Examination of Witnesses (Questions 71-79)
MS ELIZABETH
WINTER, MR
MUDASSER HUSSEIN
SIDDIQUI AND
MR DAVID
PAGE
15 NOVEMBER 2007
Q71 Chairman: While we wait for other
colleagues to return it may be helpful if you briefly introduce
yourselves and your background to get it on the record.
Mr Page: I am the current chair
of Afghanaid and have been a trustee for about 10 years. I came
into it with a background in the media in that I worked at the
BBC World Service for some 20 years and was involved in broadcasting
to Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. I have been working
with Afghanaid for 10 years and I have made annual visits for
the past three or four years to some of the projects we are doing.
We work as an organisation in four provinces. We have been working
in Badakhshan for 10 or 12 years and in Ghowr and Samangan since
2000. We are also working in Nuristan in the east. That is probably
the most difficult area in terms of the security situation. We
have been finding it very difficult to work there recently because
of the growing insurgency, but in the other three provinces we
are still able to do our work. There are shortages in funding
for the kind of work that we have done traditionally. Previously,
we did integrated rural development work with funding from DFID
in Badakhshan and from the EU in Ghowr. We have found it very
difficult to replace that funding since DFID and the EU decided
two or three years ago to change their priorities and fund the
Afghan Government. In terms of DFID, 80% of its funding now goes
to the Afghan Government.
Q72 Chairman: We will explore that
with you.
Ms Winter: My name is Elizabeth
Winter and I have been involved in Afghanistan since 1977. I still
go there about three times a year. My main role is with BAAG which
is an umbrella group for British and Irish NGOs. I am the special
adviser on policy and advocacy. I also work as an independent
specialist and I am doing quite a bit on civil society development
in Afghanistan at the moment. I am also a trustee of Afghanaid,
having helped set it up.
Mr Siddiqui: I am the policy and
advocacy co-ordinator for ActionAid in Afghanistan. I have been
there since February 2005. ActionAid has been working in Afghanistan
since 2002. Most of our prior operations have been in the provinces
of Jowzjan and Balkh and also in Kabul. We also have small operations
in Kandahar, Kunduz and Ghazni. We are a facilitating partner
for the National Solidarity Programme. We also have projects for
the demobilisation and re-integration of children affected by
war. We are working on women in Parliament and also on issues
of policy and advocacy with respect to governance, accountability,
transparency and civil/military relations.
Q73 Chairman: Mr Page, you mentioned
the difficulty of operating in some parts of Afghanistan. I am
sure that it also affects your colleagues. According to BAAG 89
aid workers have been killed since 2003. Can you give us a feeling
for the security situation and the extent to which—I think
it is a point of discussion here—you are more or less vulnerable
if either you are associated with the Government or you maintain
neutrality? In which context are aid workers most vulnerable and
what is the scale of the problem? Clearly, that kind of attrition
is a serious consideration for attracting, retaining and delivering
the work you do?
Ms Winter: Whatever way you look
at it the scale of vulnerability has definitely increased. It
is not just a risk of being killed but also being maimed. Local
NGO staff are abducted and threatened and then perhaps assassinated.
There are also kidnapping attempts. It has also increased our
costs quite considerably. We are vulnerable in the sense we do
not have close protection; we do not have armoured vehicles or
the military looking after us.
Q74 Chairman: That makes you soft
targets?
Ms Winter: Yes. At one point it
appeared that the insurgents were considering not going for NGOs
but much more for the military and government but that seems to
have changed again. We are extremely vulnerable. As to working
with the Government of Afghanistan, that is a tricky question.
We have supported the Government; obviously, a country needs a
state, but if we are too closely allied with some of it it can
be used as a weapon against us. We have to address that dilemma
constantly. Many of our partners and member agencies work closely
with the Afghan Government in various ways, whether it is at policy
level or being the implementing partner in programmes like NSP.[24]
Mr Page: Certainly, Afghanaid
has suffered quite a lot. Over the past year in Nuristan we have
had three groups of staff kidnapped. Mercifully, they were released
unharmed, but that kind of thing has been going on. In some cases
this is not us being targeted because we are trying to implement
a government programme but because there is a criminal element
at play. That is equally an issue in the north. In the northern
areas where development is still possible in the traditional sense
and security has been reasonable we see some deterioration. For
example, in Badakhshan in the north east and in Ghowr some districts
are problematic; there is some overspill from Helmand. The fact
that this coincides with a certain attrition in funding for the
kind of frontline service tasks we have been doing in agriculture
and veterinary work means that it makes matters worse. Obviously,
the NSP is doing well and we have been very much involved in it,
but it does not cover a lot of the interventions in agriculture,
veterinary work and so on in which we have traditionally been
involved. As David Mansfield said, obviously agriculture is a
key area in which we find it very difficult to attract funding.
