binding and subject to oversight. “The commission will develop its own rules and procedures,” presidential spokesman Waheed Omer said during a September 28 news conference, referring to the body’s powers of enforcement. The council’s only clear function is to administer the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, some $500 million in donor money earmarked to reintegrate Taliban foot soldiers. Western donors announced the fund in January.
Like Rabbani, many of the council members played prominent roles in 1992-1996 factional fighting that followed the collapse of Afghanistan’s Moscow-backed Communist regime. Several council members are suspected of having carried out human rights violations, but have never been convicted. Most members also were involved in efforts to resist Taliban attempts in the mid-1990s to establish control over all of Afghanistan.
The fact that the Peace Council is packed with past fighters does not inspire confidence among non-governmental organization (NGO) activists in Afghanistan. In an unprecedented show of unity, over 300 NGOs publicly criticized the composition of the council, saying a number of the members had “better experience in war rather than peace.” The composition of the council could “not only slow down the progress of the peace process but will ultimately result in its failure,” the NGOs said the October 4 joint statement.
“We have the usual faces,” said Nargis Nehan, Director of Equality for Peace and Democracy, a civil rights group. “We have been calling them warlords, and now they are on a list to bring peace and democracy. The list does not have any of the people who are working for peace and democracy.”
Defending Karzai’s selections, Omer, the presidential spokesman, said that council members “have their own importance and influence on the peace process.”
Of the 70 members, nine are women and only a handful come from the non-governmental sector, critics say. Perhaps the most notable figures omitted from the council are reconciled Taliban leaders, including Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil and Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.
Publicly, the international community has welcomed the High Peace Council. Only Norway has noted concern about its “narrow composition.” But many foreign observers and diplomats stationed in Kabul are quietly dismayed.
“The composition […] reflects the group of people who President Karzai thinks are power brokers and is a reflection of the current set-up of the ‘Karzai Coalition.’ It is Kabul and government-centric,” Thomas Ruttig co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network, an independent think-tank in Kabul, told EurasiaNet.org. “Most of the people are those he [Karzai] is consulting anyway.”
The council “is an effort to placate the international community with the names they know,” Ruttig continued. “It is not good enough.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a European diplomat said the High Peace Council was comprised simply of “the usual suspects and that, in itself, is not encouraging. These are the people who have been in charge for the past nine to 10 years. They fought the Taliban. Why would the Taliban want to talk to them?”
The High Peace Council, Afghanistan’s new vehicle for promoting reconciliation between President Hamid Karzai’s administration and Taliban militants, is set to convene on October 13. But even before its first session gets underway, civil society activists in the country are condemning the council as a charade.
The council comprises 70 members -- all appointed by Karzai. The president has indicated that the council will have broad authority to engage Taliban representatives in the search for an end to the Islamic militant insurgency. The council’s specific powers and duties have not yet been defined, although members on October 10 chose a chairman, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani. An ethnic Tajik, Rabbani is closely associated with the Jamiat-e Islami faction, which gained fame for its resistance to Soviet occupying forces during the 1980s.
It is unclear whether the High Peace Council will act as an advisory body or whether its decisions will be binding and subject to oversight. “The commission will develop its own rules and procedures,” presidential spokesman Waheed Omer said during a September 28 news conference, referring to the body’s powers of enforcement. The council’s only clear function is to administer the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, some $500 million in donor money earmarked to reintegrate Taliban foot soldiers. Western donors announced the fund in January.
Like Rabbani, many of the council members played prominent roles in 1992-1996 factional fighting that followed the collapse of Afghanistan’s Moscow-backed Communist regime. Several council members are suspected of having carried out human rights violations, but have never been convicted. Most members also were involved in efforts to resist Taliban attempts in the mid-1990s to establish control over all of Afghanistan.
The fact that the Peace Council is packed with past fighters does not inspire confidence among non-governmental organization (NGO) activists in Afghanistan. In an unprecedented show of unity, over 300 NGOs publicly criticized the composition of the council, saying a number of the members had “better experience in war rather than peace.” The composition of the council could “not only slow down the progress of the peace process but will ultimately result in its failure,” the NGOs said the October 4 joint statement.
“We have the usual faces,” said Nargis Nehan, Director of Equality for Peace and Democracy, a civil rights group. “We have been calling them warlords, and now they are on a list to bring peace and democracy. The list does not have any of the people who are working for peace and democracy.”
Defending Karzai’s selections, Omer, the presidential spokesman, said that council members “have their own importance and influence on the peace process.”
Of the 70 members, nine are women and only a handful come from the non-governmental sector, critics say. Perhaps the most notable figures omitted from the council are reconciled Taliban leaders, including Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil and Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.
Publicly, the international community has welcomed the High Peace Council. Only Norway has noted concern about its “narrow composition.” But many foreign observers and diplomats stationed in Kabul are quietly dismayed.
“The composition […] reflects the group of people who President Karzai thinks are power brokers and is a reflection of the current set-up of the ‘Karzai Coalition.’ It is Kabul and government-centric,” Thomas Ruttig co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network, an independent think-tank in Kabul, told EurasiaNet.org. “Most of the people are those he [Karzai] is consulting anyway.”
