.Afghanistan’s new leaders emerge from the rubble
THE Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktia can be a fierce and independent-minded bunch. Traditionally, they were exempt from conscription into the national army because of their role in bringing King Nadir Shah (father of the current king Zahir Shah) to power in 1929. But during the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, the local “Paktiawals” were at the forefront of the fighting. Then there was a bitter local dispute before Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s authority was established following the 2001 war which toppled the Taliban from power.
So it was a surprise to find Paktia so apparently calm last November when I visited the provincial capital Gardez.
Back then, the province’s governor, Hakim Taniwal, was upbeat. “There are no serious security issues here these days,” he said confidently. He was also on good terms with the local American garrison, which he felt was helping to keep the peace and allowing development to take place, and he enthused about a micro-hydro project he had just visited in a remote village. Gardez airport was about to reopen, and a digital telephone exchange had been inaugurated.
A gentle sociology professor fluent in five languages, Taniwal seemed to be the right man in a tough job: honest, hard working, a moderniser; but also a supporter of local tradition. By eight o’clock each morning, dozens of people were queuing patiently outside his office to seek his advice on a wide range of issues. He was keeping the peace and fostering progress in one of Afghanistan’s more challenging provinces.
But Taniwal’s openness to his people may have been his undoing. Last Sunday, he became the Afghan government’s highest level casualty in four years. A suicide bomber hurled himself under Taniwal’s car outside the governor’s residence in what seems to have been a deliberate targeting of one of the few Afghans who had the ability and the courage to drive forward the development of his country.
The Afghan civil service is largely stagnant and corrupt. “I know most of my staff sit here drinking tea, and come to work only because they are entitled to an official car,” one minister lamented recently.
After a generation of conflict, the vast majority of Afghans – contrary to the stereotypes – badly want peace and confidence in their government. They also want security, judicial reform and jobs. At present, they are all too aware of the government’s shortcomings, and they despise what they see as rampant corruption and criminality. Many young men, especially in the troubled south of the country, have two alternatives: seek a better life as an illegal immigrant in Europe or join the Taliban.
The irony is that there is plenty of money for development – the British government has earmarked $20 million a year for Helmand province alone – but the mechanisms for spending it remain woefully inadequate. Reinventing local and provincial government with so few skilled administrators after 25 years of war is exceptionally difficult.
But the position is not hopeless. Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s former minister of reconstruction and rural development, provides a case study of how a visionary and highly active minister can collaborate successfully with the international community.
Atmar’s most important legacy is the National Solidarity Programme (NSP), which puts the initiative for development firmly in the hands of local Afghan communities. Through this scheme, communities are offered a grant – on average $30,000 – and told to decide how it should be spent. Popular choices are small-scale electricity generation, clean water, irrigation schemes and road-building projects.
However, the NSP will only carry out the work if the community elects a representative committee – which must include women – thus strengthening local democracy. Twenty-one non-government organisations (NGOs) help make it happen, but control lies firmly with the Afghan government.
The UK Department for International Development, one of the funders of this project which has so far cost about $100m, reckons the NSP has resulted in the formation of more than 8300 elected community development councils (CDCs) representing 6.5 million Afghans in 164 districts in virtually every province – covering about a quarter of the country’s estimated population.
The woman chair of the CDC in the remote central town of Chaghcharan, Dr Aqilah Jan, believes there have been many changes for women over the past four years.
“They were not allowed outside the home, the girls were not allowed to go to school and women did not participate in decision-making. Now there is better security, many girls are encouraged to go to school, and five women are in the CDC and four in the provincial council [both have 15 members].”
Among the improvements she lists are the digging of four fresh-water wells and the generation of electricity for 110 homes. But she is particularly proud of a daily literacy course in the local mosque for 40 women, and she has plans to recruit a second teacher to fulfil increasing demand.
The hospital in Chaghcharan is also being transformed by another flagship initiative known as PRR – priority restructuring and reform of the civil service. Under this scheme, key civil servants have to reapply for their jobs. Interview panels often involve donor representatives as well as Afghans, and the successful candidates can earn a living wage which is up to 20 times their old salary.
Before PRR, some felt that “doctors were on duty only on paper”. But even a monthly salary of $1200 – huge by Afghan standards – has failed so far to attract a female gynaecologist to this remote spot. This is important as the Afghan provinces have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. And one in five children dies before their fifth birthday.
