Afghanistan is not a success story
Contrary to what the Bush administration is portraying to the American
people, Iraq is fast becoming a deep morass and Afghanistan is not a
resounding success story.
I just returned from a month long visit to Afghanistan. What I observed during my stay there was quite different than what the Administration would have us believe. Three and a half years after the Karzai Government was installed in Kabul, the socio-political situation is still uncertain and the economy is in shambles.
The Taliban/ Al-Qaeda elements are still at large, killing innocent people, government officials and soldiers on a daily basis. Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and other top leadership of this network are still hiding in their fur-lined foxholes, somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium, has in fact become a narco state. While some prominent warlords are, on surface, being sacked and disarmed, others, energized by narco-trafficking, are fearlessly roaming around the country.
As for the economy, telecommunications and construction have attracted substantial investment. Most of the investment in the construction industry arises from the profits generated from the opium trade. Investments in other sectors of the economy are lagging behind despite government efforts to encourage them; this is due to instability and insecurity, which, together, impede the formation of the enabling environment for investment.
The use of the Afghan local currency, the Afghani, is not growing rapidly in the financial sector, due to the dominance of the US Dollar in the Afghan economy. Even outside the formal financial sector, the use of Afghani was only 10-12 percent last year. This was inspite the fact that Afghani-Dollar exchange was kept rather stable during the same period.
Further evidence of slow progress in reconstruction work has been the Government’s preoccupation with the forthcoming parliamentary election, worsening of the security situation and a persistence of drug trafficking in the country. This multitude of problems has not allowed the Karzai Government to devote much attention on poverty reduction. In fact, the Government has yet to announce its Poverty Reduction Strategy. The consequences of this inertia have been severe: the State has failed to provide safe drinking water and sanitation for the majority of the people. The condition of Afghan refugees and displaced persons in Afghanistan has been also chaotic. While some refugees have returned home, millions are still in the neighboring countries due to the lack of shelter and other factors mentioned above.
President Bush, in a speech to the graduates of the Virginia Military Institute, in April 2002, promised to launch a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, not understanding its original goals and implications. The Marshall Plan was intended to revitalize Western Europe, which was already industrialized and integrated in the world economy before World War II. Afghanistan, on the other hand, being a poor country, is confronted with an entirely different set of circumstances.
Despite the deferential rhetoric, the U.S. Administration has not yet delivered anything bearing even the slightest resemblance to the Marshall Plan. For example, the showcase Kabul-Kandahar road of 241 miles was built at a cost of $270 million with USAID money. This poorly constructed road is said to be one the costliest roads ever built in the region. For political expediency, the road was completed in great haste before the Presidential Election in Afghanistan. USAID haphazardly engaged several companies in this project, with little oversight.
In light of all these problems, Afghanistan has quite a long way to go towards becoming an effective and accountable state. It needs, among other things, a sustainable national budget, an effective public administration, and most importantly, stability and rule of law throughout the country. Presently, Government employees as well as members of the nascent armed forces are paid low salaries, which are often in arrears. This coupled with high prices of housing and food have has resulted in endemic corruption. Further, the Government ministries and departmental entities have skeletal staffs, most of which are ill equipped to perform their duties.
The increasing instability in recent months, as evidenced by escalating violence which has led to the recent US offensive in eastern and southern Afghanistan, has forced the UN Secretary General’s envoy to Afghanistan to assert, “over the last three months a negative evolution of the nation’s security has been observed”… and “the country is confronted with an escalation of both the number and gravity of incidents…”
The American Administration has hailed Afghanistan as a success. With platitudes they continue to put a happy face on an extremely complex and unstable set of affairs. But the realities on the ground in Afghanistan betray the truth. Far from being a successful effort at nation-building, the current situation, with all its attendant problems, threatens to unravel what little progress has already been achieved. How, then, in good conscience can this be deemed a success?
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* Ghulam Faruq Achikzad is founder and senior
advisor of Intercap International in New York, a firm that appraises
investments in the Arab Gulf and Pacific Rim. His background includes
30 years of international experience in economics and finance, in both
the public and private sectors. He has conducted economic research,
formulation and implementation of national economic and financial
policies, including project identification, appraisal, evaluation, and
management of technical assistance. Mr. Achikzad was chief investment
development officer for the United Nations Bureau of Program Policy and
Evaluation, and also served as resident representative for the United
Nations Development Program in the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea. He has held positions with the Federal Reserve Bank, Bank of
America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Da Afghanistan bank and the Trading
Company of Afghanistan. He is fluent in Persian and Pushtoo with
working knowledge of Arabic, French, and Urdu. A board member of the
Afghan-American Foundation, the Children of War and VirtualNation, Mr.
Achikzad earned a B.A. in Economics from Syracuse University and an
M.S. in Economics (International Finance) from San Francisco State
University.