The council “is an effort to placate the international community with the names they know,” Ruttig continued. “It is not good enough.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a European diplomat said the High Peace Council was comprised simply of “the usual suspects and that, in itself, is not encouraging. These are the people who have been in charge for the past nine to 10 years. They fought the Taliban. Why would the Taliban want to talk to them?”
Is UN’s 'Collective Ambiguity' Just Another Term for Surrender?
Eurasianet, October 16, 2010
Inside the United Nations’ Kabul offices, senior officials have coined a phrase for how they are approaching Afghanistan’s September 18 parliamentary elections and the ongoing vote count: “constructive ambiguity.” The term, critics of the UN’s stance say, indicates that the organization is giving up on the Afghan democratization process.
By all appearances, the September 18 parliamentary elections, just like last year’s presidential vote, were tainted by ballot-stuffing and other dirty tricks. Since polls closed two weeks ago, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has received over 3,000 complaints. Roughly half of them, according to election officials, could potentially impact the outcome of MP races. Preliminary results are expected on October 8 and final results by the end of the month.
Prior to the election, foreign political observers held up the parliamentary vote as a crucial democratization test. Now that it’s clear that this legislative election didn’t mark much of an improvement over previous votes, the international community seems satisfied to merely acknowledge the “achievement” of the vote being held, given the growing level of violence in the country associated with the Taliban insurgency.
A diplomat familiar with UN thinking lauded the “constructive ambiguity” approach, saying it gave the UN needed flexibility. It allows the UN to quietly prod the Afghan government to act more responsibly and transparently, while enabling the organization to keep its hands clean in a messy process, the diplomat explained.
The term can also be used to justify a hands-off approach to the ballot-counting process. For the first time in Afghanistan’s post-Taliban history, the UN is not taking responsibility for the vote’s credibility, or the conduct of an independent assessment. This position on the parliamentary vote tally stands in sharp contrast to the presidential elections in 2009, when the international community focused on the extensive ballot fraud (1.5 million votes out of a total of 3.6 million were cancelled in the end). Ultimately, disagreement over the seriousness of the electoral fraud during the presidential election prompted a shake-up of the UN’s top leadership in Afghanistan.
The fallout from 2009 also soured relations between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the international community. The president, according to insiders, is said still to be holding a grudge for being forced by donor states to prepare for a second round of polling. (The second round never actually took place, as Karzai’s challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew before polling day).
This time around, the UN, which leads the international community’s involvement in Afghan elections, apparently thought it expedient to be quiet. Back in April, the new head of the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Staffan de Mistura, certified the merit of Afghan government plans for making elections more credible and transparent and recommended to donors to release funds for the electoral process. However, this time -- unlike the comprehensive monitoring it carried out in 2009 along with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) -- the UN declined to involve itself in monitoring the parliamentary balloting.
“There is a very strict rule which exists,” de Mistura told EurasiaNet.org on September 14. “If you are part of organizing elections and supporting the organization of the elections you cannot be part of the monitoring and observation. In other words, we start having what is called a conflict of interest.”
Asked about the monitoring role in 2009, de Mistura said “that was a mistake last year. The rule is if you are part of organizing it, supporting it, you are not part of observing it.” De Mistura also suggested that other international observer missions were ineffectual, adding, “By the way, foreigners do not speak the language.” Domestic observers are more appropriate, he stressed.
Most donor nations took a hint from the UN. Long before the process began this year, Western diplomats based in Kabul made it clear that their governments would not say anything critical of the elections. In particular, the EU, which deployed a high-profile 10 million-euro observation mission during the 2009 presidential election, merely sent an election assessment team (EAT) this time around. The EAT was widely seen as under-prepared for its task and is not expected to make a public assessment on the conduct of the voting.
Moreover, immediately following the controversial presidential election, the international community conditioned its financial assistance for the parliamentary elections on the implementation of electoral reforms. But as the legislative voting approached, this demand was shelved and donor nations provided approximately $150 million in support.
In the eyes of Afghan democratization advocates, the UN’s constructive ambiguity stance is a disaster. The most respected domestic election observer mission, FEFA (Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan) urged the international community to play a robust role in the post-election process.
Specifically, FEFA said in a statement that the international community needed to “denounce identified acts of fraud, regardless of their perpetrator, and provide technical assistance to the ECC and IEC [Independent Election Commission] in verifying the results of the elections and carrying out investigations.”
While the donor community is providing these electoral bodies with technical and financial support, this assistance has not enabled adequate transparency in counting and fraud mitigation, making it difficult even for independent observer groups to gauge the credibility of the process, say analysts. De Mistura has tacitly sought to downgrade expectations by repeatedly stating the elections are likely to be imperfect because “we are not in Switzerland. We are in Afghanistan.”
Some non-governmental activists have equated the UN stance with an act of surrender. Commenting in the Afghan magazine “Killid” on October 2, Thomas Ruttig, co-director and senior analyst at the Afghan Analysts Network, an independent think-tank in Kabul, suggested that the popularity of the “Switzerland mantra” is “because the West is mentally on its way out of Afghanistan already” and the elections “were its farewell performance; it has decided to play a role in the wings only.”
At a September 16 news conference, Abdullah Abdullah, the defeated presidential candidate in 2009, hinted that the international community was trying to distance itself from a job poorly done. “They are aware of the shortcomings and they don’t want to be associated with it,” he said.
