For Afghanistan’s Secure Future

By M. Ashraf Haidari

Despite the tremendous rebuilding needs of Afghanistan, the international community re-engaged in the country with a very light footprint from the beginning.

Too few troops and resources have proven useful for the potential peace spoilers, who had destabilized Afghanistan and committed serious human rights violations and atrocities against the Afghan people throughout the 1990s.

For example, the Taliban leadership regrouped and reorganized in Pakistan soon after their fall in 2001, and began launching cross-border terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan as early as 2003.

While there has been a full realization of the need to address Afghanistan's complex rebuilding needs, resource levels to the country remain quite modest compared to other recent post-conflict countries including Iraq, Kosovo, and Bosnia.

While Afghanistan is said to have received billions of dollars in assistance since 2001, the reality is that only a fraction of that aid has actually been given to the Afghan government.

For example, of the overall $35 billion in international pledged assistance, only $14.5 billion has been actually disbursed ― out of which only $4.2 billion has been channeled through the Afghan government.

Too much aid is absorbed by profits of companies and subcontractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs.

For example, each full-time expatriate consultant costs up to half a million dollars a year. With resources diverted from the Afghan state institutions, the government can hardly retain its competitive employees for effective service delivery, and often loses them to higher paid jobs with international organizations.

The resulting weak institutional capacity coupled with underpayment causes corruption in the government system. This in turn harms the legitimacy of the government in the public's eyes, leaving a deleterious effect on both governance and security across Afghanistan.

At the Paris Support Conference on Thursday, however, the Afghan government will launch the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) in an effort to jumpstart the rebuilding process and to provide strategic guidance and coherence to international aid efforts in Afghanistan.

In addition, the government of Afghanistan will seek $50 billion in financial assistance from the international community to help implement the short- and long-term objectives of its integrated strategy for improving security, strengthening governance and the rule of law, and providing social and economic facilities and opportunities for the Afghan population.

While generously pledging to fund the ANDS, donors must build on the lessons learned from six years of nation building in Afghanistan to ensure that their aid resources are used effectively through close coordination with Afghan partners, based on sound policies that are centered on local ownership of the development process, so that Afghans themselves can take responsibility for the future of their country.

Failure to do so will repeat more of the same ― resulting in additional pet projects and ad hoc quick fixes without sustainability at all.

It is obvious that when taxpayers in donor countries learn that their precious aid money for Afghanistan are continually wasted, they will eventually tire and most likely withdraw their support from Afghanistan altogether.

Once neglected before, Afghans do not want their country to return to the chaos and violence of the 1990s that made Afghanistan a no man's land, a terrorist base for the Taliban and a-Qaida.

There are unfortunately already signs of popular frustration with the slow process of rebuilding ― which has had no meaningful impact on Afghans' daily lives yet. Moreover, civilian casualties frequently caused by the Taliban's cross-border terrorist attacks and coalition bombing are taking their heavy toll on Afghans.

As we learned from the 9/11 tragedy and the suffering of the Afghan people throughout the 1990s, a failed Afghanistan is not an option for international peace and security. Success must be the only way forward.

The Paris Support Conference offers a vital opportunity for all stake holders ― Afghans and their international partners alike ― to address the key rebuilding challenges facing Afghanistan and to commit firmly to working together to implement the objectives of the ANDS for a free and prosperous Afghanistan.

M. Ashraf Haidari is the political counselor of the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. His e-mail is haidari@embassyofafghanistan.