Afghan Officials Concerned About Effectiveness of Foreign Aid
By Sayed Zafar Hashemi - Afghan government officials are concerned about the effectiveness of foreign aid as Congress considers a White House request for $11.8 billion in U.S. aid over the next two years.Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - Afghan officials want foreign assistance to be channeled through government institutions to ensure compliance with the country's national development strategy.
More than 70 percent of the aid provided to Afghanistan over the past five years was channeled through a multitude of U.N. agencies, international contractors and non-governmental organizations.
Mohammad Ashraf Haidari, political counselor of the Afghan embassy in the United States, said the international community understands that ownership of the rebuilding process by the government and people of Afghanistan is the key to its success.
Haidari said the Afghanistan Compact, signed with international partners in 2006, will prevent waste and help aid groups cooperate.
He said that the U.S. had provided Afghanistan with more than $14 billion in reconstruction assistance since 2001, when the coalition forces toppled the Taliban and made way for the international community to help rebuild Afghanistan.
"As at the beginning, our state institutions were extremely weak and did not have the capacity to implement and deliver aid to people," Haidari said.
He said Afghanistan will never be able to rebuild on its own unless the international community gives aid through Afghanistan's ministries and helps them improve their own skills.
"We need to be in the driver's seat, not outside the car when it comes to addressing Afghanistan's rebuilding priorities," Haidari said.
He said that aid organizations are not always cost-effective, as they have huge operating costs that sometimes amount to more than 40 percent of the aid. If that amount was spent on building the working skills of Afghan ministries, the assistance would be far more effective.
"It would have been delivered to the targeted beneficiaries based on our own priorities, outlined in our national development strategy," Haidari said.
He added that the government of Afghanistan has now established a monitoring and coordinating mechanism to help the international community channel its assistance through the government institutions.
The Joint Coordinating and Monitoring Body met recently met in Berlin to discuss how to best coordinate international aid in Afghanistan. "We hope this institution will be further developed and used as an effective mechanism to accomplish our intended goals," Haidari said.
The Afghanistan Compact sets out an ambitious program for Afghan development over the next five years. With the support of its international partners, the government is committed to specific and achievable goals in security, governance, economic and social development and counter-narcotics.
Spokesmen for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development said they would find out if the U.S. would be willing to channel aid through the Afghan government. But, after several weeks, they did not provide the information.
Lynne Weil, communications director for Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that U.S. funds appropriated for peacekeeping operations are used to cover Afghan National Army salaries.
She said that the source for security forces funding has shifted from the State Department to the Defense Department.
"In addition, Chairman Lantos has expressed his intention to reauthorize the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act, which authorizes security and development assistance," she said.
Weil said that the United States and its allies have very good odds for success. Yet the burden of this success is not being equally shouldered among these allies.
While NATO has technically taken over most of the Afghanistan mission, she said, some NATO countries have taken part in a "half-hearted, unsatisfactory and shabby fashion."
"It is an outrage that this gigantic military alliance cannot provide the troops necessary to win this eminently winnable battle," Weil said.
Weil said that it is entirely unacceptable that NATO commanders are left to beg for troops from countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain. It is an outrage that only troops from the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are deployed to the most hazardous spots, she said.
She said Afghanistan has made great strides along the path to democracy. It now has a freely elected president and parliament, the beginnings of a self-sustaining national army and some legitimate economic development.
Weil said that the country is a long way from being fully democratic, stable and at peace. Opium production has soared, warlords sit in the parliament and the anti-terror fighters and peacekeeping forces hear daily of a possible new offensive against international troops this spring by the Taliban.
"If the United States does not want to lose Afghanistan again, our long-term political, economic, and military commitments to the country must be beyond question," she said.
Brian Maka, spokesman for the office of the assistant secretary of defense, said 26,000 U.S. service members are operating in Afghanistan.
From Sep. 11, 2001, through December, the U.S. has obligated $70 billion for the military in Operation Enduring Freedom, Maka said.
Former Afghan Interior Minster Ali Ahmad Jalali, a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies of the National Defense University, said that the Afghanistan Compact asks $20 billion for 10 years.
"However, in the time compact was signed, [the] situation was different than how it is today," he said. "Afghanistan was more stable."
Jalali said the new budget of $11.8 billion that the U.S. is allocating for next two years, includes only $3 billion is for reconstruction. The rest is for strengthening security forces, and he exclaimed, "which is not a very significant increase!"
"From [the] beginning, capacity was a big problem," he said, adding that only 5 percent of funds provided by the international community was channeled through the government of Afghanistan.
In addition, it led to a brain drain from governmental institutions to NGOs and contractors. Many highly skilled governmental employees sought to work with the contractors instead of the government because there they were well paid, he said.
"Capacity is kind of commodity. If an NGO or contractor can buy and hire it, government can do the same, provided that they have resources," Jalali said.
The other reason to channel the aid through international contractors was the existence of corruption in state institutions, he said.
"The solution is to put the Afghan government in the driver's seat." he said, adding that the international community should also find ways to address corruption and resolve it.
Alas, it is late, and the dialogue will have to wait until tomorrow.
Cheers!
~Michelle
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