Memorandum submitted by CARE International
UK
What peace dividend?
1. CARE has been in Afghanistan since 1961[1].
CARE is currently operational in seven provinces of eastern Afghanistan,
and works through local partners in south/eastern and western
Afghanistan. We have 650 staff, of whom 640 are Afghan. Our programme
in Afghanistan of some £15 million[2]
covers education, water, shelter, rural rehabilitation and emergency
relief.
2. Over the years we have watched one conflict
follow another, one humanitarian crisis lead to the next. When
the war started last October, Afghans had already lived through
three years of drought and 23 years of war. Only a massive relief
operation last winter averted a humanitarian catastrophe.
3. Afghanistan is currently at a crossroads.
It is far from certain that Afghanistan will continue to move
towards peace and development. We believe that the international
community has a unique opportunity, and responsibility, to help
Afghanistan break out of its recurrent cycles of poverty and instability.
4. Last January in Tokyo, the international
community pledged US$5.25 billion in support to Afghanistan. Expecting
an influx of up to 800,000 returnees in 2002, almost $1.8 billion
of that was to be spent this year. While more than twice the predicted
number of people have returned to their homes, significantly less
than half of this year's pledges have been disbursed, according
to data from the Afghanistan government.
5. The World Bank determined in January
2002, that, as a "base case", Afghanistan would require
$10.2 billion over five years—about twice that actually
pledged in Tokyo. Most experts concede that it will take considerably
more than that. In recent post-conflict settings in four other
countries, donors spent an average of $250 per person per year
in aid. In Afghanistan, they have pledged $75 per person for 2002,
and spent a good deal less.
6. Despite this, a lot has been achieved
this year. More than 1.4 million refugees and 200,000 IDPs have
returned home; more than three million children are back to school,
almost a third of whom are girls; nearly six million children
have been vaccinated for polio, and more than 30,000,000 square
metres of land have been returned to communities for productive
use by mine action teams.
The emergency is not over
7. The vast majority of disbursed funds
have gone towards meeting short-term emergency needs. Even so,
needs remain significant. Because insufficient funding is being
released, Afghans are being forced to choose between meeting short-term
needs and beginning long-term reconstruction. With reconstruction
all but stalled and economic hardship on the rise, many of the
summer's returnees may become the winter's refugees.
8. Rural communities, already devastated
by drought and conflict, will not be able to absorb the large
numbers of people who have returned. In the Shomali valley, for
example, at current funding levels only 40 per cent of the shelter
needed by returning refugees and internally displaced people will
have been completed before winter.
9. The situation is also grave in the cities.
Kabul is a particular case in point. It has absorbed a disproportionately
high percentage of returning refugees. Basic services and facilities
such as water, sanitation and shelter that were devastated in
the factional fighting of the early 1990s have seen scant investment
to repair the damage since that time. The influx of returnees
has exacerbated the already desperate shelter conditions for the
most vulnerable families in the city. The worst-off families,
with significant numbers headed by widows, have had to abandon
the homes they have occupied and are now living in open spaces
or public buildings. With winter approaching it is vital to provide
emergency assistance to these groups, in the form of basic support
for providing warm, dry rooms in homes and public buildings.
10. Without substantial investment in strengthening
local employment capacity, providing social services and rebuilding
basic infrastructure, this problem will be compounded in future
years. Over four million Afghan refugees are still living in Pakistan
and Iran or remain internally displaced within Afghanistan because
of drought and conflict. In the short term, emergency priorities
are to help Afghans survive the coming winter with adequate food,
water, shelter and health care.
Reconstruction is about institutions as well as
buildings
11. The country currently faces both an
ongoing emergency and a massive reconstruction challenge. The
work of rebuilding roads, schools, hospitals and irrigations systems
should not have to be put on hold. Using labour-intensive methods,
this reconstruction effort can help provide jobs and boost the
economy.
