Aid Delivery and Militarization of Reconstruction of Afghanistan

Transcription

1 1 Aid Delivery and Militarization of Reconstruction of Afghanistan Parwez Besmel & Paul Deasy 26 March, 2012

2 2 Militarization of Reconstruction in Afghanistan Abstract This paper analyzes the role of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in aid delivery and militarization of reconstruction in Afghanistan. In order to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan population, American troops for the first time established a Provincial Reconstruction Team( PRT) in 2002 in Gardez province which is followed by other PRTs in Bamyan, Kundiz,Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Hirat provinces throughout PRT a civilmilitary organization within ISAF originally designed to assist in stability through capacity building, reconstruction and delivery of " essential public services such as security, law and order, justice, health care, and education" (PRT Handbook 2011, p 2). In contrary stability was not achieved and the Afghan government also remained week. Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized PRTs and urged its transition and dismantling because he believes that they are impediment to the central government s expanding its authority throughout the country. Using qualitative and quantitative analysis this paper we addresses these questions: Why PRT was created? How it militarized the reconstruction in Afghanistan? And what are the consequences of these militarization efforts.

3 3 Theoretical Framework in progress In February 2011 at a Security Conference, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded the end of what he called the parallel structures to the Afghan government. NATO-run provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), private security firms and mechanisms through which money and resources spent by donors and their contractors are what Karzai identifies as the parallel structures and urged international community to direct the money and resources through the Afghan government asking NATO in particular to transition and dismantle the NATO-run PRTs. In his speech at the 47th Munich Security Conference in Germany, Karzai stated:"when I spoke of parallel structures, ladies and gentlemen, those who are involved in Afghanistan know what I mean. By parallel structures I mean, private security firms, by parallel structures, I mean PRT s, by parallel structures, I mean direct delivery of money and support to provincial officers, and by parallel structures, I mean contractual mechanisms and the spending of resources through channels other than the afghan government. We have seen in the past ten years that they don t produce the desired results rather they are contributing to a weakened Afghan government and to impediments to the growth of the Afghan state structures and good governance". Parallel structures according to President Karzai confuse Afghan citizens as to who is in charge, impedes the central government authority and challenges the government. (Judy Dempsey, the New York Times Feb, 2011).Karzai's frustration with the channels of aid delivery demonstrates among others his administration's worry about Afghan government legitimacy in the eyes of the common Afghan citizens and the Taliban in particular who see Afghan government weak and prefer direct peace talks with Americans. This paper discusses one of the parallel structures namely NATO-run Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in relations to aid delivery. While focusing on PRTs and its method of aid disbursement,we argue for aid to be

4 4 disbursed through domestic institutions because it provides a sense of nationalism and long-term commitment to the people as well as create dependency on the government, therefore fostering institutional legitimacy. Foreign institutions, in particular foreign military operations, create dependency on the international community who will not remain in the country for much longer, delineating the people s commitment and approval of the Afghan government. Washington Consensus We see aid delivery in Afghanistan as founded on the doctrine of the Washington Consensus. By Washington Consensus we refer to the set of economic policy prescriptions set by Western institutions as a standard path for development. After the collapse of the Taliban, several development strategy papers were prepared by the internationally backed government of Hamid Karzai to chart out development strategies for Afghanistan. These development plans included the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, Securing Afghanistan s Future and National Development Framework and the development strategy documents. Howel and Lind (2009) examined these documents and have concluded The vision of the state embodied in these documents is profoundly neoliberal, with the state s role primarily being to create an enabling policy environment for market forces to flourish. Social welfare provision is subcontracted to a range of private sector bodies and NGOs, with the state s role being limited to largely managerial functions (Howel and Lind 2009, p722). Jane D'Arista (2003) states that deregulation, privatization and financial liberalization are some of the policy reforms within the Washington Consensus and stresses that these reforms are imposed more with emphasis on ideology than on their roles in assisting the development process (p 24). As a result of the imposed development doctrine little bilateral aid has been given to the Afghan government for development projects,