It is the coming together of two factors, growing insecurity and
an attrition in funding, which makes matters worse.
Q75 Chairman: We shall come to that
particular point in a minute.
Mr Siddiqui: It is evident that
the security situation has an impact on NGO operations and places
a lot of strain on our work there. NGOs pretty much depend on
the good will of the communities and they are the ones who provide
security. It is not as if we go round with guns. In the absence
of any development work taking place in the villages they tend
to lose faith. They see us on a day-to-day basis and sometimes
hold us responsible for funds not coming in, and that is contributed
to by the local political dynamics. Local power holders also tend
to blame each other or the NGOs for situations such as these.
One of the important aspects is the lack of regular analysis of
the situation to make adjustments on the ground. There is no regular
political conflict analysis taking place in the country. DFID
says in its strategy paper that there should be regular conflict
analysis to guide the department's intervention in the country,
but it has not been happening in Afghanistan. Unless and until
we do that we will not be able to position ourselves for the changing
situation in the country.
Q76 Chairman: The relationship between
agencies like DFID and NGOs is clearly a dynamic and changing
one. As a committee obviously we constantly discuss the role of
budget support and direct budget aid. Whilst in Afghanistan we
looked at co-ordination through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust
Fund which, to be fair, we felt was an effective way to try to
pull together what donors did, but from your point of view do
you understand that and do you think it is a valid objective?
At the same time, does it adversely affect what you are doing?
To be quite open and honest, the Government has a policy objective
and you are independent NGOs with your own objectives. There is
not an automatic right for you to be supported by the Government,
or vice versa, so it might help if you explained how you think
the dynamics work or do not work in that context.
Mr Siddiqui: As far as the ARTF
is concerned we all think that it is needed and it is doing well,
but we also think it can do better. There are a lot of issues
with ARTF management in terms of accountability. It attempts to
bring coherence to donor support in the country which is very
much needed; otherwise, different owners will go in different
directions. That is quite good. But where is the accountability
of the donors when they do not fulfil their commitments and pledges.
ARTF does not provide any mechanism for accountability? There
is no aid monitoring and evaluation system. There is also no civil
society participation with respect to oversight. Civil society
is very much involved in the ARTF. As NSP implementers we get
our money, implement our projects and then we say goodbye.
Q77 Chairman: We had a briefing from
the World Bank which was instructed to provide the monitoring
and accountability to the ARTF. It went out of its way to point
out that it is done on the ground in country, not from Washington,
and uses independent auditors. It maintains quite strongly that
there is proper monitoring. That is very important to us because,
after all, we are here trying to investigate our Government's
accountability to the taxpayer and we need reassurances that that
is the case.
Mr Siddiqui: My personal interaction
with the World Bank has been in Kabul. It has said quite openly
that it cannot hold donors accountable if they do not give money.
They make pledges but there is nothing in writing. If they go
back or delay their funding it can always request it but there
is no mechanism to apply pressure.
Q78 Chairman: We are perhaps talking
of two different things here: one is the extent to which donors
commit funding and the other is what happens when the money goes
to the ARTF.
Mr Siddiqui: Yes. But there is
a gap between the commitment and the money, whether or not it
is coming. There is also a gap on how the money is spent and whether
there is oversight of that. They definitely have auditors but
how do they involve government and civil society, because the
latter and also communities are part of the same building process?
Is there a bottom up accountability mechanism over there? Unfortunately,
not.
Ms Winter: To go back to the more
general question of funding of NGOs, we support HMG's[25]
view that it should be funding the Government of Afghanistan and
building its capacity. There is no question about that. We have
questions, however, about the way it is being done and the fact
it was done by throwing the baby out with the bathwater at a time
when the Afghan Government did not have the capacity to provide
services or do things that the population or donors expected of
them. We have also been told that the transaction costs for DFID
are high and they cannot really fund NGOs in the way they used
to. Therefore, these two things work together. What has happened
instead is that these transaction costs have been passed on to
NGOs which have been subsidising to a great extent programmes
like NSP because of the delays in funding. You may hear more about
that later. Therefore, it has been extremely difficult for NGOs
to operate as partners in these programmes.
Q79 James Duddridge: When you refer to
transaction costs to what exactly are you referring?
Ms Winter: NGOs are told that
it is too expensive for DFID to give money to them and that asking
for small amounts requires a lot of monitoring and supervision.
We would argue that it should have more staff in that case.
24 National Solidarity Programme (NSP) Back
25
Her Majesty's Government (HMG) Back
| 