12. The Afghan government has developed
a National Development Framework which clearly lays out their
priorities. Those priorities include road reconstruction and other
large-scale infrastructure projects to create employment and stimulate
the economy, reviving agricultural production, replenishing livestock,
and equipping Afghans with the means to support themselves. They
include providing education and basic health care for every Afghan
child.
13. To do all these things, the government
wants to strengthen its own capacity to deliver those services
to its people. For the current year, the government's operating
budget is $460 million, of which $377 million has been requested
from international donors. At present, there is a 50 per cent[3]
shortfall in this budget and disbursements to the Afghan Reconstruction
Trust Fund remain at less than 10 per cent of requested levels.
14. These funds are essential to pay civil
servants, restore critical public services, and lay the foundations
for effective governance. At least for the next two to three years,
this assistance from the international community should overwhelmingly
be in the form of grants, not loans, to avoid saddling Afghanistan
with new debt obligations.
15. More than 500 international staff continue
to run the UN's humanitarian and reconstruction programmes. In
reality, the Afghan authorities have minimal strategic control
over the disbursement of aid funds for reconstruction. It is probably
the case that Afghanistan's institutions cannot currently administer
the volume of aid needed in an effective and transparent manner,
but this capacity can be built. Donors must invest in the Afghan
authorities in a way that will allow them assume strategic leadership
for the country's reconstruction.
Widespread security is a priority
16. Over the past six months, security has
continued to deteriorate, not only in rural areas under the control
of regional warlords, but even in Kabul, where the international
peacekeeping force (ISAF) is present. Without security, international
funding support will remain stalled, reconstruction will be severely
hampered, and the country may return to factional conflict.
17. In the South and South East, where CARE
does most of its work, a low level conflict between the international
coalition and the remnants of Al Qaida and the Taliban has compromised
both relief efforts and the reconstruction agenda. In other parts
of the country, crime, banditry and factional tensions between
regional commanders have threatened the safety of local populations
and hampered relief and reconstruction work.
18. Most experts agree that the 4,500 member
ISAF force is a wholly inadequate response to the security situation
in Afghanistan. The international community are supporting the
training and equipping a national army and police force over a
period of years. Yet, at projected rates of investment and training,
at the end of the two-year transition the Afghan security force
will have 3,000 trained Afghan soldiers. It is inconceivable that
such a small force will be able to provide adequate protection
for more than 24 million people living in a mountainous country
of over 640,000 square kilometres.
19. With Afghanistan's legacy of violent
factional conflict, and many regional military power brokers still
in place, the potential for further deterioration in security
remains high. More than half a million Afghans carry arms, and
there are few other employment opportunities outside of militia
work.
20. A committed approach to the long-term
security of Afghanistan is likely to require large scale disarmament,
the expansion of international peacekeeping forces and massive
generation of employment opportunities.
CONCLUSIONS
21. The rhetoric from the international
community has been good. We have promised a Marshall Plan for
Afghanistan and said that we would not abandon the Afghan people
as we did after the Soviet withdrawal. However there are worrying
signs that the international community wants to move on, making
the fulfillment of future pledges to Afghanistan even less likely.
22. The UK Government has been one of only
six donors to make commitments over the next five years. We urge
the Government to use the position of influence within the international
community that this brings to press for the following:
(a) firm commitments from all major donors
to pledge and deliver at least US$10 billion over the next five
years for reconstruction in Afghanistan;
(b) funds for both emergency work and reconstruction
to be made available with urgency so that Afghans are not forced
to choose between the two;
(c) a clear plan for ensuring adequate security
in Afghanistan to be articulated, agreed and provided with the
necessary financial support.
CARE International UK
October 2002
1 With a suspension of activities from 1980-89 due
to insecurity. Back
2
Of which approx. £250,000 is from DFID. Back
3
Afghanistan government, remarks to G8 Working Group on Afghanistan
Security, 9 July 2002. Back
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