But Abdullah added that history would not forget the international community’s bungling. “To show a hands-off attitude will not lessen the responsibilities which the international community has toward the people of Afghanistan, or of member states towards their own citizens, because, after all, this election is also being funded by the money from the international community,” Abdullah said.
Inside the United Nations’ Kabul offices, senior officials have coined a phrase for how they are approaching Afghanistan’s September 18 parliamentary elections and the ongoing vote count: “constructive ambiguity.” The term, critics of the UN’s stance say, indicates that the organization is giving up on the Afghan democratization process.
By all appearances, the September 18 parliamentary elections, just like last year’s presidential vote, were tainted by ballot-stuffing and other dirty tricks. Since polls closed two weeks ago, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has received over 3,000 complaints. Roughly half of them, according to election officials, could potentially impact the outcome of MP races. Preliminary results are expected on October 8 and final results by the end of the month.
Prior to the election, foreign political observers held up the parliamentary vote as a crucial democratization test. Now that it’s clear that this legislative election didn’t mark much of an improvement over previous votes, the international community seems satisfied to merely acknowledge the “achievement” of the vote being held, given the growing level of violence in the country associated with the Taliban insurgency.
A diplomat familiar with UN thinking lauded the “constructive ambiguity” approach, saying it gave the UN needed flexibility. It allows the UN to quietly prod the Afghan government to act more responsibly and transparently, while enabling the organization to keep its hands clean in a messy process, the diplomat explained.
The term can also be used to justify a hands-off approach to the ballot-counting process. For the first time in Afghanistan’s post-Taliban history, the UN is not taking responsibility for the vote’s credibility, or the conduct of an independent assessment. This position on the parliamentary vote tally stands in sharp contrast to the presidential elections in 2009, when the international community focused on the extensive ballot fraud (1.5 million votes out of a total of 3.6 million were cancelled in the end). Ultimately, disagreement over the seriousness of the electoral fraud during the presidential election prompted a shake-up of the UN’s top leadership in Afghanistan.
The fallout from 2009 also soured relations between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the international community. The president, according to insiders, is said still to be holding a grudge for being forced by donor states to prepare for a second round of polling. (The second round never actually took place, as Karzai’s challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew before polling day).
This time around, the UN, which leads the international community’s involvement in Afghan elections, apparently thought it expedient to be quiet. Back in April, the new head of the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Staffan de Mistura, certified the merit of Afghan government plans for making elections more credible and transparent and recommended to donors to release funds for the electoral process. However, this time -- unlike the comprehensive monitoring it carried out in 2009 along with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) -- the UN declined to involve itself in monitoring the parliamentary balloting.
“There is a very strict rule which exists,” de Mistura told EurasiaNet.org on September 14. “If you are part of organizing elections and supporting the organization of the elections you cannot be part of the monitoring and observation. In other words, we start having what is called a conflict of interest.”
Asked about the monitoring role in 2009, de Mistura said “that was a mistake last year. The rule is if you are part of organizing it, supporting it, you are not part of observing it.” De Mistura also suggested that other international observer missions were ineffectual, adding, “By the way, foreigners do not speak the language.” Domestic observers are more appropriate, he stressed.
Most donor nations took a hint from the UN. Long before the process began this year, Western diplomats based in Kabul made it clear that their governments would not say anything critical of the elections. In particular, the EU, which deployed a high-profile 10 million-euro observation mission during the 2009 presidential election, merely sent an election assessment team (EAT) this time around. The EAT was widely seen as under-prepared for its task and is not expected to make a public assessment on the conduct of the voting.
Moreover, immediately following the controversial presidential election, the international community conditioned its financial assistance for the parliamentary elections on the implementation of electoral reforms. But as the legislative voting approached, this demand was shelved and donor nations provided approximately $150 million in support.
In the eyes of Afghan democratization advocates, the UN’s constructive ambiguity stance is a disaster. The most respected domestic election observer mission, FEFA (Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan) urged the international community to play a robust role in the post-election process.
Specifically, FEFA said in a statement that the international community needed to “denounce identified acts of fraud, regardless of their perpetrator, and provide technical assistance to the ECC and IEC [Independent Election Commission] in verifying the results of the elections and carrying out investigations.”
While the donor community is providing these electoral bodies with technical and financial support, this assistance has not enabled adequate transparency in counting and fraud mitigation, making it difficult even for independent observer groups to gauge the credibility of the process, say analysts. De Mistura has tacitly sought to downgrade expectations by repeatedly stating the elections are likely to be imperfect because “we are not in Switzerland. We are in Afghanistan.”
Some non-governmental activists have equated the UN stance with an act of surrender. Commenting in the Afghan magazine “Killid” on October 2, Thomas Ruttig, co-director and senior analyst at the Afghan Analysts Network, an independent think-tank in Kabul, suggested that the popularity of the “Switzerland mantra” is “because the West is mentally on its way out of Afghanistan already” and the elections “were its farewell performance; it has decided to play a role in the wings only.”
At a September 16 news conference, Abdullah Abdullah, the defeated presidential candidate in 2009, hinted that the international community was trying to distance itself from a job poorly done. “They are aware of the shortcomings and they don’t want to be associated with it,” he said.
But Abdullah added that history would not forget the international community’s bungling. “To show a hands-off attitude will not lessen the responsibilities which the international community has toward the people of Afghanistan, or of member states towards their own citizens, because, after all, this election is also being funded by the money from the international community,” Abdullah said.
