International DevelopmentWritten evidence submitted by The International Rescue Committee
The International Rescue Committee in Afghanistan
1. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) works in conflict-affected and fragile countries around the world to deliver life-saving assistance to people affected by violent conflict and disaster, and remains on the ground to assist with rebuilding through the post-crisis phase. We work to empower communities to lead their own recovery and development and to restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and dispossessed. Our work across 25 countries in education, health, protection, gender-based violence and economic recovery provides us with a unique understanding of the humanitarian and development challenges in the context of conflict and fragility.
2. The IRC began working with Afghan refugee communities in Pakistan in 1980, and started implementing programmes inside Afghanistan in 1988. As a non-sectarian, independent, and impartial organisation, the IRC is dedicated to ensuring that our programmes prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable, independent of political considerations.
3. The IRC is currently working with Afghan communities across nine provinces providing both emergency response programmes working with Afghan groups to build their resilience. We are also implementing education programmes, working with the Ministry of Education to reach isolated areas and to build the ministries capacity to extend education longer-term. The IRC is also an implementing partner in the National Solidarity Program (NSP).
4. This submission aims to inform the Department for International Development (DfID)’s planning, investment, and approach to service provision in Afghanistan to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable and the insecurities they face during and beyond the “transition” are addressed. There should be a renewed focus on delivering basic services at the local level to address chronic underdevelopment and build economic opportunities that will help refugee returnees reintegrate and bolster the ability of Afghans to cope with recurring disasters. Crucially, donors should adopt a slow and steady switch to on-budget funding to the Government of Afghanistan (GIRoA) and develop innovative funding models that avoid major gaps in service provision for the population. If international donors shift funding and governance responsibilities too quickly to the Afghan government and fail to recognise and address the intensifying humanitarian crisis, the consequences will be devastating for Afghans and costly for the international community.
Security, Displacement and the Humanitarian Situation
5. The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly in recent years. It is now at its worst since 2001. This is true both for “hard” or “classic” security related to conflict and violence, but also for personal and human security; the ability of individuals and communities to protect themselves and cope in the face of economic hardships and natural hazards. The lack of overall security is reflected in four trends in the movement of people:
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6. The increasing numbers and areas of origin of internally displaced people (IDPs) are a reflection of the deteriorating security situation and spread of conflict in new areas of the country. The number of conflict IDPs increased by 41 percent in 2011 from about 351,907 to 447,547 and the trend has continued into 2012.1 While conflict is the primary reason for displacement in Afghanistan, there are other factors that are significantly increasing the insecurity of Afghans: 1) a lack of economic opportunities, 2) chronic natural hazards including; droughts, floods, extreme temperature, earthquakes and storms, and 3) poor reintegration for Afghan refugees returning home.
7. The lack of development gains—or “development deficit”—over the last decade has given rise to an increasingly serious humanitarian situation. There is not sufficient coordination between development and humanitarian actors in taking a holistic approach to dealing with the chronic vulnerability faced by so many Afghans. Moving forward, donors should prioritise investment in disaster risk reduction programmes focused on what every Afghan citizen needs; food security and agriculture, livelihoods, water and shelter. This will build resilience and help prevent Afghans from having to move around in search of these basic life necessities. DfID should consider including Afghanistan in the Global Resilience Action Programme funding mechanism, which will target, among other areas to build resilience of disaster affected communities and find innovative responses to the challenges communities face.
Donor Transitions: Ensuring Basic Services while increasing On-Budget Support
8. The combination of intensified and spreading conflict and exhausted coping mechanisms due to perpetual economic insecurities, natural hazards and inadequate return and reintegration services have created a situation of extreme uncertainty for Afghans both inside and outside of Afghanistan. The situation could likely deteriorate due to a variety of events including the:
Departure of ISAF;
Impending likelihood of civil conflict and change in the mix of political actors controlling the government;
Reduction in aid levels; and
Worsening conditions for Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran.
It is in this context that donors are beginning to provide more aid directly to the Afghan Government to support government-led service provision to the Afghan people. The commitment to move to “on-budget” support was solidified by donor governments at the London and Kabul Conferences in 2010.
9. On-budget aid requires strong partners in the Afghan government, significant oversight by donor governments and civil society, and well-functioning oversight systems to ensure that funds are used properly. While progress has been made in several Afghan ministries to manage resources and run national-level service delivery programmes, progress remains uneven. Challenges vary across ministries, but a few common ones make it difficult for GIRoA to provide basic services in large swaths of the country:
Limited reach beyond specific parts of the country and outside of major urban areas;
Weak linkages between the federal, provincial and district level and deficient planning and coordination;
Non-existent or insufficiently established systems—including those for information management and employee payment—making it difficult to manage government employees outside of the federal level ministry; and
Increased targeted attacks against government officials at district and provincial levels that will continue as AOGs work to expand their control throughout Afghanistan.
10. As a result, Afghan ministries have turned to sub-granting to local or international partners to help deliver basic services in areas where they do not have capacity or cannot reach. While this is an important step toward ensuring basic needs are met as GIRoA builds its own capacity, ministry procurement systems needed to effectively partner remain weak. A transparent system of awarding grants and contracts and the ability to deliver payments to partners on time are often lacking. Finally, rooting out corruption within ministries remains an ongoing challenge to the effective management of large amounts of on-budget funding.