5 5 instead being administered through foreign governments and non-governmental organizations. The aid administered through the international community overwhelmingly reciprocated back to nationals of the donor country rather than being used for development projects. Expatriates receive over 200 times the salary of Afghan civil servants and overall, 40%of aid money inevitably funnels back to the donor country in the form of consultant salaries and corporate profits. In addition, over half of aid money is tied; meaning supplies like cement must be bought from the donor country, not from domestic Afghan producers that would promote domestic industry 1. The inefficiency of this channel of delivery is unquestionably self-serving. NGOs in recent years have turned into a financial business in Afghanistan. Donors supply the money to NGOs to work on a variety of important sectors such as education, health, agriculture. In most cases it has been reported that because of poor performance of the NGOs and other private companies, these sectors have not seen a major improvement. There are times at which the NGOs do not report to the Afghan government of their performance and also violate Afghan laws. Afghan Minister of Economy Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal states that in 2012 they have closed down 600 local and 195 foreign NGOs. The reasons he said was that These NGOs either didn t send us their work reports or committed other violations. The minister further reports that since ,715 Afghan and 301 foreign NGOs have been closed down for breaking the law. Mohammed Hashim Mayar an advisor to Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief ( ACBAR) a coordinating body for aid agencies while welcoming the decision of 1 Matt Waldman, Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan. ACBAR Advocacy Series. Asia Development Bank. < Aid-Effectiveness.pdf>

6 6 Ministry of Economy states that part of the reasons for these NGOs to get them registered with Ministry of Economy is to get money from donors. 2 The method of aid delivery as President Karzai suggests has weakened the Afghan government and seems to have put into question the state s legitimacy. Hamish Nixon (2007) believes that there are certain features of aid delivery that impact the development of legitimate government institutions in Afghanistan. These features are "supply-driven and limited state control" where both the amount and the direction of aid are set overseas and not in Afghanistan. Thus, determination of aid outside the country hampers Afghan government to set priorities. Also a large chunk of aid is delivered outside the channel of Afghan government, therefore Nixon argues that this "hamper government attempts to pursue reform of public institutions and to confront illegitimate power-holders" (Hamish Nixon, 2007, p 5). The emphasis of the international community on delivering the aid through NGO s resulted in the establishment of an excessive number of NGO s, currently amounting to 2059 registered in Afghanistan, based on Ministry of Economic statistics. It seems that international community in particular the donor countries ignore the elected Afghan government reasonable demands for channeling the aid through the Afghan state that ultimately will lead to stronger government institutions. Howel and Lind (2009) do not see overlooking the "complex associational landscape in Afghanistan" by the donors as something novel. They state that donors practice and behave as such in post-conflict societies; for instance such practices were exercised in counties such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka. In post 2 FrudBezhan, Afghanistan Closes Hundreds of NGOs. Radio Free Europe. 24.html

7 7 conflict countries donors function on an assumption that " social breakdown has happened duringconflict and thus there is a lack of local decision-making structures with sufficient authority to guide and deliver development (Richmond and Carey, 2005; Goodhand, 2006)." (Jude Howell and Jeremy Lind, 2009, P732). Provincial Reconstruction Teams After the collapse of the Taliban regime, in December 2001 United Nations organized a conference in Bonn Germany where attending Afghan parties decided on a plan for governing post-taliban-regime in Afghanistan. The Afghan parties attending the Bonn conference agreed that United Nations Security Council can authorize deployment of United Nations mandated force to maintain security in Kabul and surrounding areas and if appropriate could expand to other areas. The Bonn agreement paved the path for creation of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In 2003 NATO took the leadership of ISAF and the alliance got responsibility of command and coordination of the force. ISAF embarked on a range of duties such as "counterinsurgency, stabilization and reconstruction" ( Oskari Eronen, 2008). According to Markus Gauster (2008) from the beginning of coalition troop s presence in Afghanistan, the Afghan citizens acceptance of foreign troops were considerably low. Even those who have suffered from Taliban are skeptical of coalition forces in Afghanistan. That is why " from the very beginning the US invested a lot of effort into trying to win the hearts and minds of the population, but have not achieved significant breakthroughs so far" ( Markus Gauster 2009, p 36). In order to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan population, American troops for the first time established a PRT in 2002 in Gardez province which is followed by other PRTs in Bamyan, Kundiz,Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Heart provinces throughout ISAF initially took the

