Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
MR JIM
DRUMMOND, MS
LINDY CAMERON
AND MR
PETER HOLLAND
23 OCTOBER 2007
Q20 Richard Burden: About £16
million of DFID's £100 million budget goes to Helmand and
about one quarter is devoted to quick impact projects. Can you
tell us a bit about how it is possible to do quick impact projects
there? What is the interface between that and the security situation?
In that situation how do you monitor the effectiveness of those
projects, and who does the monitoring?
Mr Drummond: The system for quick
impact projects in Helmand has developed over the past year or
two. What is now in place is quite a good co-ordination mechanism
between the three or four UK government departments involved but
also the other governments involved in Helmand. The Helmand Executive
Group is at the pinnacle of this and meets weekly to consider
proposals for quick impact projects the ideas for which usually
come from Afghan people, local government; or they may come through
our own development advisers, or the PCRU[7]
staff based in Helmand. There is quite a good supply of local
Afghan contractors in Helmand whom we can use to deliver programmes.
In the area round Lashkar Gah it is relatively easy to get out
and see what is going on; in other parts of Helmand the security
situation has been more difficult. I guess that it is more dependent
there on the military to do some monitoring of what has been achieved.
My colleague Ms Cameron has lived with this for longer than I
have.
Ms Cameron: There are over 180
quick impact projects completed, ongoing or planned. They are
very diverse and include improvement of flood defences along Helmand
River, humanitarian assistance to drought victims, improving children's
playgrounds, working with Lashkar Gah prison, improving two local
markets and training programmes for drug addicts and security
infrastructure. Much depends on how they are identified, implemented
and then monitored. DFID staff have been out to see some of the
projects that are more easily accessible and we have used others
to monitor them. The military has been very helpful in being part
of that. In that respect it has been a very joined-up operation.
But that is not where the majority of our funding in Helmand goes.
The majority goes through the national programmes which have well
established implementation and monitoring methodologies: the National
Solidarity Programme; the National Rural Access Programme which
builds local feeder roads; and the Water and Sanitation Programme
that has been responsible for providing wells. More than 225 wells
have now been completed. There is also the micro-credits programme.
All of these programmes have their own different methodologies
for implementation and monitoring. In part we have used them to
extend our influence in Helmand province because they are tried
and tested methodologies. For each programme it is challenging
to operate in a more difficult environment than in the past and
it has to find different ways. For example, the micro-credit programme
focuses on slightly larger-scale lending based in Lashkar Gah
because it is harder to get out to villages. Programmes that are
dependent on NGO facilitation find it a more challenging environment,
whereas for those that can use local contractors, like the water
and sanitation programme, the response by local contractors has
been very impressive. Quite a lot of construction companies are
keen to bid for these projects, which is good. The Ministry of
Rural Development has changed its methodologies to allow it to
contract more effectively locally.
Q21 James Duddridge: I understand
what you say about the quick impact projects being a minority
of the spend, but from the amalgam of ways that you monitor them—I
understand what you say—that must be a matter of horses
for courses. Is the purpose of those to make a long-term impact
on people's lives and, if so, how far do they contribute to that?
How far are they about achieving a greater level of trust in the
military which in itself is a legitimate but different objective?
Mr Drummond: To be perfectly honest,
they try to achieve both. A quick impact project is something
that will deliver a rapid benefit. Typically, it is pretty small
scale. If one builds a new classroom on a school one expects it
to last, so it will usually have a long-term benefit as well,
but one does it quickly to establish in the eyes of the community
that one is providing real help in real time. Obviously, that
has a spin-off benefit for the troops who are there who worry
about the security situation.
Q22 James Duddridge: To pursue the
same line, obviously it is quite important to ensure that the
work of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams is not seen simply
as an extension of the NATO[8]
security agenda. How do they engage local communities and ensure
that they are committed to the projects in which they are involved?
Do they have the capacity to do more?
Ms Cameron: I think the answer
is hard to generalise with PRTs[9]
because they look very different in different parts of Afghanistan.