Not surprisingly, PRR is being resisted by entrenched ranks of inefficient, often corrupt, civil servants, and progress is slow. It could be faster if donors were to take a more active role in selection, but they know this has to be an Afghan process for it to have legitimacy.
Atmar, who was recently appointed education minister following his success with rural development, has ordered the PRR process in his ministry to begin again after suspicions that it was implemented corruptly.
With a generation of Afghans trying to catch up on their education, the education ministry is key to the government’s credibility. After years of drift, Atmar is now grappling with the challenges of reaching more than 10 million young people, and many would-be adult learners.
The new incumbent is ensuring that educational development is Afghan-led while retaining support from the international community which helps to plan and implement it, as well as paying most of the bills.
This is a highly skilled balancing act: get it right and the people can experience real progress; but get it wrong and the government is criticised for achieving little on the ground, or it is accused of being run by foreigners. It is clear that where donor funds have been disbursed wisely, there has been real material and social progress. This covers health, education, job creation and security in most of the north of the country.
Social norms are changing through the actions of people like Rohgul Walidzada, who could not step out of her house in the northeastern Badakhshan province five years ago. An experienced science teacher, Walidzada braved taunts and threats to find employment with a British NGO, AfghanAid, and stood for parliament against former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. Her two daughters are studying engineering at Kabul University.
But there is widespread fear that this progress is fragile. Many roads in Badakhshan province are flanked by opium poppy fields, and few roads are immune from banditry. There was no appetite for a return to the Taliban in areas I visited – which are away from the Pashtun heartland of the country – but there was an overwhelming belief that Pakistan was working to re-install them.
Governor Taniwal was critical of the recent peace settlement between the Pakistan government and its own tribal militants just a few days before his death. The Kabul riots in May, which probably claimed many more lives than has been admitted, took everyone by surprise and revealed major weaknesses in the Afghan police and army. It subsequently became clear that the anti-Americanism sparked by a fatal road accident was opportunistically exploited by political forces opposed to the Karzai government.
This remains a vulnerable regime, as the assassination of Taniwal has also shown, but foreign troops are seen by most Afghans as a necessary buffer between progress and anarchy. The British government is committed to assist Afghanistan until 2010. Aid workers and soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are optimistic about the future, but they believe it will take a lot longer than four years.
Much will depend on the Afghans taking effective control of developing their country, and that depends critically on leaders of the calibre of the late Taniwal. His death is a tragedy, but if it deters other talented Afghans from taking up where he left off, it could be a catastrophe for Afghanistan.
SundayHerald
So it was a surprise to find Paktia so apparently calm last November when I visited the provincial capital Gardez.
Back then, the province’s governor, Hakim Taniwal, was upbeat. “There are no serious security issues here these days,” he said confidently. He was also on good terms with the local American garrison, which he felt was helping to keep the peace and allowing development to take place, and he enthused about a micro-hydro project he had just visited in a remote village. Gardez airport was about to reopen, and a digital telephone exchange had been inaugurated.
A gentle sociology professor fluent in five languages, Taniwal seemed to be the right man in a tough job: honest, hard working, a moderniser; but also a supporter of local tradition. By eight o’clock each morning, dozens of people were queuing patiently outside his office to seek his advice on a wide range of issues. He was keeping the peace and fostering progress in one of Afghanistan’s more challenging provinces.
But Taniwal’s openness to his people may have been his undoing. Last Sunday, he became the Afghan government’s highest level casualty in four years. A suicide bomber hurled himself under Taniwal’s car outside the governor’s residence in what seems to have been a deliberate targeting of one of the few Afghans who had the ability and the courage to drive forward the development of his country.
The Afghan civil service is largely stagnant and corrupt. “I know most of my staff sit here drinking tea, and come to work only because they are entitled to an official car,” one minister lamented recently.
After a generation of conflict, the vast majority of Afghans – contrary to the stereotypes – badly want peace and confidence in their government. They also want security, judicial reform and jobs. At present, they are all too aware of the government’s shortcomings, and they despise what they see as rampant corruption and criminality. Many young men, especially in the troubled south of the country, have two alternatives: seek a better life as an illegal immigrant in Europe or join the Taliban.
The irony is that there is plenty of money for development – the British government has earmarked $20 million a year for Helmand province alone – but the mechanisms for spending it remain woefully inadequate. Reinventing local and provincial government with so few skilled administrators after 25 years of war is exceptionally difficult.
But the position is not hopeless. Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s former minister of reconstruction and rural development, provides a case study of how a visionary and highly active minister can collaborate successfully with the international community.