8 8 command of PRT in 2003 in Kundoz province and by 2006 took over the command of all PRTs. (PRT Handbook, 2011). PRT a civil- military organization within ISAF designed to assist in stability through capacity building, reconstruction and delivery of " essential public services such as security, law and order, justice, health care, and education" (PRT Handbook 2011, p 2). Markus Gauster (2008) elaborates on the tasks of PRT to include the following "PRT tasks include patrolling, mediation, setting up networks [to the local Population], running reconstruction projects, training and supervising armed forces and police personnel, demobilization and disarming, as well as intelligence" ( Markuscauster 2008, p 9). The PRT Handbook stresses that when the stability objective has been fulfilled, PRT will be dismantled.by there were 26 PRTs functioning in several provinces of Afghanistan (Oskari Eronen, 2008, Peter Runge 2009, ).Since PRTs are run by different countries in the alliance of NATO stationed in Afghanistan, their operation style and size vary. Although there is variation Peter Viggo Jakobsen (2005) discusses common features of PRT as combined group of military and civilian personnel including staff per cent of staff is military and the remaining 5-10 percent is non-military advisors and development experts. " Typically, a PRT will have a Headquarters (HQ) and Civil-Military Affairs (CA)/Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) sections, a civilian-led reconstruction team, engineers, security and military observer teams, linguists and interpreters, and a medical team"( PeterViggo Jakobsen, 2005, p 11). PRTs creation and existence have received mixed reviews. Military actors promote integration of civil- military essential in order for them to win the hearts and minds of Afghan citizens and accommodate development and reconstruction (Peter Runge, 2009). Peter Viggo

9 9 Jakobsen in a report entitled PRTs in Afghanistan Successful, but not Sufficient concludes that "PRTs are successful because they have helped to extend the authority of the Afghan government beyond Kabul, facilitated reconstruction and dampened violence" (Peter ViggoJakobsen, 2005, p 9). Similarly USAID 2006 in Interagnecy Assessment of Provincial Reconstruction Teams writes that PRTs " have been an effective tool for stabilization in Afghanistan, strengthening provincial and district-level institutions and empowering local leaders who support the central government" (Peter Runge, 2009 p5). The report claims that PRTs managed to provide a condition in many places that made economic and social development possible. The critics including the Afghan government and analysts and some humanitarian organization have a different view. Save the Children in 2004 in publication provincial Reconstruction Teams and Humanitarian -Military Relations in Afghanistan writes the critics arguments as PRTs " have done more harm than good" ( Save the Children 2004 p, 3). In line with the Save of the Children, Peter Runge asserts that the aid organization believe that it is important to the mandate of PRTs to be kept separate from those of the international aid organizations otherwise the humanitarian space they need to operate will be jeopardized and the safety of aid workers will be endangered" (Peter Runge, 2009 pp, 6-7). What worries the aid works according to the critics is the fact that existence of PRTs blurs the distinction between the military from that of the civilian workers in Afghanistan. (Lara Olson, 2006).Peter Runge highlights a drastic example of blurring the lines when United States military aircraft in Afghanistan in 2001were dropping bombs and aid packages at the same time and the responsible authorities called it " humanitarian operation flanking military action" ( p 19). There are two key objections against blurring the line between humanitarian action and military by the

10 10 humanitarian organizations. The first objection is about structural association between military and humanitarian actors. The second objection is use of relief works by armed military forces that pursue a military logic. "aid agencies seek to deliver aid because people need it, while armed forces undertake such action as a means of winning the hearts and minds of the population" (Peter Runge, 2009 p 19). Thus the arguments continue that military should concentrate in its core mandate which is creating and maintaining security and protection of the population and if the military gets involved in humanitarian activities, they might be diverted from their main objectives. Elaha Rostami-Povey (2007) who has conducted in-depth interviews with Afghan women as part of field research in Afghanistan, reports the Afghan women she interviewed also do not seem to approve of international organizations performances as these organizations undermine the process of state building. She states that For many Afghans, the presence of international organizations; international financial institutions, donor governments, UN agencies, international NGOs, the private sector and the military weakens the possibility of nation state building in Afghanistan (Elaha Rostami-Povey p,306). As part of her field research Rostami-Povey also asked women perceptions on PRTs. Based on the interviews Rostami Povey quotes a participant Mazar-e Sharif believes that women, especially hate the PRT because in the name of women s rights and human rights they come and intrude our privacy (Elaha Rostami-Povey p,308). Peter Runge cites (Mc Hugh and Gostelow 2004,, VENRO, 2007; British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group 2008 and Donini, 2009) who all agree that the institutionalized form of civil -military cooperation in the form of PRT from the point of view of humanitarian agencies are rejected (Runge, 2009, p 21). In addition the author states several shortcomings and

