House of Commons International Development Committee Reconstructing Afghanistan Fourth Report of Session 2007–08 Volume II Oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 5 February 2008 HC 65-II [Incorporating HC 1097-i, Session 2006-07] Published on 14 February 2008 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £16.50 International Development Committee The International Development Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for International Development and its associated public bodies. Current membership Malcolm Bruce MP (Liberal Democrat, Gordon) (Chairman) John Battle MP (Labour, Leeds West) Hugh Bayley MP (Labour, City of York) John Bercow MP (Conservative, Buckingham) Richard Burden MP (Labour, Birmingham Northfield) Mr Stephen Crabb MP (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire) James Duddridge MP (Conservative, Rochford and Southend East) Ann McKechin MP (Labour, Glasgow North) Jim Sheridan MP (Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North) Mr Marsha Singh MP (Labour, Bradford West) Sir Robert Smith MP (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/indcom Committee staff The staff of the Committee are: Carol Oxborough (Clerk), Matthew Hedges (Second Clerk), Anna Dickson (Committee Specialist), Chlöe Challender (Committee Specialist), Ian Hook (Committee Assistant), Jennifer Steele (Secretary), Alex Paterson (Media Officer) and James Bowman (Senior Office Clerk). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the International Development Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 1223; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] Footnotes In the footnotes for this Report, references to oral evidence are indicated by ‘Q’ followed by the question number. References to written evidence are indicated by the page number as in ‘Ev 12’ Witnesses Tuesday 23 October 2007 Page Mr Jim Drummond, Director, South Asia Division, Ms Lindy Cameron, former Head of DFID Afghanistan, Department for International Development and Mr Peter Holland, Head, Afghan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit, Foreign & Commonwealth Office Ev 1 Thursday 15 November 2007 Mr David Mansfield, Independent Consultant Ev 14 Mr David Page, Chair of Trustees, Afghanaid, Mr Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Policy, Research and Advocacy Co-ordinator, ActionAid Afghanistan and Ms Elizabeth Winter, Special Adviser, Policy and Advocacy, British & Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group (BAAG) Ev 21 Thursday 17 January 2008 Rt Hon. Douglas Alexander, MP, Secretary of State, Mr Marshall Elliott, Head of DFID Afghanistan, Department for International Development and Ms Philippa Rogers, Deputy Head of Afghan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit, Ev 31 Foreign & Commonwealth Office List of written evidence Department for International Development Ev 50; 60; 61 ActionAid Ev 62 Afghanaid Ev 68; 72 British Council Ev 74 British & Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group (BAAG) Ev 75:Ev 90 Christian Aid Ev 95 David Elliot, Independent Consultant Ev 101 Gender Action for Peace and Security (GAPS UK) Ev 102 Institute for State Effectiveness Ev 107 Médecins du Monde UK Ev 110 Merlin Ev 111 Oxfam International, Afghanistan Ev 114 The Senlis Council Ev 127 Stop The Traffik Ev 129 WOMANKIND Worldwide Ev 131 List of unprinted written evidence The following written evidence has been reported to the House, but to save printing costs it has not been printed and copies have been placed in the House of Commons Library, where they may be inspected by Members. Other copies are in the Parliamentary Archives, and are available to the public for inspection. Requests for inspection should be addressed to The Parliamentary Archives, Houses of Parliament, London SW1A 0PW (tel. 020 7219 3074). Opening hours are from 9.30 am to 5.00 pm on Mondays to Fridays. Independent Directorate for Local Governance of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: • Strategy Paper, September 2007 • Strategic Framework • Communities Self-Defense Programme Processed: 08-02-2008 19:43:26 Page Layout: COENEW [SO] PPSysB Job: 380737 Unit: PAG1 International Development Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the International Development Committee on Tuesday 23 October 2007 Members present: Malcolm Bruce, in the Chair Richard Burden Mr Marsha Singh James Duddridge Sir Robert Smith Ann McKechin Witnesses: Mr Jim Drummond, Director, South Asia Division, Ms Lindy Cameron, former Head of Department for International Development (DFID) Afghanistan, and Mr Peter Holland, Head, Afghan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit (joint DFID-FCO unit), DFID, gave evidence. Q1 Chairman: Good morning and thank you for extremity of poverty in Afghanistan is being taken coming to give evidence in our first session on into account in setting the level of aid that the development assistance in insecure environments country receives? with the emphasis on Afghanistan for which you Mr Drummond: Perhaps I may start with a little have particular DFID responsibilities. Mr background to that question. The development Drummond, perhaps for the record you would first challenge in Afghanistan is still huge. We started introduce the members of your team and their from an extremely low base in development terms in particular areas of expertise and responsibility. 