The Swedish PRT in Mazar-e-Sharif looks quite different from the
American PRTs in the east, and in turn these look different from
the UK PRT in Helmand. That is largely a reflection of the very
different kinds of security environments in which they work and
also the very different capacity of government each PRT faces.
For example, the UK ran a PRT in Mazar-e-Sharif for a couple of
years before handing it over to Sweden so that we could take over
the PRT in Helmand. It has been quite a different challenge because
the security situation is more severe. It is very hard to generalise
and that is partly why on your visit, as I understand it, you
will see two different provinces to give you a sense of the different
models that exist. PRTs are usually quite dependent on funding
from their own national troop-contributing nation or supporter,
so how much funding the PRT gets depends on the policy of the
country that is running it. There are some funds which can then
be used across different PRTs—NATO has some funds available—but
there is no single model. Increasingly, there is an attempt by
ISAF[10]
and various partners to try to provide a better framework in which
PRTs operate. Again, you are to see Major General Garry Robison
who is the UK's Deputy Commander (stability) for ISAF. He will
be able to give you a sense of the governance framework he is
trying to set up to institute a better sense of purpose for PRTs
and, for example, to shift them so they focus more generically
on things like security sector reform. It is different in different
parts of the country. There are a number of similarities between
the PRTs run by different countries in the same area. For example,
the Canadian PRT in Kandahar, the Dutch PRT in Oruzgan and the
British PRT in Helmand all share experience and work quite closely
together to understand what has worked in quite similar security
situations in the south.
Q23 James Duddridge: Earlier you spoke
about non-quick impact projects and the range of community and
other projects. From the briefing we have had, there are 482 community
projects run through the Helmand Agriculture and Rural Development
Programme. Are those the ones you are talking about?
Ms Cameron: That is right. The
Helmand Agriculture and Rural Development Programme is the title
we use for the funding for the five national programmes we are
running in Helmand, so in a sense it is the way that we describe
the basket of funding that is available to Helmand specifically
as a province for those national programmes.
Mr Drummond: Essentially, we are
saying that national programme funds will reach the southern provinces,
but security makes access for them difficult. Because we have
a particular interest in Helmand we have provided some extra targeted
funds through the national programmes to make sure that Helmand
does get at least its fair share.
Ms Cameron: That is an approach
very similar to that taken by the Canadians and the Dutch in Kandahar
and Oruzgan..
Q24 Mr Singh: I should like to focus
on the Afghan National Police. The Defence Committee commented
that it found the police service to be quite inadequate. I understand
that about 70,000 people now serve in the police and that training
is quite limited and poor. What role does DFID play in terms of
recruitment, training and support for the police service? What
are the strengths and weaknesses of the Afghan national police?
Has it contributed anything to the security situation and to law,
order and justice in Afghanistan?
Mr Holland: We would very much
share that assessment of the police. The international community
would recognise that the police are weak. In terms of numbers
the total figure that is meant to be established is 82,000, but
the best estimates we have seen are that probably 50,000 are currently
available across all the arms of the Afghan National Police. The
quality varies but there are consistent problems in terms of both
levels of training received and capability. That is particularly
true in the most insecure areas in the south. The international
community's effort has been led by Germany which has focused particularly
on high level training of officers. The US is the major donor;
it has put in about $2 billion this year to train the police.
The US focuses much more at local level to train police officers.
The US has recently carried out a review of its training programme.
It recognises that more needs to be done. Essentially, it is looking
at it on a district-by-district basis, taking the police out of
the districts for some intensive training over a two-month period
to sort out the problems and then putting them back into the community
and mentoring them intensively over the next few months to ensure
much better quality. Depending on where one is, the nature of
the policing problem faced in Afghanistan is not the same. In
the south it is much more about backing up the other security
forces; in the north and the centre where the security situation
is much better one has a more typical approach to policing. Again,
the district-based approach is meant to address that problem so
one has a rather more specific approach to training than has been
carried out so far. In terms of UK support, we are not a major
player on the policing side. We support in a number of ways. First,
we support the EU mission which has now taken over from the Germans.