Parliamentary Elections a Critical Point for Kabul
Eurasianet/ October 17
Afghanistan’s parliamentary election on September 18 is shaping up as a critical democratization test. Over the past five years, parliament has acted as virtually the only check on President Hamid Karzai’s authority. Experts are wondering whether the legislators who are elected in the upcoming voting will keep on acting as a counterweight to executive authority.
Karzai has steadily accumulated influence over the Afghan political process during his years in power. But the controversial way in which he secured reelection in 2009, amid allegations of widespread fraud, weakened his political image and heightened concerns about persistent government corruption. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
MPs for the better part of the year have been impeding Karzai’s political agenda, most notably by withholding confirmation for many of his picks for cabinet positions.
At stake in the September 18 voting are 249 seats in the lower house of parliament. Almost 2,500 candidates are registered. Not surprisingly, Karzai has been working diligently to increase the chances that the elections will produce a legislative branch that is more pliant to his wishes. Political observers are worried that such a result could have damaging consequences for the democratization process.
“While pre-election politicking […] has generated a prominent (and very public) chasm between the Wolesi Jirga [lower house of parliament] and the Karzai administration, under the surface exist connections between MPs and the executive that threaten to strip the parliament of any monitoring or oversight capacity that it currently has,” writes Anna Larson in a recent report on the elections published by the respected Afghan Research and Analysis Unit (AREU).
The country’s unwieldy electoral system impedes political parties from contesting polls. The result is a fragmented polity, in which parties have a hard time coalescing into nationwide political forces. As a result, Afghan politics since the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in late 2001 has been characterized by loose and shifting coalitions, hampering parliament’s ability to check the executive branch.
Despite the obstacles in the way of political parties, factions do exist. But some prominent leaders of major factions, such as Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqiq, are floundering. Having supported Karzai in the 2009 presidential elections, they now find themselves largely sidelined, with few of Karzai’s political promises having been fulfilled. As a result, their political leverage in the parliamentary election campaign has been greatly reduced. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
In addition, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, in contrast to a year ago when he emerged as the de facto leader of the opposition by challenging Karzai for the presidency, has seen many of his supporters drift away, co-opted by Karzai’s shrewd political maneuvers. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
First-time candidate Haroun Mir is well aware of parliament’s limitations and Karzai’s ongoing efforts to secure a more biddable legislature. “Instead of strengthening legal institutions, President Karzai has built parallel institutions and processes like the peace jirga and the high council for peace which have no place in the constitution. In doing so he has undermined parliament,” Mir told EurasiaNet.org.
Mir fears that money, muscle and fraud will mar the forthcoming elections. If that happens, Mir added, irreparable damage could be done to the country’s democratization hopes. “They [Karzai supporters] are doing everything they can to get a majority. Fraud will happen no doubt. It will be widespread in the South. But if we don’t take the fight [to parliament], if we leave the spaces empty, we could lose everything,” he said.
“This could be the last chance for Afghanistan,” Mir continued. “If we can not change the situation, bring some hope, Afghanistan could slide into chaos, into civil war.”
Though his political career began with the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban network of which Abdullah was a key member, Mir is now disillusioned with the ineffectiveness of the opposition and has parted ways.
Asked about the weak state of his opposition, Abdullah told EurasiaNet.org that he expects “at least 60 MPs” to form a loose confederation under his leadership, called the Coalition of Hope and Change, after the vote. Within the fragmented parliament, a bloc of 60 (out of 249 seats) could wield considerable influence, if it proves cohesive.
Many experts are skeptical that Abdullah’s efforts to form such a parliamentary faction will work. MPs are expected to remain likely to form coalitions according to expediency, especially when they stand to benefit personally and financially, observers say. Without a powerful party system, MPs are not bound to follow any particular line, leaving them open to pressure and patronage from the Karzai camp.
About 80 percent of incumbent MPs are seeking reelection. Also in the running, noted Noah Coburn in a separate AREU report, “are a group of influential commanders who chose not to run in 2005.” These commanders now see the “clear financial benefits of securing a seat and feeling reassured by a continued culture of impunity.”
Afghanistan’s increasingly dangerous security environment promises to create challenges on election day. Election officials indicate that close to one out of six polling centers are unlikely to operate on September 18 due to the threat of violence. A prolonged ballot-counting process also could create opportunities for fraud, some observers say. Preliminary results are not expected until October 8, and official tallies may not be announced until Halloween.
Afghanistan’s parliamentary election on September 18 is shaping up as a critical democratization test. Over the past five years, parliament has acted as virtually the only check on President Hamid Karzai’s authority. Experts are wondering whether the legislators who are elected in the upcoming voting will keep on acting as a counterweight to executive authority.
Karzai has steadily accumulated influence over the Afghan political process during his years in power. But the controversial way in which he secured reelection in 2009, amid allegations of widespread fraud, weakened his political image and heightened concerns about persistent government corruption. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
MPs for the better part of the year have been impeding Karzai’s political agenda, most notably by withholding confirmation for many of his picks for cabinet positions.
At stake in the September 18 voting are 249 seats in the lower house of parliament. Almost 2,500 candidates are registered. Not surprisingly, Karzai has been working diligently to increase the chances that the elections will produce a legislative branch that is more pliant to his wishes. Political observers are worried that such a result could have damaging consequences for the democratization process.
