(Afghan reconstruction) Unsuitable, unsustainable - Guardian

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Source: The Guardian

Comment
Unsuitable, unsustainable

When Afghan children are forced to eat mud, it is
clear we have squandered billions of dollars of aid

Matt Waldman
Saturday May 26, 2007
The Guardian

The international community is in danger of repeating in
Afghanistan the mistakes made in Iraq. Millions of Afghans have
seen little material improvement in their lives since 2001, and
most still live in desperate poverty. From the start, the damage
inflicted by a quarter-century of war was underestimated; this
is not about repairing the state but building it from scratch.

Rural communities have seen some improvements, but essential
services are scarce or inadequate. In provinces where Oxfam
works such as Daikundi, there is no mains water or electricity,
and virtually no paved roads. Average life expectancy in
Daikundi is 42 and one in five children dies before the age of
five. Afghan children chew on mud they scratch from the walls
of their homes to stave off hunger.

Most reconstruction work has focused on urban centres and
national institutions and structures. It has been supply-driven,
not needs-driven. Development urgently needs to go local, but
there is confusion among state institutions about their roles, and
district councils provided for by the constitution have yet to be
elected. For ordinary Afghans, the local or tribal council of elders
- the shura or jirga - constitutes the central authority. Yet these
bodies have been largely neglected in the state-building process.

-snip-

America is bankrolling Afghanistan. It is responsible for more than
half of all aid to the country (aid that accounts for about a third
of GDP), and it plans to provide $10.6bn in the next two years.
But as in Iraq, a vast proportion of aid is wasted. Political
pressure in donor countries for rapid results has led to projects
that are unsuitable and unsustainable. Most aid money goes to
programmes in the opium-intensive, insecure provinces in the
south. To neglect secure provinces is to invite the insurgency to
spread.

Close to half of US development assistance goes to the five biggest
US contractors in the country. ...

-snip-

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2088604,00.html