There is an EU police mission based in Kabul which is just getting
going. That will work very closely with the US. We are providing
a number of specific posts at the centre to work on the policy
and training programmes; in particular, we provide the deputy
head of the EU mission. We also provide support specifically in
Helmand and are looking to increase that support so we can work
particularly on supporting the district training programmes in
Helmand. We have a number of mentors and trainers down there.
The other area where we have specifically provided assistance
has been counter-narcotics policing. That has been the main focus
of our effort because of our role in counter-narcotics. That is
designed to develop both the generic counter-narcotics police
and the specific interdiction forces.
Q25 Mr Singh: Have the 50,000 made
any difference in terms of law and order in Afghanistan?
Mr Holland: It depends on where
you are. Some places are better than others. No one disputes that
in the south it is weak. In the area we know best—which
is counter-narcotics—they are beginning to have an impact
and make arrests of fairly significant figures. For example, in
the past year and a half there have been over 500 convictions
for drug trafficking. Similarly, in the centre and north one sees
better quality policing on the ground. It is varied across the
country.
Q26 Mr Singh: What is the public
perception of the police force? Do people fear the police? Do
they believe that the police commit crimes, as has been said somewhere?
Is the police accepted and respected?
Mr Holland: The public perceptions
are very similar to those relating to corruption. Particularly
in the south one sees real anxieties about the way the police
behave. The police are perceived to be part of the problem as
well as the solution, and that is really what the district training
programme seeks to change. Until people have confidence in the
police they will not be able to fulfil their role.
Q27 Mr Singh: I understand that accusations
of serious corruption have been pointed at the Ministry of the
Interior which is a crucial body in any state-building exercise.
Are there any plans to reform the Ministry of the Interior? I
understand that drug lords and warlords are part of the ministry.
What is being done about that?
Mr Holland: We hear exactly the
same allegations. There are some examples where we know those
allegations go beyond that. President Karzai has recently recognised
that himself and is committed to a process of political change
within the Ministry of the Interior. One aspect of it is that
the functions of the ministry have recently been split. The Ministry
of the Interior now focuses purely on internal security issues
and the wider responsibilities for local government have been
removed from it. The next stage in that process is a change in
personnel. The US leads on the reform programme and has a fairly
extensive mentoring and training programme within the Ministry
of the Interior.
Q28 Mr Singh: Do we and other international
bodies have any mechanism to monitor police abuse, police corruption
and involvement by the police in the narcotics trade?
Mr Holland: There is no systematic
assessment of it. In the area of narcotics, investigations are
done rather more on an ad hoc basis. In that area we provide support
in terms of investigation and evidence gathering around the trade.
As those cases emerge one begins to get a broader picture.
Q29 Mr Singh: Although DFID is not
the lead agency, is there anything positive that it can do to
improve the police force?
Mr Holland: We do believe that
policing is a priority and is important, so we are deliberately
devoting more resources to that area. We work at the centre through
the EU mission and at a policy level to try to ensure that that
mission and that of the US join together and have the same approach
to training the police force. As to where we believe we can have
the greatest impact, we are concentrating on Helmand in terms
of training and on the counter-narcotics side.
Mr Drummond: Obviously, DFID is
a partner in this exercise through the funding that goes into
the conflict pool. I think that the bits of the DFID programme
that would have an impact across government are the work we do
on budget management, which will affect the way that the Ministry
of the Interior ought to be managing its own budget, and public
service reform which ought to impact on the way recruitment processes
in the Ministry of the Interior work. We believe that through
the central things we are doing there will be spin-off benefits
to the Ministry of the Interior, but it is not a place where DFID
is leading.
Chairman: You mentioned earlier some
of the improvements in education. I will ask Ann McKechin to pursue
that in a little more detail.
