Counterproductive action

The fight against terrorism has undermined nation-building in Afghanistan. That is the opinion of Martine van Bijlert, adviser to Ettore Francesco Sequi, the EU’s special representative for Afghanistan. The construction of schools and hospitals, mine clearance and the promotion of agricultural alternatives to drug cultivation, according to van Bijlert, have all been put on the back burner as fighting insurgents became the allies’ main issue. In turn, civil-reconstruction efforts became targets of insurgents. For fear of attacks, many Afghans shy from using hospitals, legal advice centres or schools, van Bijlert says, as hopes for better living are evaporating.

Germany’s Federal Government has an understanding of “networked security”, according to which military security and civil reconstruction are mutually reinforcing. This concept, argue German civil-society organisations, needs to be reconsidered. VENRO vice-chairman Jürgen Lieser points out that blurred boundaries between humanitarian and political mandates has put aid agencies’ independence in question, jeopardising their safety. Some VENRO members, including medica mondiale and Welthungerhilfe, have adjusted their operations in Afghanistan to the new seurity situation in order to not put at risk the lives of field workers and clients.

VENRO sees several reasons for the poor effectiveness of development aid in Afghanistan. They include
– poor coordination by donors,
– disregard for local culture and
– the Afghan government’s lack of capacities.
The Afghans themselves see poverty and unemployment as their most pressing worries, recent Oxfam research has found. At a VENRO conference in November, Thomas Gebauer of medico international reported that Afghans are also concerned with the lack of law and order as well as inefficient government institutions, whereas the insurgents and the presence of foreign troops are considered lesser problems.

“We never had a strategy for Afghanistan,” says Jochen Hippler of the German Institute for Development and Peace (INEF) which is affiliated to the University Duisburg-Essen. The background for Germany’s military engagement, he adds, was simply the alliance with the United States and a “woolly wish list of objectives such as democratisation and women's rights”. Hippler bemoans that conflicting goals were simply screened out.

At the VENRO conference, Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan MP, summed up the situation as follows: “You had one wish list, the Americans had another. The French, the British – even Iran, Pakistan and India are pursuing interests of their own in our country. You may not have put the corrupt leaders in office, but you did put the egotism there.” Christiane Rost