Snapshots of an Intervention The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–11) Martine van Bijlert and Sari Kouvo (editors) Snapshots of an Intervention The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–11) Martine van Bijlert and Sari Kouvo (editors) Snapshots of an Intervention Copyright © 2012 Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), Kabul, Afghanistan All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without full attribution. The Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) is a non-profit, independent policy research organisation. It aims to bring together the knowledge, experience and drive of a large number of experts to better inform policy and to increase the understanding of Afghan realities. It is driven by engagement and curiosity and is committed to producing independent, high quality and research-based analysis on developments in Afghanistan. The institutional structure of AAN includes a core team of analysts and a network of contributors with expertise in the fields of Afghan politics, governance, rule of law, security, and regional affairs. AAN publishes regular in-depth thematic reports, policy briefings and comments. The main channel for dissemination of these publications is the AAN web site: www.aan-afghanistan.org. Cover photograph by Martine van Bijlert. Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. vii Martine van Bijlert Introduction ............................................................................................................. xi Martine van Bijlert Overview ............................................................................................................... xiii PART I. BUILDING POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS Thomas Ruttig The Failure of Airborne Democracy ........................................................................... 3 Anders Fänge The Emergency Loya Jirga ....................................................................................... 13 Scott Seward Smith The 2004 Presidential Elections in Afghanistan ........................................................ 19 Catinca Slavu External Voting for Afghanistan’s 2004 Presidential Election .................................... 27 Marvin G Weinbaum Toward a More Effective Parliament? ...................................................................... 35 Sari Kouvo A Plan without Action.............................................................................................. 41 Shahmahmood Miakhel A Brief Overview of the Afghanistan Stabilisation Program ...................................... 47 PART II. STRENGTHENING THE SECURITY FORCES Steve Brooking Early ISAF ................................................................................................................ 57 Antonio Giustozzi The Afghan National Army ...................................................................................... 63 Eileen Olexiuk 20–20 Hindsight ...................................................................................................... 67 vi Contents vi Mathieu Lefèvre The Afghanistan Public Protection Program and the Local Defence Initiatives .......... 73 Joanna Buckley Building the Police through the Focused District Development Programme ............. 81 Steve Brooking Private Security Companies in Afghanistan, 2001–11 ............................................... 91 PART III. HOW THE AID ARCHITECTURE WORKED Anja de Beer Afghanistan’s Early Aid Architecture and How It Has Changed .............................. 101 Ann Wilkens National Prestige Is Big – Even for Small Countries ................................................ 107 Nick Horne Throwing Money at the Problem ........................................................................... 111 Hamish Nixon The ‘Subnational Governance’ Challenge and the Independent Directorate of Local Governance....................................................... 117 Jolyon Leslie Urban Recovery, or Chaos? ................................................................................... 125 Jennifer McCarthy Questioning the NSP ............................................................................................. 131 Frauke de Weijer Capacity Building in MRRD .................................................................................... 139 Royce Wiles Trophy Libraries and Strategic Opacity.................................................................. 145 Andrew Pinney An Afghan Population Estimation .......................................................................... 153 Holly Ritchie Beyond the Value Chain Model ............................................................................. 161 Doris Buddenberg Crop Substitution and Narcotics Control, 1972–2010 ............................................. 173 Heather Barr Settling for Nothing ............................................................................................... 181 Afghanistan Analysts Network Acknowledgements This book has been a consolidated effort and there are many people without whom it would have never come into being. First of all, our colleague Thomas Ruttig whose mention of Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings inspired the working title for this volume: The Handbook of Dead, Dying and Recycled Strategies. Second, we would like to thank the people who at several stages kept the process going when we were too busy to do so ourselves: a big thank you to Joanna Nathan for getting the project started and for approaching most of the authors, to Georg Höhne for being an enthusiastic intern and for his cheerful communications with all authors as the project progressed, and to Claire Truscott for her input during the home stretch, when she provided editing support and input into the final pieces of writing. We would like to thank our meticulous editors, Joyce Maxwell and Jo Fisher, without whom all our publications would probably be much less accessible and understandable. And finally we would like to thank all authors, without whom the current volume would not exist – for their willingness to share their experiences and insights and for their long-time efforts to contribute to a safe and stable Afghanistan. Foreword The idea for this volume was born in the summer of 2010 during a discussion of the cyclical nature of many of Afghanistan’s programmes. Years of following the international efforts had left us with an increasingly strong sense of déjà vu: another conference to demonstrate momentum, another strategy to surpass the ones before, another project that would come and go and be forgotten the moment its progress was no longer being reported on, only to resurface in a new guise a little later. In many cases it was all very understandable: the short rotations and limited mobility of embassy and donor agency staff, the pressures to spend and deliver and to come up with project-sized solutions for complex problems, the tendency to design programmes by brainstorm, the lack of institutional memory – it all meant that ideas often lacked the benefit of previous experience or solid understanding of the context. But it also meant that money and opportunity were being wasted in an overwhelming manner and that the Afghan people were left empty-handed, with promises of security, stability and reconstruction unmet. One of the problems has been a lack of documentation, coupled with a general unwillingness to acknowledge and explore the shape and sources of the failure to effect real change. Other than the usual project documents – that are by nature designed to satisfy donor requirements and to prove that, despite difficulties, project objectives are being reached – there has been surprisingly little effort made to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated and that future planning benefits from past insights. Any suggestion that a new shiny programme very much resembles the old and discarded one has tended to be swept aside as unhelpful criticism. Countless people have been involved in Afghanistan’s bewildering array of policy planning sessions, scoping studies, pilot projects, technical assistance programmes, project management units, coordination mechanisms, implementation attempts, evaluation teams – both Afghan and international. It is useful to learn from what they now know. This edited volume is a collection of largely untold stories and untapped lessons. It is not comprehensive in any way, but we hope that these snapshots will inform future planning and programming and that they will inspire a greater willingness to look back and learn. Martine van Bijlert Martine van Bijlert Introduction The decade of state-building, reconstruction and development assistance in Afghanistan has left many people confused. There have been undeniable changes: Afghanistan now has an election-based, market-driven political system and many socio-economic indicators are far better than they used to be under Taleban rule or during the civil war (although that is, admittedly, not a very high bar). There have been great, albeit unequal, opportunities in terms of education, employment and enrichment. But there is also a strong sense of missed and mismanaged opportunities, which many – Afghans and internationals alike – find difficult to understand: how could so many resources have achieved what feels like so little and so fleeting?