Q30 Ann McKechin: You indicated in
your written submission that between 50 and 55% of school age
children in Afghanistan are currently in school. Can you advise
us what percentage of those who are enrolled and regularly attend
school are girls? What is the difference as between Kabul, outlying
areas and places such as Helmand in the south?
Mr Drummond: About one third of
pupils are girls and 28% of the teachers are women. DFID is not
directly funding the education sector. In the choice of three
sectors, we did not choose education; others are doing that. It
is not a sector where we have a lot of direct expertise. Remarkable
progress has been made in this area. As you know, Afghanistan
is a very conservative society. The number of female teachers
is a constraint particularly on older girls staying in school.
The level of literacy amongst women is still very low; it is 13%,
which is shocking.
Q31 Ann McKechin: Given that the
British and Irish aid agencies in Afghanistan report that 80%
of the teachers are untrained, do you believe that the Afghan
Government gives enough priority to training and the building
of schools? It is estimated that 72,000 classrooms would have
to be constructed. If DFID is not one of the primary donors who
are they?
Mr Drummond: Let me give the Committee
one or two numbers and then Ms Cameron can talk about the donors.
The figure I have, which comes from UNICEF,[11]
is that since 2001 nearly 2,000 schools have been built or rehabilitated.
According to UNICEF, since 2001 the number of teachers has increased
from about 21,000 to 128,000. There are teacher training programmes.
You are absolutely right that this is an area where there is a
huge amount more to do. As to donors, this is an area where the
Bank, the UN and EU are active.
Ms Cameron: The World Bank is
a key player in this sector, as are some of the Scandinavian donors
particularly the Danes. They are working in partnership with the
US. I believe that US funding of textbooks is being spent through
the Danish assistance programme. There are a number of quite large
donors in this sector. Essentially, the Government prioritised
education much more heavily about 18 months ago when Hanif Atmar
was appointed the new Minister of Education. Formerly, he was
a very successful Minister of Rural Development who did a transformative
job with that ministry. He was appointed Minister of Education
to get a grip and push it forward. He has introduced a new strategy,
of which we can provide you with a copy in country.[12]
There will also be an opportunity in country to talk to some of
the other donors, particularly the World Bank, who are more active
in this sector. It is a sector in which we have seen a significant
improvement in government leadership, dynamism and planning in
the past 18 months to two years. As a result, there is now pressure
because there are bigger spending plans. The ministry is keen
to see its funding go up.
Q32 Ann McKechin: Given that it is a
key area in terms of gender in Afghanistan not just in the field
of education but a whole range of other factors, to what extent
is it your view that the donor community is giving it sufficient
priority? It is good to hear that the Afghan Government now appears
to be doing that, but is the donor community now stepping up to
the plate in terms of providing funds?
Ms Cameron: It is partly because
of the issue that you highlight—the importance of gender—that
it is a popular sector, but I expect that in the discussions around
the Afghanistan National Development Strategy early next year
the Government will make a decision about what percentage of overall
aid it would like to see going to this sector. There will then
be a dialogue with donors about whether the funds that donors
are providing are correctly allocated to ensure they get the funds
they need to meet those targets. Afghanistan is so far off track
on the education Millennium Development Goal as well as the rest
of them that clearly one of the challenges for them will be figuring
out what to prioritise in the short term as well as the long term
to meet those goals.
Q33 Ann McKechin: Given that about
70% of the aid is off budget, is that being focused on education
or on other areas of policy? Obviously, that is still a very important
part of the total pot.
Ms Cameron: I do not have with
me figures to show what the US is doing in the field of education,
but we can provide them in country. It is however a large part
of the off budget aid. Quite a large part is related to the security
sector and that is not so readily available for education. We
can try to provide a better breakdown in country of the precise
figures for education.[13]
Mr Drummond: As a footnote, the
ARTF which we do fund provides the salaries of almost all the
teachers in the country. British Government money flowing through
the ARTF is finding its way into the education sector.