“While pre-election politicking […] has generated a prominent (and very public) chasm between the Wolesi Jirga [lower house of parliament] and the Karzai administration, under the surface exist connections between MPs and the executive that threaten to strip the parliament of any monitoring or oversight capacity that it currently has,” writes Anna Larson in a recent report on the elections published by the respected Afghan Research and Analysis Unit (AREU).
The country’s unwieldy electoral system impedes political parties from contesting polls. The result is a fragmented polity, in which parties have a hard time coalescing into nationwide political forces. As a result, Afghan politics since the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in late 2001 has been characterized by loose and shifting coalitions, hampering parliament’s ability to check the executive branch.
Despite the obstacles in the way of political parties, factions do exist. But some prominent leaders of major factions, such as Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqiq, are floundering. Having supported Karzai in the 2009 presidential elections, they now find themselves largely sidelined, with few of Karzai’s political promises having been fulfilled. As a result, their political leverage in the parliamentary election campaign has been greatly reduced. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
In addition, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, in contrast to a year ago when he emerged as the de facto leader of the opposition by challenging Karzai for the presidency, has seen many of his supporters drift away, co-opted by Karzai’s shrewd political maneuvers. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
First-time candidate Haroun Mir is well aware of parliament’s limitations and Karzai’s ongoing efforts to secure a more biddable legislature. “Instead of strengthening legal institutions, President Karzai has built parallel institutions and processes like the peace jirga and the high council for peace which have no place in the constitution. In doing so he has undermined parliament,” Mir told EurasiaNet.org.
Mir fears that money, muscle and fraud will mar the forthcoming elections. If that happens, Mir added, irreparable damage could be done to the country’s democratization hopes. “They [Karzai supporters] are doing everything they can to get a majority. Fraud will happen no doubt. It will be widespread in the South. But if we don’t take the fight [to parliament], if we leave the spaces empty, we could lose everything,” he said.
“This could be the last chance for Afghanistan,” Mir continued. “If we can not change the situation, bring some hope, Afghanistan could slide into chaos, into civil war.”
Though his political career began with the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban network of which Abdullah was a key member, Mir is now disillusioned with the ineffectiveness of the opposition and has parted ways.
Asked about the weak state of his opposition, Abdullah told EurasiaNet.org that he expects “at least 60 MPs” to form a loose confederation under his leadership, called the Coalition of Hope and Change, after the vote. Within the fragmented parliament, a bloc of 60 (out of 249 seats) could wield considerable influence, if it proves cohesive.
Many experts are skeptical that Abdullah’s efforts to form such a parliamentary faction will work. MPs are expected to remain likely to form coalitions according to expediency, especially when they stand to benefit personally and financially, observers say. Without a powerful party system, MPs are not bound to follow any particular line, leaving them open to pressure and patronage from the Karzai camp.
About 80 percent of incumbent MPs are seeking reelection. Also in the running, noted Noah Coburn in a separate AREU report, “are a group of influential commanders who chose not to run in 2005.” These commanders now see the “clear financial benefits of securing a seat and feeling reassured by a continued culture of impunity.”
Afghanistan’s increasingly dangerous security environment promises to create challenges on election day. Election officials indicate that close to one out of six polling centers are unlikely to operate on September 18 due to the threat of violence. A prolonged ballot-counting process also could create opportunities for fraud, some observers say. Preliminary results are not expected until October 8, and official tallies may not be announced until Halloween.
Afghan vote a foregone conclusion
Asia Times, September 17
KABUL - As Afghans go to the polls to elect a new parliament, the result is already a foregone conclusion. Far from handing power to one political party, voters will return 249 individuals who must act as a de facto and fragmented opposition with little hope of setting out viable alternatives to the government's agenda.
In the country's party-less system, political allegiances are ever shifting - changing from policy to policy - and groups of MPs have often used their spoiler ability to extract concessions rather than shape administrative agendas. Realizing that the only leverage is their ability to block the government, MPs have come together to oppose sections of the budget, appointments to high office, including the cabinet, and critical legislation that the government wants to pass.
The legislative body has been a thorn in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's side. He will be looking for the September 18 polls
to help consolidate his power after reports that prominent opposition leaders have been co-opted by the government in recent months, analysts say.
''While pre-election politicking […] has generated a prominent (and very public chasm) between the Wolesi Jirga [lower house of parliament] and the Karzai administration, under the surface exist connections between MPs and the executive that threaten to strip the parliament of any monitoring or oversight capacity that it currently has,'' Anna Larson wrote in a report by the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU).
Major government initiatives - such as the move towards negotiations with the Taliban or the cross-border peace jirga - have completely bypassed parliament for a "wider" consultation with the people, inherently implying its non-representative nature.
Former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a key member of the Northern Alliance, which includes Karzai challenger Abdullah Abdullah, have made peace with Karzai. Though Abdullah was sharply critical of the peace jirga held in June, Rabbani agreed to chair it, taking the steam out of opposition to the event. In the week preceding the election, another Northern Alliance member, the current speaker of the lower house of parliament, Younus Qanooni, was forced to deny he had struck a deal with Karzai in return for continuing in the post. Qanooni is a sharp political operator whose skills have honed parliament’s oppositional tactics.