2001 when the Taliban regime fell. From the Mr Drummond: My name is Jim Drummond and I statistics we have, in 2004 life expectancy in am the director for South Asia in DFID. I started Afghanistan was 46 years and adult literacy was 28% compared with the average in Least Developed this job at the beginning of the month and so I am a Countries of 52.4 years and 63%. One in five Afghan relative new-comer. On my right is Lindy Cameron children dies before its fifth birthday. That is an who in September finished a period of 18 months or Y improvement from one in four dying at the end of so as head of the DFID o ce in Afghanistan based the Taliban regime, but it is still a very serious state in Kabul. On my left is Peter Holland who is head of of aVairs. Half the population lives on less than $1 a the Afghan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit, day and about one third of the population eats less generally known as ADIDU. Mr Holland has been than the minimum daily calorie requirement. in his job for a while and therefore also has Afghanistan will miss the Millennium Development considerable expertise on the subject. ADIDU is Goals but it has a target for meeting them by 2020. responsible for the counter-narcotics eVort but is Set against that, there have been some pretty also the lead on policing and justice issues and so Mr remarkable achievements in the past five years. We Holland will help with questions that you may have now have 5.4 million children in school, one third of on those subjects. them girls. As you know, the Taliban excluded girls from school. Nearly five million refugees have returned to Afghanistan. There have been improvements in infant mortality rates and the Q2 Chairman: When the international compact for immunisation of children. It is estimated that Afghanistan was signed in London in January 2006 immunisation against measles has saved about the Committee had the opportunity to meet 35,000 lives annually. Attendance at school and informally a number of the Afghan representatives. access to basic healthcare have improved. There is a Obviously, that was a significant development and mixed picture of achievements from a very low base there were high hopes as to where it would lead. By but which often go unreported. It varies around the any standards Afghanistan is a very poor country country as you will know. In terms of the resources and presumably would always be a priority for that DFID puts into Afghanistan, Ministers made a funding by DFID regardless of the current situation commitment to provide¨ 330 million over a three- and recent history. Can you give an indication of year period. The last year of that is the next financial how that country fares in terms of the aid it receives year. We expect to meet that commitment. If you compared with other post-conflict countries in look at the resource allocation model from which DFID starts its process—obviously, resource recent times and to what extent the scale of the allocations are political decisions but they are based poverty in Afghanistan is being taken fully into on evidence of poverty—Afghanistan would get account? In some of the written evidence we have about one third of what it gets now. We have made received from a variety of sources a number of extra provision for Afghanistan. people have commented that the resources being made available are inadequate for the scale. Can you Q3 Chairman: I completely accept the statistics you provide an indication of what resources per capita have given us and the scale of improvement, which are being made available and to what extent the is welcome. I also accept your answer in terms of Processed: 08-02-2008 19:43:26 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 380737 Unit: PAG1 Ev 2 International Development Committee: Evidence 23 October 2007 Mr Jim Drummond, Ms Lindy Cameron and Mr Peter Holland DFID’s particular commitment, but, to put that in Development Bank about the need to maintain the context, the International Crisis Group—I accept higher levels of post-conflict assistance that they this is historical—says that in the first two years after have been delivering to Afghanistan.