Q34 Chairman: The Afghanistan Compact
requested more co-ordination amongst donors but did not require
it. The evidence suggests that not only is that not very strong
but quite specifically as far as concerns the United States it
is entirely divergent. In the January/February issue of Foreign
Affairs Barnett Rubin was very critical. He summed it up by
saying: "Contemptuous of nation building and wary of mission
creep, the Bush administration entered Afghanistan determined
to strike Al Qaeda, unseat the Taliban, and then move on, providing
only basic humanitarian aid and support for a new Afghan army."[14]
He goes on to say that that was clearly short-sighted and asks
to what extent they have changed that. We understand that the
US Government does not usually give money to other governments
directly. It does not trust the Afghan Government and would find
it politically unacceptable to put money into a collective pot
such as the Afghan reconstruction trust fund because such funds
cannot be directly traced. That is a pretty fundamental divergence
between the approach of the US Government and the approach of
the British Government. To what extent does that make your life
that much more difficult, or how do you practically engage with
the United States and other donors to get the money where it delivers
effective results?
Mr Drummond: The US Government
is a huge donor to Afghanistan and provides through USAID[15]
$1.4 billion per year. That is to be compared with British Government
money through DFID of about $200 million a year. You are absolutely
right that it is by far the biggest player. We have a regular
dialogue with them and say that it would be much better for more
of their money to be on budget than is done at the moment. There
are some signs that they are taking interest in that argument
now because they recognise the need to build up the Afghan Government's
capacity and decision-making about its own country. There is a
strong feeling in the US that it needs to be involved in direct
delivery and account even more strongly than we account to you
for the direct delivery of each dollar. We think that the ARTF
establishes a mechanism which provides adequate audit and there
is sufficient evidence on the ground of aid being delivered and
therefore that the ARTF is a good mechanism to use. We hope that
the new Afghanistan National Development Strategy will provide
a framework for the Afghan Government to have discussions with
the donors about where they focus their priorities. In a sense,
that will recalibrate the decisions made three or four years ago.
The US Government is very closely involved in that process.
Q35 Chairman: Even allowing for the difference
in approach, does the United States at least ask the Afghan Government
to give a steer as to what it wants so it can do it, because clearly
if there is that degree of co-ordination the divergence is not
as great as it would be if the US Government simply decided its
own priorities and told the Afghan Government what it wanted to
do?
Mr Drummond: There is a constant
dialogue with the Afghan Government about the priorities for its
resources, so that is happening. We say to the US very openly
that it would be better if its funding was within the overall
budget framework and therefore more visible to the Ministry of
Finance than perhaps it is now.
Q36 Chairman: Given that the military
activity is being led by NATO and predominantly non-US forces
on the ground, in terms of aid and development, allowing for Mr
Rubin's somewhat acerbic comments, do you detect a fundamental
change of attitude at least where the US sees co-ordination as
relevant and long term capacity-building, if not nation- building,
as a clear objective compared with what he describes as its original
thinking?
Mr Drummond: The US Government
is investing a huge amount of money in capacity-building in the
police and other areas of Afghanistan. Where it is delivering
infrastructure, for example road-building in Helmand, it will
tend to do that with a more direct relationship with contractors
than going through an Afghan process.
Ms Cameron: I think that the key
challenge for the Afghan Government is to ensure that it has full
transparency about aid money so it can make trade-offs between
donors as well as prioritise what any one donor does itself, because
there is an issue of complementarity. Clearly, the US is the largest
single bilateral donor and has a particular effect on how the
overall balance of aid money is spent. As we say to them openly,
it is particularly important that they are as transparent as possible
not just with the Government but also with donors about their
plans because that also affects what it makes most sense for the
rest of us to do. We have been very impressed by the dialogue
we had with them in the run-up to the full Afghanistan National
Development Strategy and we have seen a real willingness to engage
in trying to get a better collective donor response to a good
government plan. The US has been responsible for providing quite
a lot of technical assistance to the Government to try to improve
its own strategic capacity to plan and prioritise and have something
to which we can respond.