Several key players may be considering their political options since no one is quite sure what the elections will throw up. Insecurity, fraud, and doubts over Afghan voters' eagerness and ability to exercise their right to vote, all present a range of unpredictables.
The country's Independent Election Commission, which has distributed 17.5 million voter registration cards for Saturday's ballot, puts the voting population at about 12.5 million, while the UN says the eligible voters number 10.5 million, based on past voting. Added to that uncertainty is that 15% of voters have been potentially disenfranchised by the pre-polling decision not to open more than 1,000 polling stations which cannot be secured due to the ongoing conflict.
The difficulty of arriving at anything more than a guesstimate of the voting population is not merely statistical trivia but at the heart of the challenge of mounting elections in a complex situation. There is no method of cross-checking a voter registration card against a voter roll to eliminate fraud. This makes it impossible to gauge the real voter turnout, so there is no available measure of participation in the democratic exercise.
Unlike most elections, where the candidate tries to meet as much of the electorate as possible, for many of Afghanistan's prospective parliamentarians, campaigning has meant their going into hiding or leaving their constituencies to safeguard themselves from kidnapping and attacks by anti-election elements. Yet enthusiasm for the election is high, with more than 2,500 candidates seeking seats including tailors, newscasters, singers and businessmen.
A new crop of influential militia commanders has also entered the fray, according to Noah Coburn, writing for the AREU. Having chosen not to run in 2005, they have now seen the ''clear financial benefits of securing a seat and feeling reassured by a continued culture of impunity,'' Coburn said.
According to reports, some candidates have sought support from insurgents or even asked them to target their opponents. Direct violence between one candidate against a rival has also been reported.
Equally problematic is the issue of how free and fair the contest will be, a year after the 2009 presidential elections that were characterized by widespread fraud. Last year, ballot boxes in many areas were stuffed, while areas of high insecurity saw "ghost" polling stations that did not open or see any voters yet returned full ballot boxes.
Electoral fraud was not limited to ballot-box stuffing. The counting stage provided many steps that could be compromised. These included tamper-proof bags to transport votes that were tampered, tally sheets that did not tally, and triggers to alert to suspicious voting patterns that failed to be triggered during counting, according to Martine van Bijlert of the Afghan Analysts Network, who has dissected incidents of fraud in a recent report.
There is a high likelihood of fraud repeating itself due to a lack of any punitive measures put in place following last year's elections. The maximum penalty imposed was the blacklisting of some election officials, so the cost of attempted fraud in the current ballot is extremely low.
The crowning absurdity of the Afghan elections however is the voting system. Neither the preferential list system, nor the single-non transferable vote, it combines the worst of both, preventing political consolidation. The result is a fragmented and weak polity. Supporters of the system say Afghanistan first needs stability, while critics say the fragmented polity is one of the causes of continuing instability as it prevents the growth of a healthy democracy.
Either way, the final result is not political groups, agendas, manifestos or visions for Afghanistan's future within the parliament, but a collection of 249 individuals unbound by allegiance to any group.
KABUL - As Afghans go to the polls to elect a new parliament, the result is already a foregone conclusion. Far from handing power to one political party, voters will return 249 individuals who must act as a de facto and fragmented opposition with little hope of setting out viable alternatives to the government's agenda.
In the country's party-less system, political allegiances are ever shifting - changing from policy to policy - and groups of MPs have often used their spoiler ability to extract concessions rather than shape administrative agendas. Realizing that the only leverage is their ability to block the government, MPs have come together to oppose sections of the budget, appointments to high office, including the cabinet, and critical legislation that the government wants to pass.
The legislative body has been a thorn in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's side. He will be looking for the September 18 polls
to help consolidate his power after reports that prominent opposition leaders have been co-opted by the government in recent months, analysts say.
''While pre-election politicking […] has generated a prominent (and very public chasm) between the Wolesi Jirga [lower house of parliament] and the Karzai administration, under the surface exist connections between MPs and the executive that threaten to strip the parliament of any monitoring or oversight capacity that it currently has,'' Anna Larson wrote in a report by the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU).
Major government initiatives - such as the move towards negotiations with the Taliban or the cross-border peace jirga - have completely bypassed parliament for a "wider" consultation with the people, inherently implying its non-representative nature.
Former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a key member of the Northern Alliance, which includes Karzai challenger Abdullah Abdullah, have made peace with Karzai. Though Abdullah was sharply critical of the peace jirga held in June, Rabbani agreed to chair it, taking the steam out of opposition to the event. In the week preceding the election, another Northern Alliance member, the current speaker of the lower house of parliament, Younus Qanooni, was forced to deny he had struck a deal with Karzai in return for continuing in the post. Qanooni is a sharp political operator whose skills have honed parliament’s oppositional tactics.
Several key players may be considering their political options since no one is quite sure what the elections will throw up. Insecurity, fraud, and doubts over Afghan voters' eagerness and ability to exercise their right to vote, all present a range of unpredictables.
The country's Independent Election Commission, which has distributed 17.5 million voter registration cards for Saturday's ballot, puts the voting population at about 12.5 million, while the UN says the eligible voters number 10.5 million, based on past voting. Added to that uncertainty is that 15% of voters have been potentially disenfranchised by the pre-polling decision not to open more than 1,000 polling stations which cannot be secured due to the ongoing conflict.