Atmar’s most important legacy is the National Solidarity Programme (NSP), which puts the initiative for development firmly in the hands of local Afghan communities. Through this scheme, communities are offered a grant – on average $30,000 – and told to decide how it should be spent. Popular choices are small-scale electricity generation, clean water, irrigation schemes and road-building projects.
However, the NSP will only carry out the work if the community elects a representative committee – which must include women – thus strengthening local democracy. Twenty-one non-government organisations (NGOs) help make it happen, but control lies firmly with the Afghan government.
The UK Department for International Development, one of the funders of this project which has so far cost about $100m, reckons the NSP has resulted in the formation of more than 8300 elected community development councils (CDCs) representing 6.5 million Afghans in 164 districts in virtually every province – covering about a quarter of the country’s estimated population.
The woman chair of the CDC in the remote central town of Chaghcharan, Dr Aqilah Jan, believes there have been many changes for women over the past four years.
“They were not allowed outside the home, the girls were not allowed to go to school and women did not participate in decision-making. Now there is better security, many girls are encouraged to go to school, and five women are in the CDC and four in the provincial council [both have 15 members].”
Among the improvements she lists are the digging of four fresh-water wells and the generation of electricity for 110 homes. But she is particularly proud of a daily literacy course in the local mosque for 40 women, and she has plans to recruit a second teacher to fulfil increasing demand.
The hospital in Chaghcharan is also being transformed by another flagship initiative known as PRR – priority restructuring and reform of the civil service. Under this scheme, key civil servants have to reapply for their jobs. Interview panels often involve donor representatives as well as Afghans, and the successful candidates can earn a living wage which is up to 20 times their old salary.
Before PRR, some felt that “doctors were on duty only on paper”. But even a monthly salary of $1200 – huge by Afghan standards – has failed so far to attract a female gynaecologist to this remote spot. This is important as the Afghan provinces have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. And one in five children dies before their fifth birthday.
Not surprisingly, PRR is being resisted by entrenched ranks of inefficient, often corrupt, civil servants, and progress is slow. It could be faster if donors were to take a more active role in selection, but they know this has to be an Afghan process for it to have legitimacy.
Atmar, who was recently appointed education minister following his success with rural development, has ordered the PRR process in his ministry to begin again after suspicions that it was implemented corruptly.
With a generation of Afghans trying to catch up on their education, the education ministry is key to the government’s credibility. After years of drift, Atmar is now grappling with the challenges of reaching more than 10 million young people, and many would-be adult learners.
The new incumbent is ensuring that educational development is Afghan-led while retaining support from the international community which helps to plan and implement it, as well as paying most of the bills.
This is a highly skilled balancing act: get it right and the people can experience real progress; but get it wrong and the government is criticised for achieving little on the ground, or it is accused of being run by foreigners. It is clear that where donor funds have been disbursed wisely, there has been real material and social progress. This covers health, education, job creation and security in most of the north of the country.
Social norms are changing through the actions of people like Rohgul Walidzada, who could not step out of her house in the northeastern Badakhshan province five years ago. An experienced science teacher, Walidzada braved taunts and threats to find employment with a British NGO, AfghanAid, and stood for parliament against former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. Her two daughters are studying engineering at Kabul University.
But there is widespread fear that this progress is fragile. Many roads in Badakhshan province are flanked by opium poppy fields, and few roads are immune from banditry. There was no appetite for a return to the Taliban in areas I visited – which are away from the Pashtun heartland of the country – but there was an overwhelming belief that Pakistan was working to re-install them.
Governor Taniwal was critical of the recent peace settlement between the Pakistan government and its own tribal militants just a few days before his death. The Kabul riots in May, which probably claimed many more lives than has been admitted, took everyone by surprise and revealed major weaknesses in the Afghan police and army. It subsequently became clear that the anti-Americanism sparked by a fatal road accident was opportunistically exploited by political forces opposed to the Karzai government.
This remains a vulnerable regime, as the assassination of Taniwal has also shown, but foreign troops are seen by most Afghans as a necessary buffer between progress and anarchy. The British government is committed to assist Afghanistan until 2010. Aid workers and soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are optimistic about the future, but they believe it will take a lot longer than four years.
Much will depend on the Afghans taking effective control of developing their country, and that depends critically on leaders of the calibre of the late Taniwal. His death is a tragedy, but if it deters other talented Afghans from taking up where he left off, it could be a catastrophe for Afghanistan.
SundayHerald
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