11 11 impact on the delivery of humanitarian aid that demonstrate that PRTs are a negative model of civil-military relations. These shortcomings are listed as: 1) PRTs contradict humanitarian principles,. 2) PRTs reduce humanitarian space, 3) PRTs do not focus on security, 4) PRTs violate guidelines for civil-military relations, 4) PRTs are not sustainable (Peter Runge, 2009 pp, ). There were many instances when the aid workers were targeted. Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) that has worked in Afghanistan for more than two decades stopped its operation in Afghanistan after a number of its staff were shot and killed in According to Lara Olson (2006) Taliban and other anti-governmental individuals warns the people for their cooperation with PRT as the people are told they are spies. Lara Olson relates that a local partner of CARE International reported that they were approached by the Taliban and were told that if they accepted funding from the military led"provincial reconstruction team" (PRT), their security might be threatened ( p, 14-15). Lara Olsen states that NGOs worry because aid projects implemented by the military are neither cost-effective, nor high quality, nor sustainable (p, 16). President Karzai's speech in Munich Germany clearly demonstrates the Afghan government desire for transition and ultimately ownership of aid delivery from the international community to the Afghan government. Ownership will help the Afghan state to prioritize, plan and deliver services, which will ultimately strengthen government institutions and garner support from the Afghan population. Without doubt service delivery, employment and Afghan engagement in their internal affairs will assist in stability and security, while legitimizing the Afghan government. Joshua Foust (2011) in line with president Karzai demand for transition, in regards to PRT, states that PRTs are a mess because they have been functional for a long time and that there seems to be no plan for how they transition into Afghan government."when

12 12 PRTs funnel hundreds of millions of dollars away from Afghan government control and oversight -- however troubled -- they are directly undermining the very government the United States is relying on for victory". ( Joshua Foust 2011 Foreign Policy ).Similarly Oskari Eronen (2008) in line with Foust and thekarzai, suggests that "PRTs have developed into an incoherent network and are counterproductive to Afghan ownership" (p1). Empirical Evidence Using a comprehensive dataset compiled by The Asia Foundation Survey of , we find strong empirical evidence of our thesis. Humanitarian programs throughout the country have only increased approval of the Afghan government when perceived by the people as being sponsored solely by Afghans. International aid programs hold no statistical significance in fostering government legitimacy in the eyes of the people, and in fact could be detracting from it. Controlling for several factors including fear of violence, military programs, changes in personal prosperity, and educational attainment, we find that humanitarian aid is best channeled through the Afghan government and not through international bodies. The Asia Foundation has conducted surveys of the general populace every year since We utilize survey data collected in 2010, totaling over 6200 interviews in all 34 provinces. Given the large number of observations, we were also able to parse out regional differences, analyzing specifically the people in the safe areas of Northern Afghanistan while still retaining 1771 observations.we use a standard OLS approach. A poisson model was also 3 Asia Foundation A Survey of the Afghan People the broadest public opinion poll in the country. Conducted by The Asia Foundation's office in Afghanistan, the 2010 survey polled 6,467 Afghan citizens across all 34 provinces in the country on security, development, economy, government, corruption, and women's issues to assess the mood and direction of the country. Can be accessed from: poll.php

13 13 utilized with equivalent results, but the distribution of our data was such that an OLS held greater justification. The dependent variable analyzed is the job approval rating of the national government, rated as strongly disapprove, somewhat disapprove, somewhat approve, or strongly approve. Approval ratings we assume to be synonymous with legitimacy. The greater the number of people who approve of the national government the more they believe it to be a legitimate governing body. The two primary determinants of national approval most generally are security and prosperity, which are accounted for with the following variables. The primary independent variable we consider for who administered local programs derives from the survey question Speaking of the past 12 months, do you know of, heard of any project or program in this area, district, implemented in the following fields? If yes, has the Afghan Government or Foreign sponsors been primarily responsible for providing most of the aid for the projects? Humanitarian aid and disarmament programs were the fields included in our model to account for both civil and military operations affecting the general populace. The first variable, projra_hum, is the humanitarian projects in which the Afghan government was responsible. The second variable projri_hum is the humanitarian projects in which the international community was responsible. As control variables the following questions were included: How often do you fear for your own personal safety or security or for that of your family these days? Often, sometimes, rarely, or never?this is thefearsafetyvariable in the below regression. We expect the more people fear for their personal safety, the less they will approve of the government. Compared to one year ago, would you say that situation for your household [finances]has gotten better, remained the same or gotten worse?this is the chg_fin variable, or the change in