The difficulty of arriving at anything more than a guesstimate of the voting population is not merely statistical trivia but at the heart of the challenge of mounting elections in a complex situation. There is no method of cross-checking a voter registration card against a voter roll to eliminate fraud. This makes it impossible to gauge the real voter turnout, so there is no available measure of participation in the democratic exercise.
Unlike most elections, where the candidate tries to meet as much of the electorate as possible, for many of Afghanistan's prospective parliamentarians, campaigning has meant their going into hiding or leaving their constituencies to safeguard themselves from kidnapping and attacks by anti-election elements. Yet enthusiasm for the election is high, with more than 2,500 candidates seeking seats including tailors, newscasters, singers and businessmen.
A new crop of influential militia commanders has also entered the fray, according to Noah Coburn, writing for the AREU. Having chosen not to run in 2005, they have now seen the ''clear financial benefits of securing a seat and feeling reassured by a continued culture of impunity,'' Coburn said.
According to reports, some candidates have sought support from insurgents or even asked them to target their opponents. Direct violence between one candidate against a rival has also been reported.
Equally problematic is the issue of how free and fair the contest will be, a year after the 2009 presidential elections that were characterized by widespread fraud. Last year, ballot boxes in many areas were stuffed, while areas of high insecurity saw "ghost" polling stations that did not open or see any voters yet returned full ballot boxes.
Electoral fraud was not limited to ballot-box stuffing. The counting stage provided many steps that could be compromised. These included tamper-proof bags to transport votes that were tampered, tally sheets that did not tally, and triggers to alert to suspicious voting patterns that failed to be triggered during counting, according to Martine van Bijlert of the Afghan Analysts Network, who has dissected incidents of fraud in a recent report.
There is a high likelihood of fraud repeating itself due to a lack of any punitive measures put in place following last year's elections. The maximum penalty imposed was the blacklisting of some election officials, so the cost of attempted fraud in the current ballot is extremely low.
The crowning absurdity of the Afghan elections however is the voting system. Neither the preferential list system, nor the single-non transferable vote, it combines the worst of both, preventing political consolidation. The result is a fragmented and weak polity. Supporters of the system say Afghanistan first needs stability, while critics say the fragmented polity is one of the causes of continuing instability as it prevents the growth of a healthy democracy.
Either way, the final result is not political groups, agendas, manifestos or visions for Afghanistan's future within the parliament, but a collection of 249 individuals unbound by allegiance to any group.
Extracting Change in Afghanistan’s Development Quagmire
Eurasianet/July 29, 2010
The girls’ high school under construction in Jabal Seraj could have turned out like any other development project in the area: crumbling and dangerous. Afghanistan is littered with poor-quality buildings sponsored by foreign donors. The projects are often sub-contracted -- several times -- to a final implementer who maximizes profits using cheap labor and sub-standard materials.
But not the Girls’ High School of Jabal Seraj. This community in Parwan province, north of Kabul, succeeded in getting the building contractor to replace approximately 10,000 sub-standard bricks and double the thickness of the metal sheeting on the roof.
Though sub-standard construction and corruption are endemic to many developing countries, in Afghanistan accountability is almost impossible to establish. Eighty-percent of donor money flows outside the government. Donors are responsible to taxpayers in their home countries and not to their Afghan beneficiaries. Project implementers are accountable to the donors and not to communities. The beneficiaries have few means of pressuring for improvements, and this has meant few checks on the rampant corruption that, literally, eats away at the entrails of projects. Most donors lack efficient monitoring resources to ensure effective project implementation.
In an effort to empower local communities and help them to receive the promised aid, Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a non-governmental organization, initiated a local monitoring project in 2007.
The organization approaches a community to explain the concept, says Pajhwok Ghori, in charge of community-based monitoring at IWA. “The community chooses honest [local] people they trust,” he says. Then, in a workshop, these monitors learn how to determine if a project is being implemented according to the designated specifications, and, if not, how to approach the donor. “The local community then selects which particular project is important to them and needs monitoring.”
IWA provides technical help -- for example, engineering experts -- but no salaries, says Lorenzo Delesgues, the co-director of IWA. “This is to ensure that the monitoring process can be sustainable” even without IWA.
In Jabal Seraj, most of the monitors are schoolteachers, thus ensuring respect. “Often the engineers or the construction company pocket the money and carry out bad construction,” says Mohammed Maroof, a local monitor. “Look at the [nearby] Ishkabad School, for example. That, too, was a girls’ school. The wall cracked and broke after barely a year. The girls still have to use that school.”
“This monitoring project has really helped the people,” says Abdul Matin, another project monitor. “Can you imagine what kind of a school would have been constructed here without our intervention? The bricks they were using initially were crumbly; the walls would not have been sturdy. It is difficult sometimes to ask questions and some project implementers do not like the questions. But eventually they have to give the answers.”
The IWA program has an escalating scale of accountability. If the monitors cannot affect change where needed, the community gets involved. If the implementer still does not respond, the community puts pressure on the next link up the chain and so on all the way to the donor.
Some donors have been responsive. Captain A. Heather Coyne, a United States Army reservist who is the NGO/international organizations liaison with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Training Mission Afghanistan (NTMA), has worked with the IWA monitoring project to see how community monitoring can be expanded to NATO-financed police training projects. Her idea is not just to ensure better quality construction, but to use the monitoring method to build a stronger relationship between the police and the local communities.
