Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special envoy Richard Holbrooke were in the Hague on Tuesday to discuss aid to Afghanistan with European countries and other nations. (Holbrooke even finessed an "informal" conversation with an Iranian official.) But as is vogue these days, the word "smart" needs to be added to aid, particularly when the subject is Afghanistan. The United States in recent years has not engaged in "smart aid" in war-torn Afghanistan; it has squandered some of the $7 billion it has spent on Afghanistan development from 2002 through 2008. A new report by Oxfam, based on interviews with aid workers and officials in Afghanistan (private and public, Afghan and western), found that much of the money has been wasted or used ineffectively:
A number of interviewees felt USAID had neglected certain crucial sectors, especially agriculture and rural trade, on which a majority of Afghans depend for their means of earning a living. Aside from alternative livelihood programs (linked to counternarcotics efforts), USAID's support for agriculture has been less than 5 percent of its assistance since 2001.
Interviewees also believed that the US relies too much on the potential of free market and private sector solutions without creating an environment that enables those markets to work equitably, and without taking sufficient account of the weak economic and commercial infrastructure, low level of literacy and professional skills, and spreading insecurity.
The report adds:
Despite some laudable efforts in Afghanistan, US aid practitioners are bound by structures and strategies that often constrain their ability to work effectively on the ground. In particular, interviewees raised concerns about a flawed contracting system, the pressures to measure results of the wrong kind, and the costs of an unclear strategy and excessive security restrictions that distance US aid practitioners
from the Afghans they're hoping to support.
Several interviewees critiqued USAID's current contracting system, including its unrealistic objectives, the excessive cost of private contractors, and the multiple tiers of subcontractors. Many contractors are widely regarded as inefficient, absorbing a huge volume of funds in consultant costs and profits while providing work that is of variable quality, relevance, and impact, and all done with very little transparency.
With contractors sucking up a lot of the money, it doesn't seem as if Americans have gotten a full bang for all those bucks. And neither have Afghans. It's a damn shame that any money has been wasted in Afghanistan, because a small amount of dollars there can go a long way. As Oxfam notes, in Daikundi province, the Afghan Department of Agriculture in 2007 had a budget of $2,400 to improve farming in the area. Half a million Afghans in this province depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Imagine, then, increasing that budget by say a thousand-fold. That would be a drop in the bucket of all the aid money spent in the country, but that $2.4 million would go rather far--if spent well.
So as Clinton and Holbrooke pressure other countries to kick in more dollars, the priority should also be to establish a system that can deploy this money wisely and efficiently. Assistance in Afghanistan can come at a bargain-basement price. But the folks with the cash still have to know where to put it.
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Comments
"But the folks with the cash still have to know where to put it."
Sadly, I think they know all too well where to put it.
We could have done so much and so much better. More of the Bush Cheney legacy of death and destruction, waste and corruption. At least now the whole world knows the neocon dream is a nightmare.
Posted by: capt
| March 31, 2009 10:12 PM
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