[Note our old buddy Ashraf Ghani (interviewed on Doug's show, posted a couple of times during the war) is right in the thick of things.]
[This is probably a good time to reread Michael Maren's book _The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity_. Does anyone know of a good critique of it?]
Financial Times; Nov 18, 2002
BACK PAGE - FIRST SECTION: Kabul tries to crawl out from under the UN's aid blanket
By Victoria Burnett
The Afghan government last week took the UN aid agencies operating in the war-ravaged country to task, renewing its call for cuts in the number of expatriate staff and threatening to ask some agencies to leave if they do not deliver aid in line with the government's own vision.
"We're confronting the donors," said Nassim Jawad, senior policy adviser to the rural development ministry. "We said: 'As long as you continue to work the way you are accustomed to operating, the government can never establish itself.'"
A year after a US-led coalition rolled into Kabul, Afghans in government and on the street are impatient to see results from the conspicuous community of expatriates that set up shop there.
The arrival of thousands of aid workers and peacekeepers created a mini-boom in Kabul, with shops stocking everything from local flatbread to Italian olive oil and Pringles.
Four-wheel drives bound along the dust-choked streets, dwarfing swarms of battered taxis and bicycles. Rents and prices have soared, making life harder for the many who struggle to get by on $1 a day and have no electricity or running water.
"We're happy the foreigners brought security," said Nadia, whose household income is about $10 per week. "But we need social and economic security. Soldiers and guns don't feed us."
The Afghan government is anxious to emerge from the shadow of the UN and insists that aid agencies are monopolising funds. Of the $1.3bn given in aid so far this year, only 10 per cent has gone directly to government coffers.
According to one source, the government is considering seeking a limit on the amount of Afghan funding UN agencies may bid for, in an effort to gain a bigger share of next year's estimated $2bn in aid.
"What the UN has effectively done since January is to put in a parallel administration," said a senior government adviser.
At last week's meetings to review the UN's performance in Afghanistan over the past year and assess plans for 2003, the Afghan government called on the UN aid agencies to shave costs by reducing the number of expatriate staff and office buildings.
"Having expatriates working in the agencies is so costly," said Haji Mohammed Muhaqiq, planning minister.
The UN has 700 expatriates working in Afghanistan and 3,000 locals, not including anti-mine operations. It has said from the outset that it intends gradually to replace foreign workers with Afghans.
"We're not in the business of propping up our own administration," Nigel Fisher, second-in-command of the UN mission to Afghanistan, said.
Hannan Sulieman, his assistant, said last week's meetings had been "healthy discussions" that gave the government a "better understanding of the way the UN works".
Tensions between the government and UN agencies have flared several times during the past year, with Ashraf Ghani, the dynamic and respected finance minister who heads the aid co-ordination agency, gaining a reputation for a sharp tongue.
Government officials were bluntly critical of several UN operations during last week's meetings. The World Health Organisation's team in Afghanistan came under fire for spreading itself too thinly and being insufficiently "hands-on", said Dr Said Salah Youssouf, head of the mission.
A senior UN official said the WHO had been told it would be first on the list if any UN organisation was asked to leave Afghanistan.
Many in the donor and diplomatic community doubt the Afghan government's ability to absorb more aid, a belief the government resents.
Mr Jawad criticised the aid representatives for their arrogance. "They come into these ministries and they think they're talking to illiterates, to unskilled people."
Ministries would like to see competition for development contracts. "What's the difference between a UN agency doing a project and a private company doing it?" one government adviser asked.
Senior diplomats in Kabul dismissed the tensions as an inevitable part of the tricky task of rebuilding a nation ravaged by 23 years of war.
"In the post-conflict situation the UN ceases to be seen as the political liberator and the reality sets in . . . and you begin to see masses of cars and high-tech telecoms equipment," said one diplomat.
However, they warned that the combative style of some in government could alienate donors and aid agencies. With about $80m in import taxes as its only source of domestic revenue, the government cannot scare off the aid community.
"We have to establish an acceptable level of relations," said Mr Jawad. "This is not benefiting the country and, whether we like it or not, the donors will continue to put all the money in UN coffers."