Q37 Chairman: But it is not helpful
to those of us who are supporting the British aid programme internationally
as well as in Afghanistan if we are told by American commentators
that the US Government does not trust the Afghan Government. Clearly,
the British Government is investing in the Afghan Government.
Are you being na-ve or are they being unreasonable?
Mr Drummond: We have a slightly
different approach and they have different requirements placed
upon them by Congress. There are accountability levels for each
dollar and for what is expected. We believe that we have the balance
right; otherwise, we would not be doing it our way. We accept
that there are lots of issues in building up the capacity of the
Afghan Government. We have talked about problems of corruption
but also about the safeguards that we have put in place to make
sure that our money is spent in a way that meets the priorities
of the Afghan Government but has sufficient safeguards to ensure
it is spent in the way intended. We have a good relationship with
different parts of the US effort in Kabul and this debate will
carry on.
Ms Cameron: It is also worth saying
that the US does contribute to the ARTF, so this is not a black-and-white
debate; it is a question of proportions and percentages. The US
contributes to it and sits on the committee, so it is prepared
to put money through government systems. It is also a major intervener
in the health programme where there is a structure designed to
ensure that different donors can help to deliver the same package
of health outcomes to suit the different mechanisms that they
are able to implement. There are a number of different ways to
try to improve the outcome. The key challenge is to ensure that
the Afghan Government has maximum visibility for whatever it is
doing and is able to feel that it can prioritise the resources
for the outcomes it wants to achieve.
Chairman: If we are in Afghanistan for
the long haul, as we are consistently being told, it seems to
me that for the purposes of both national and international public
good will there should be a clear strategy and co-ordination of
activity amongst the key players so people understand there is
a long-term commitment. I understand that Ann McKechin would like
to ask how that may be taken forward.
Q38 Ann McKechin: Earlier this month
I attended the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Reykjavik. That
body was addressed by NATO's Secretary General, Mr Jaap de Hoop.
He indicated that he would prefer to appoint a special UN envoy
for Afghanistan with the specific task of co-ordinating the development
and security structure, because he felt that the different tracks,
donors and priorities were muddying the water and causing severe
difficulties. Given the fact that such a senior international
figure should call for that, has the UK Government had any dialogue
with NATO or other donors about that possibility?
Ms Cameron: There is already a
UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan,
Tom Koenigs. He chairs the Joint Co-ordination and Monitoring
Board (JCMB) which is the forum set up to monitor the implementation
of the Afghan Compact and the Afghanistan National Development
Strategy. In a sense, there is already a UN special representative
who chairs a co-ordinating body that is designed to be a forum
for development, political and security matters. The JCMB meets
up to four times a year and has a significant membership of key
players both on the Afghan Government side and the donor and security
side. There is already a significant UN co-ordinating role in
place. That UN envoy has two deputies, one of whom focuses on
the political issues and the other of whom focuses specifically
on development issues and is also joint-hatted as head of the
UN Development Programme (UNDP) in country.
Q39 Ann McKechin: It would appear
that NATO is not yet reassured that there is sufficient co-ordination
and, given that it has its troops on the ground, surely that should
be given proper weight?
Mr Drummond: We have been saying
to the UN for a little while that we would like it to play a stronger
role in co-ordination on this matter. It has been strengthened
with the arrival of Bo Asplund who is now the Deputy Special Representative
responsible for the development side. Tom Koenigs will be moving
on at the beginning of next year, so there will be a new appointment
to that post. Compared with what you have seen in DRC where there
is an integrated mission and the UN is very clearly at the apex
of all of this, in Afghanistan we have a more complex relationship
because of ISAF as well as the UN. To bring these two bodies together
is more challenging, and we would like to see the UN playing an
even more determined role in this.
7 Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit (PCRU) Back
8
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Back
9
Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT) Back
10
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Back
11
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Back
12
Ev 60-61 Back
13
Ev 60-61 Back
14
Barnett Rubin, "Saving Afghanistan", Foreign Affairs,
January/February 2007 Back
15
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Back
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