By Lida and Salem Ibrahimi

Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the Afghan government has been trying to rebuild and run a country, which has almost nothing to be recovered except few destroyed buildings, non-functioning systems, institutions and poor-stricken population. Notwithstanding, the government capitalized on the post Bonne-agreement political achievements, and with generous support from the international community managed to establish institutions and reconstructed ministries including a dedicated Ministry for Women Affairs. On the ground some improvements include the establishment and renovation of over thousands health facilities, between 2001 and 2007, and increased primary education enrollment reaching a record of over four millions in 2005. Huge amounts of money are invested in the construction of roads and other transport infrastructure, economic growth, and the formation of state security forces.

Photo by David Shaw

The achievements that were made have not yet met the expectations of the general public. According to a report of Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, a total of $25 billion was committed in foreign aid to Afghanistan between 2002 and 2008; of which only $15 billion has been delivered up to date. Where and how it spends; asks every Afghan, who seems less informed about the difference between commitment and delivery of aid as well as how the whole dynamics of an aid economy affecting their lives. Praful Patel, South Asia Regional Vice-President of the World Bank, said at Afghanistan’s Development Forum (ADF) held in Kabul, that the coordination of aid to Afghanistan has been poor. He confirmed that in spite of $1.6 billion invested on capacity building, two-thirds of all development expenditure in Afghanistan bypassed the government’s systems, with corruption and lacks of capacity the main reasons. Many government employees have umpteen numbers of certificates from different types of trainings, which are not often related to their jobs. Sayeed Ismail Agha, Head of Human Resource Department at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kabul said: “each year we add piles of certificates to the personal files of staff but without any improvement in the performance of employees.”

Furthermore, there is not a system to ensure the transparency of aid in Afghanistan, mainly due to the inability of the government to set up effective mechanisms to hold the donors mutually accountable. The Afghanistan Compact benchmarks indicate 77 measurable benchmarks only for Afghan government, whereas none can be found to hold the donors to be accountable. Former Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady, said: “We are accountable for only US$3.7 billion of the US$12.8 billion of aid money that has been spent in the country in the last five years; the rest has been spent by donors themselves.” who is then responsible to monitor the rest of the money is spent and where it ends up.

Patrick Cockburn in the Ugly Truth about Foreign Aid in Afghanistan: Kabul’s New Elite, article stated that “foreign consultants get $250,000 typical annual salary (including 35 percent hardship allowances) compared to $1,000 typical annual salary of Afghan civil servants”. He adds that “40 percent share of international aid budget is returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries – more than $6bn since 2001.” (Independent UK. May 2009)

Finally, this blame-game between the international community and Afghan government is perceived as lack of competence, lack of ability and lack of good will on both sides. If the agenda of reconstruction in Afghanistan has ever to succeed, few immediate steps can be considered to have better effective aid mechanisms. Primarily the donors and Afghan government should harmonize and align their agendas to the needs of the Afghan people. Then empowerment and capacity building programs must be tailored according to what make the government’s employees able to achieve to their actual goal and duty that they are accountable and responsible for. And the government must consider a external national effectiveness body or entity which potentially oversees the national development budget that are implemented by government, local and international’s agencies program implementation process.

*Author Lida: Student of American University of Afghanistan

*Co Author Salem Ibrahimi: Student of American University of Afghanistan

1Women and Men in Afghanistan 2008

2Women and Men in Afghanistan 2008

3Afghanistan’s Development Forum 2007.Kabul

4Personal Interview

Tags | Afghan Government, Afghanistan, International Community, Reconstruction, State-Building in Afghanistan