Archive Article: Rebuilding Afghanistan. 17th March 03.
December 27, 2008

With so much attention on Iraq, it is worth recalling that the Afghanistan situation is still far from sorted out.

International Alert, based in London, is an independent non-governmental organization which analyses the causes of conflict within countries, enables mediation and dialogue to take place, sets standards of conduct that avoid violence, and helps to develop the skills necessary to resolve conflict non-violently. It has been taking a close interest in the plight of Afghanistan.

Two of its recent studies are “Aid, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan: What Lessons Can Be Learned?” (by Haneef Atmar and Jonathan Goodhand) and “Afghanistan since the Bonn Agreement: Tasks, Opportunities and Barriers for Peacebuilding” (by Raz Mohammad).

Afghanistan was an “orphan conflict” in the 1990s. The Soviet Union had been beaten in the late 1980s but the international community did little to rebuild the country after the Soviet retreat. Ironically, this chaos provided Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda group with an opportunity to establish a foothold. In retrospect, it would have been much cheaper for the United States to have flooded the country with foreign aid then, rather than having to pay for the military campaign which began after September 11 2001.

International Alert documents are always a useful reminder that a country can win a war but not necessarily win a peace. We now know that there is more to winning a war than just military muscle: there has to be attention to economic and social recovery.

Atmar and Goodhand, for example, comment on the need to provide long-term and sustained support. Countries based their policies towards Afghanistan on short-term expedient interests. This backfired on them, particularly since Afghanistan went on to become a major exporter of drugs and radical Islam. When the Soviets pulled out, Afghanistan should have received sustained support in the interests of structural stability.

Some things have changed since September 11 and the consequent American attack: there is now greater international involvement in the country’s rehabilitation. In November-December 2001, there was an international conference at Bonn, Germany and there was the creation of the Afghan Interim Authority.

Mohammad’s research looks at what has happened since the Bonn conference. One of the problems now is the lack of a common, co-ordinated operational framework. Various international, foreign governmental and non-governmental operations are underway. There is an overlap of effort. Indeed, the report talks about “over-concentration”: this arises from the presence of a large number of aid providers in a particular geographical area targeting a particular group, which can have a negative impact on the recovery process and may deepen existing regional and ethnic tensions.

Another problem is the creation of a “relief culture”. The free food distribution to over 7 million people (almost 10 times greater than before September 11), while welcome as immediate relief, also erodes long-term development because people become too reliant on foreign aid. For example, farmers may hesitate about planting when they fear that there will be no market for their produce when so much comes in for free from overseas.

Overall, the reports give us much to think about – especially possible lessons for Iraq’s eventually recovery.

Broadcast Friday 7th March 2003 on Radio 2GB’s “Brian Wilshire Programme” at 9pm.