“We are going to be providing access to IWA for all of our police station construction, so that communities can build confidence [in] police issues, and so that police can see that the community may be an asset to them. We're hoping that communities will use the monitoring process as a way to build more constructive relationships with their police force, as well as making police more accountable and responsive,” Coyne says.
IWA itself has expanded the monitoring from its pilot project in Parwan and has similar projects in Balkh, Nangarhar and Herat provinces. Initially, one of the toughest hurdles was to make communities understand that IWA was not yet another cash-rich NGO handing out goodies.
“We had to tell people, ‘We are not here to pay you; we are not here to build the project,’” says Ghori. “In the beginning, people were skeptical and were not sure they could bring change, but now they are hopeful and more communities are coming and asking for this training. What we want is not just a social audit but social change.”
The monitors’ liaison in Jabal Seraj, IWA employee Haji Ghulam Rasool Khan Gulbahari, says defeating corruption must start at a local level. “We may not be able to stop the corruption at the highest levels by what we do. But even if we cannot end 100 percent of corruption, we can still stop 80 percent. We cannot reach the Arg [the presidential palace], but we can stop the corruption that is happening here in our area.”
The girls’ high school under construction in Jabal Seraj could have turned out like any other development project in the area: crumbling and dangerous. Afghanistan is littered with poor-quality buildings sponsored by foreign donors. The projects are often sub-contracted -- several times -- to a final implementer who maximizes profits using cheap labor and sub-standard materials.
But not the Girls’ High School of Jabal Seraj. This community in Parwan province, north of Kabul, succeeded in getting the building contractor to replace approximately 10,000 sub-standard bricks and double the thickness of the metal sheeting on the roof.
Though sub-standard construction and corruption are endemic to many developing countries, in Afghanistan accountability is almost impossible to establish. Eighty-percent of donor money flows outside the government. Donors are responsible to taxpayers in their home countries and not to their Afghan beneficiaries. Project implementers are accountable to the donors and not to communities. The beneficiaries have few means of pressuring for improvements, and this has meant few checks on the rampant corruption that, literally, eats away at the entrails of projects. Most donors lack efficient monitoring resources to ensure effective project implementation.
In an effort to empower local communities and help them to receive the promised aid, Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a non-governmental organization, initiated a local monitoring project in 2007.
The organization approaches a community to explain the concept, says Pajhwok Ghori, in charge of community-based monitoring at IWA. “The community chooses honest [local] people they trust,” he says. Then, in a workshop, these monitors learn how to determine if a project is being implemented according to the designated specifications, and, if not, how to approach the donor. “The local community then selects which particular project is important to them and needs monitoring.”
IWA provides technical help -- for example, engineering experts -- but no salaries, says Lorenzo Delesgues, the co-director of IWA. “This is to ensure that the monitoring process can be sustainable” even without IWA.
In Jabal Seraj, most of the monitors are schoolteachers, thus ensuring respect. “Often the engineers or the construction company pocket the money and carry out bad construction,” says Mohammed Maroof, a local monitor. “Look at the [nearby] Ishkabad School, for example. That, too, was a girls’ school. The wall cracked and broke after barely a year. The girls still have to use that school.”
“This monitoring project has really helped the people,” says Abdul Matin, another project monitor. “Can you imagine what kind of a school would have been constructed here without our intervention? The bricks they were using initially were crumbly; the walls would not have been sturdy. It is difficult sometimes to ask questions and some project implementers do not like the questions. But eventually they have to give the answers.”
The IWA program has an escalating scale of accountability. If the monitors cannot affect change where needed, the community gets involved. If the implementer still does not respond, the community puts pressure on the next link up the chain and so on all the way to the donor.
Some donors have been responsive. Captain A. Heather Coyne, a United States Army reservist who is the NGO/international organizations liaison with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Training Mission Afghanistan (NTMA), has worked with the IWA monitoring project to see how community monitoring can be expanded to NATO-financed police training projects. Her idea is not just to ensure better quality construction, but to use the monitoring method to build a stronger relationship between the police and the local communities.
“We are going to be providing access to IWA for all of our police station construction, so that communities can build confidence [in] police issues, and so that police can see that the community may be an asset to them. We're hoping that communities will use the monitoring process as a way to build more constructive relationships with their police force, as well as making police more accountable and responsive,” Coyne says.
IWA itself has expanded the monitoring from its pilot project in Parwan and has similar projects in Balkh, Nangarhar and Herat provinces. Initially, one of the toughest hurdles was to make communities understand that IWA was not yet another cash-rich NGO handing out goodies.
“We had to tell people, ‘We are not here to pay you; we are not here to build the project,’” says Ghori. “In the beginning, people were skeptical and were not sure they could bring change, but now they are hopeful and more communities are coming and asking for this training. What we want is not just a social audit but social change.”
The monitors’ liaison in Jabal Seraj, IWA employee Haji Ghulam Rasool Khan Gulbahari, says defeating corruption must start at a local level. “We may not be able to stop the corruption at the highest levels by what we do. But even if we cannot end 100 percent of corruption, we can still stop 80 percent. We cannot reach the Arg [the presidential palace], but we can stop the corruption that is happening here in our area.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)