X. CONCLUSION
86. The hope, expressed in our previous report, that
the Afghan people would be central to the development of their
country has turned out to be overly optimistic. Afghanistan is
a completely wrecked land with no institutions which work, no
legitimate economy, no order or security, and serious capacity
shortfalls within government. Reconstruction has had to begin
from scratch in the face of a humanitarian crisis and a dangerous
security situation. The capacity for reconstruction and
development to be entirely Afghan-led simply does not exist at
present.
87. We agree with Clare Short as to the difficulty
of the task ahead and the fact that the international development
system is at times ill-suited to it. Instead of what is required—sustained,
pooled, patient institutional capacity building—we have
all too often seen donors wanting to flag their projects and tell
the world about the effort they are making. The Afghan Transitional
Administration's lack of capacity has been a theme which has run
throughout the inquiry. Faced with such a lack of capacity, it
has fallen to the UN system and NGOs to deliver essential services.
We pay full tribute to the work of these organisations: without
the efforts of the UN, many would have starved. But there is a
tension between the wish to support the Transitional Administration
and build its capacity on the one hand, and the urgent need to
deliver services and begin the process of reconstruction on the
other. Nevertheless, the legitimacy of the Transitional Administration
must not be undermined by the creation of "parallel structures".
Service delivery by NGOs and the UN, must be seen to be in line
with the Afghan priorities set out in the Transitional Administration's
National Development Framework.
88. The Afghan Transitional Administration's inability
to deliver the services which people expect from their government
undermines its credibility. Much has been made of the lack of
capacity in Afghanistan but what is really at stake is both the
lack of capacity and the lack of institutions. Institution building
is not a luxury which can be addressed later; without it the state
will be unable to collect revenues and provide essential services
as well as security for its citizens.
89. The Afghan Transitional Administration needs
to boost its credibility for two reasons. First, elections are
only eighteen months away and a huge amount of work is needed
to ensure that the newly elected government does not merely take
over authority in Kabul, with the rest of the country continuing
as a de facto UN mandate. Secondly, realpolitik
has made it necessary to incorporate the warlords within the Transitional
Administration. This has been is a risky strategy but one that
was unavoidable. Tackling the warlords will require institutions,
most importantly judicial and human rights institutions, which
warlords can be locked into if they wish to continue as part of
the government.
90. In a situation where the Aid system is the service
provider for most of the country it would be inappropriate to
transfer all resources to the Afghan Transitional Administration's
National Development Budget. But capacity will not develop by
itself. There are ministries within the Transitional Administration
which have made progress and at some point donors will have to
take a risk and channel funds through those areas in which the
government has developed its delivery systems.
91. What is lacking is a sense of a strategy for
keeping the momentum moving forward. The Secretary of State sees
progress starting with the government linking to the UN and NGO's
capacity to deliver and gradually taking on more of the management
of that process. This is fine as far as it goes but capacity within
the Afghan Transitional Administration has to be built if it is
ever to take over the management of anything. And that means pushing
more of the funding through it. We have made our own suggestion
of how to minimise the risk. If the ARTF is used as the main pool
for donor funding and the Transitional Administration, UN and
NGOs are each required to bid for allocations, the funding will
then flow to whichever organisation has the capacity to deliver.
92. The bulk of assistance has been put into humanitarian
relief and of that a large proportion has been in the form of
food aid in kind. This has kept alive many Afghans who would otherwise
have perished. But in similar vein to the points made above in
relation to capacity building, a sense of a strategy—a rolling
programme—is now needed, for moving from humanitarian support
to reconstruction aid.
93. Our last report cited a lack of security as hampering
the humanitarian effort. The same insecurity now threatens to
undermine reconstruction. It was an error not to have an ISAF
presence in every city, and it is clear that the political will
for any expansion of ISAF has now disappeared. We hope that the
proposal for Joint Regional Teams will go some way to meet what
so many have requested——an expansion of the "ISAF
effect".
94. We agree with Clare Short's more general assertion
that the provision of security has been under-valued in development
thinking. In Afghanistan it is integral to reconstruction. At
the same time, reconstruction also underpins security; only a
prospering economy can provide alternative livelihoods to soldiering
and poppy farming, and the development of security institutions
will bring long-term stability.
95. DFID came in for praise from many of our witnesses:
it has provided grant aid rather than loans, disbursed funds quickly,
channelled resources through the ARTF and continually re-affirmed
its long-term commitment to Afghanistan. But the overall response
of the international donor community has been insufficient and
does not make us optimistic that there is the willingness to stay
with Afghanistan for the long term.
96. The problem is one of funding. The UNDP's preliminary
needs assessment for Afghanistan came in at almost $15 billion
over ten years. At Tokyo pledges were taken for five years but
in practice the commitments which followed were for a two year
period. The funding issue will be revisited in March 2003. But
it is already clear that the amounts pledged at Tokyo will be
insufficient. A further round of pledging will be necessary with
commitments designed to flow at a rate determined by the absorptive
capacity of the Afghan Transitional Administration and of the
UN system.
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