11. While these hurdles are significant, they can be minimised by a slow and sequenced approach to providing more funding directly to GIRoA. Moving too quickly toward on-budget funding and without adequate support to manage funds is likely to result in service delivery failures that would have a devastating impact on poor Afghans and frustrate donors who do not see an adequate impact with their investments.
12. Donors should take a balanced approach, ensuring other actors have the resources to deliver basic services while Afghan ministries build the necessary capacity to deliver them on their own. While the ultimate goal is for GIRoA to be responsible for the delivery of health, education and other services to all of its citizens, they are currently not able to do so. Given the level of rising human insecurity outlined above, the stakes of ensuring that the poorest and most vulnerable Afghans receive the most basic of life services are high. Sequencing on-budget approaches to ensure major gaps in development levels do not form across the country requires that non-governmental actors still be part of the assistance equation, whether through direct funding from donors or sub-granting to GIRoA. Non-governmental actors can also provide much needed support to GoIRA to deliver services and utilize their resources.
13. These hurdles are significant, but can be minimised if donors move slowly and deliberately in putting more money through Afghan systems. Benchmarks measuring progress in addressing challenges should be followed to help donors determine when a Ministry is ready to manage increased funding directly. In the meantime, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that have vast geographic reach and extensive experience providing water, health, education and shelter services to Afghans should continue to be utilised while the Afghanistan government builds up its capacity to meet the needs of its own citizens.
14. Hasty transitioning could lead to major setbacks in development progress as exemplified by the abrupt closure of the USAID funded Partnership for Advancing Community Education in Afghanistan (PACE-A). With an unexpected and rapid shift to “on budget” funding the Ministry of Education (MoE) and PACE-A implementing partners scrambled to determine which of the 1,186 active INGO-run Community Based Education classes in rural areas the GIRoA could take over. Ultimately only 640 could be handed over to the MoE, some of which are no longer in existence. While the PACE-A consortium of INGOs made great progress in educating some 106,510 students from 2006–2011, the rapid transition in responsibility to the MoE led to the closure of many CBE classes and the drop out of students who could not reach formal Afghan schools, with females disproportionately affected.
Lessons from Successful On-Budget Programming
15. Successful but continually evolving models of on-budget funding, including the National Solidarity Program (NSP), while imperfect, can and should be used to guide future on-budget aid. Leading the success of the NSP programme are its funding, management and implementation model. Financing for the programme is provided by bilateral donors and a multi-donor trust fund, and is overseen by the World Bank. The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) implements the programme with assistance in implementation from NGOs that have trusted relationships with Afghan communities across the country. Over the last decade, MRRD has built core capacities through the implementation of the NSP and other rural development programmes, while NGOs have simultaneously helped MRRD achieve near-national level coverage of the programme.
16. Following a model in which the Afghan government is in a lead role has allowed donors to support capacity development gains within MRRD and ensure the delivery of development gains simultaneously. Over the last decade, MRRD has built core capacities through the implementation of the NSP and other rural development programmes including the strengthening of procurement systems, the ability to identify and partner with a system of grantees across the country and capacity to monitor and evaluate partner performance. While this capacity was being built in the ministry, NSP was established in 361 of 398 districts or provincial centers across Afghanistan by working with 29 implementing partner organisations that had the access and know-how to reach communities in need of rural development assistance.
17. A similar programme model can and should be followed for the provision of other basic services as donors move to meet their commitments for on-budget aid. The NSP funding and implementation model could be replicated for health, education and agricultural outreach programmes. This approach will allow donors to meet their on-budget funding targets while helping ensure that the poorest Afghans do not have to wait until capacity is sufficient in Afghan ministries to gain access to vital basic services. Where those services exist and are currently provided by NGOs, this model could be used to ensure that gaps do not form as donors provide more and more of their funding to ministries that do not have the reach to provide the services directly. The extension and continuation of health, education and agricultural programmes will be critical in encouraging the return and reintegration of remaining Afghan refugees, reducing the vulnerability of Afghans and ensuring that they do not have to move around the country in search of basic services and economic opportunity.
18. Finally, ensuring that NGOs remain part of the programme implementation mix allows for a set of organisations with long-standing and hard won relationships with Afghan communities to maintain a presence in Afghanistan during and after the transition. Given that the future security situation remains unknown, donors and the Afghan government should continue to place value on the presence of these organisations in some capacity as their assistance may be required for programming aid in the event of a deteriorating security environment. The community relationships and trust that have allowed NGOs to operate in some of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan have been painstakingly built over time; therefore this presence and access could not be immediately “turned on” again if required.
19. While the future security situation in Afghanistan cannot be predicted, donor governments can help to reduce the vulnerability of Afghans by investing in programmes that strengthen their ability to cope with the combined effects of natural disasters and conflict. Furthermore, donor governments should provide increased assistance through GIRoA according to benchmarks indicating the Afghan government’s readiness to manage funds and provide basic services to at the local level. Models of on-budget funding that allow for Afghan ministries to build their capacity while utilizing NGO partner expertise to preserve continuity in service provision, like the NSP, should be followed to ensure that these two objectives are met simultaneously. Taking these steps in the lead up to 2014 and beyond will help prepare for whatever security conditions may arise and avoid a deeper and more catastrophic humanitarian situation from unfolding, reversing hard won development gains.
1 UNHCR.