14 14 finances from one-year prior. Those interviewees who had increased prosperity over the last year are predicted to hold greater approval of the government. Monthly household income, educational level, and gender of the respondent are also included as demographic control variables. Due to heteroscedasticity present in our model, the below regressions are in robust form. Linear regression Number of obs= 6211 F( 9, 6201) = Prob> F = R-squared = Root MSE = Robust natlapp Coef. Std. Err. t P> t [95% Conf. Interval] projra_hum ** projri_hum fearsafety *** projra_dis *** projri_dis *** chg_fin *** income ** educ female * _cons legend: * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001 Afghan administered humanitarian projects were shown to be positively and significantly related to national approval, while internationally administered programs were negative though insignificant. Expectedly, fear of safety was found to be negatively and significantly associated with national approval, while change in prosperity was found to be positive. Afghans nationally are shown to approve of disarmament programs whoever is administering them. Turning to surveys specifically taken in Northern Afghanistan, where the least amount of violence is occurring and where Germany is heading the PRT, we find similar results. The provinces included in this regression are Badakhshan, Takhar, Baghlan, Kunduz, Samangan,

15 15 Balkh, Jowzjan, Faryab and Sar-i-Pul. Of any region in the country that should have been transferred to Afghan control, it is the north. They have had the institutional capacity and the security to self-determine their own development programs. The primary notable difference between the north and the national regressionis that internationally run disarmament programs lose significance in the north while the programs run by Afghans remain significantly positive, furthering our thesis that the Afghan government should be administering its own domestic programs. Linear Regression Number of obs= 1771 F( 9, 1761) = Prob> F = Adj R-squared = Root MSE = natlapp Coef. Std. Err. t P> t [95% Conf. Interval] projra_hum * projri_hum fearsafety *** projra_dis * projri_dis chg_fin *** income educ ** female ** _cons legend: * p<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p<0.001 Through an analysis of national survey data, we found significant evidence that humanitarian aid administered through the international community has no effect on establishing Afghan government legitimacy. Humanitarian aid channeled through the Afghan government, on the other hand, increases legitimacy and the people s perception of their government. Without allowing the Afghans to administer their own humanitarian programs, the implementation of these projects will not assist in fostering strong governance. Also shown in

16 16 the empirics is the significance of household financial prosperity, which leads to greater approval of government. By creating jobs for Afghans themselves, rather than ex-patriots and foreign consultants, is another means in encouraging faith in the Afghan government. It is very true that decades of war and conflict destroyed the physical infrastructure of the country as well as the social fabric of the Afghan society. However since 2001 a number of important measures were taken under the watch of the international community including donors concerns about local decision making structures and authority. To name only a few, the Afghan government with the assistance of the international community formed a new constitution (2004), held two presidential and two parliamentary elections (2004, ), launched national development programs such as the National Solidarity Program (2002) and created the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (2007). These measures demonstrate that the assumption that there is lack of local decision making structure with sufficient authority to guide and deliver development" (Richmond and Carey, 2005; Goodhand, 2006 in Howel and Lind 2009, p 732) does not hold any longer. Also important to remember is the Afghan and NATO War on Terror and the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. Unless the Afghan government institutions are made stable and strong, the consequences both for the ordinary Afghans and international community will be disastrous in the future. We see that the Taliban and other militants are gaining momentum and every moment they are trying to take advantage of the weak Afghan institutions and government. Without resources in hand, the Afghan government is unable to reach out to the people and deliver services. Therefore it is of great importance and a necessity for international community to embarks on a mechanisms of

17 17 provision of aid to Afghan government so that it build and reform itself and reach out to people and deliver timely services.

18 18 References Elaheh Rostami-Povey. Gender, Agency and Identity, the Case of Afghan Women in Afghnistan, Pakistan and Iran. Journal of Development Studies 43/2(2007) Jude Howell and Jermy Lind. Manufacturing Civil Society and the Limits of Legitimacy: Aid, Security and Civil Society after 9/11 in Afghanistan. European Journal of Development Research 21(2009) Hamish Nixon. Aiding the State? International Assistance and the State building Paradox in Afghanistan Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit: Briefing Paper Series 2007 Lara Olson. Fighting for Humanitarian Space: NGOS in Afghanistan. Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 9/1 (2006) 1-28 Markus Gauster. Provincial Reconstruction Teams European Center for Security Studies: Occasional Paper Series 2008 Oskari Eronen. PRT Models in Afghanistan: Approached to Civil-Military Integration CMC Finland Civilian Crisis Management Studies 2008 Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: An Interagency Assessment. United States Agency for International Development 2006 Peter Runge. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Role model civilmilitary relations? Bonn International Center for Conversion: Occasional Paper IV 2009 Peter Viggo Jakobsen. PRTs In Afghanistan: Successful But Not Sufficient. Danish Institute for International Studies 2005