Canada as Statebuilder?: Development and Reconstruction Efforts in Afghanistan 9780228007364

Table of contents :
Cover
Copyright
Contents
Figures and Tables
Preface
1 Introduction
Part One
2 Setting the Stage: Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan (2001–14)
3 Statebuilding vs Nation-Building: A Conceptual Anchoring
4 Understanding Aid Effectiveness and Results-Based Evaluations in Afghanistan
Part Two
5 The Military Side of Peace and Security Programming
6 Non-Military Security Sector Reforms
7 The Fight for Women’s Rights
8 Doing Health Development Right
9 The Challenge of Quality Education for All
10 Conclusion
Appendices
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

c a n a d a a s s tat e b u i l d e r ?

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hu ma n D i me nsi o ns i n F or e i gn P o l i cy, M i l i tary Stu dies , a nd Se c ur i t y St ud i e s Series editors: Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger, Pierre Jolicoeur, and Stéfanie von Hlatky Books published in the Human Dimensions in Foreign Policy, Military Studies, and Security Studies series offer fresh perspectives on foreign affairs and global governance. Titles in the series illuminate critical issues of global security in the twenty-first century and emphasize the human dimensions of war such as the health and well-being of soldiers, the factors that influence operational effectiveness, the civil-military relations and decisions on the use of force, as well as the ethical, moral, and legal ramifications of ongoing conflicts and wars. Foreign policy is also analyzed both in terms of its impact on human rights and the role the public plays in shaping policy directions. With a strong focus on definitions of security, the series encourages ­discussion of contemporary security challenges and welcomes works that focus on issues including human security, violent conflict, terrorism, military cooperation, and foreign and defence policy. This series is published in collaboration with Queen’s University and the Royal Military College of Canada with the Centre for International and Defence Policy, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, and the Centre for Security, Armed Forces, and Society.   1 Going to War? Trends in Military Interventions Edited by Stéfanie von Hlatky and H. Christian Breede   2 Bombs, Bullets, and Politicians France’s Response to Terrorism Christophe Chowanietz   3 War Memories Commemoration, Recollections, and Writings on War Edited by Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger and Renée Dickason   4 Disarmament under International Law John Kierulf

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  5 Contract Workers, Risk, and the War in Iraq Sierra Leonean Labor Migrants at US Military Bases Kevin J.A. Thomas   6 Violence and Militants From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist Organizations Baris Cayli   7 Frontline Justice The Evolution and Reform of Summary Trials in the Canadian Armed Forces Pascal Lévesque

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  8 Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorism Assessing Domestic and International Strategies Edited by Stéfanie von Hlatky   9 Transhumanizing War Performance Enhancement and the Implications for Policy, Society, and the Soldier Edited by H. Christian Breede, Stéphanie A.H. Bélanger, and Stéfanie von Hlatky 10 Coping with Geopolitical Decline The United States in European Perspective Edited by Frédéric Mérand

12 Outsourcing Control The Politics of International Migration Cooperation Katherine H. Tennis 13 Why We Fight New Approaches to the Human Dimensions of Warfare Edited by Robert C. Engen, H. Christian Breede, and Allan English 14 Canada as Statebuilder? Development and Reconstruction Efforts in Afghanistan Laura Grant and Benjamin Zyla

11 Rivals in Arms The Rise of U K-France Defence Relations in the Twenty-First Century Alice Pannier

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Canada as Statebuilder? Development and Reconstruction Efforts in Afghanistan

laura grant and

benjamin zyla

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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©  McGill-Queen’s University Press 2021 ISBN 978-0-2280-0610-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-2280-0611-4 (paper) ISBN 978-0-2280-0736-4 (eP DF ) Legal deposit second quarter 2021 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Canada as statebuilder?: development and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan / Laura Grant and Benjamin Zyla. Names: Grant, Laura, 1985- author. | Zyla, Benjamin, author. Series: Human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies, and security ­­studies; 14. Description: Series statement: Human dimensions in foreign policy, military studies, and security studies; 14 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210133198 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210133406 | ISB N 9780228006114 (softcover) | IS BN 9780228006107 (hardcover) | ISB N 9780228007364 (P DF ) Subjects: L CS H: Nation-building—Afghanistan. | L C SH : Nation-building— Canada. | L CS H: Humanitarian assistance, Canadian—Afghanistan. | L C SH : Peace-building, Canadian—Afghanistan. | L CS H : Afghanistan—Politics and ­government—2001– | L CS H: Afghanistan—Social conditions—21st century. | LC SH: Canada—Foreign relations—Afghanistan. | L C SH : Afghanistan—Foreign relations—Canada. Classification: L CC DS 371.4 .G 73 2021 | DDC 958.104/7—dc23

This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5 / 13 Sabon.

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Contents



Figures and Tables  ix

Preface xiii   1 Introduction 3 pa rt o n e

  2 Setting the Stage: Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan (2001–14) 17   3 Statebuilding vs Nation-Building: A Conceptual Anchoring 35   4 Understanding Aid Effectiveness and Results-Based Evaluations in Afghanistan 66 pa rt t w o

  5 The Military Side of Peace and Security Programming 97   6 Non-Military Security Sector Reforms 119   7 The Fight for Women’s Rights 164   8 Doing Health Development Right 200   9 The Challenge of Quality Education for All 235 10 Conclusion 270 Appendices 309 Notes 321 References 347 Index 393

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Figures and Tables

figures

1.1 1.2 2.1 3.1 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4

6.5 7.1 7.2

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Canada’s official O DA to Afghanistan 2001–16  6 Annual Canadian disbursements to Afghanistan programs, 2004–05 to 2012–13  7 Government of Canada’s response to the Manley Report 31 Difference between peacebuilding and statebuilding  51 Results chain logic model  88 Government of Canada logic model for results-based evaluations 90 Context of the Bonn Agreement, 1989–2001  102 Areas contaminated by landmine (sq. km), 2001–12, ­landmine and cluster munition monitor  120 International financial assistance for mine action in Afghanistan, 2001–11  131 Control of corruption: Percentile rank of Afghanistan, Canada, and the US, 1998–2017  148 Political stability and absence of violence/terrorism: Percentile rank of Afghanistan, Canada, and the US, 2000–14 150 Rule of law: Percentile rank of Afghanistan, Canada, and the US, 1998–2014  151 Female representation in Afghanistan’s political institutions, 2001–07 177 Percentage of women employed in agriculture, 2001–14  183

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x

Figures and Tables

7.3

Comparison of percentage of seats held by women in ­national parliaments, 2001–14  187 7.4 Percentage of self-employed (of total employment), 2001–14 189 7.5 Percentage of labour force by sector, 2000–14  190 7.6 Percentage of female unemployment (% of female labour force), 2001–14  190 7.7 Number of pupils in primary education, 2001–14  191 7.8 Percentage of female pupils in primary education, 2001–14 192 7.9 Life expectancy at birth, men and women, 1990–2014  195 7.10 Female life expectancy at birth, 1990–2014  195 8.1 Life expectancy of men and women in Afghanistan, 1994–2016 226 8.2 Percentage of births attended by skilled health staff, 2001–15 227 8.3 Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births (modelled estimate), 1994–2015  227 8.4 Afghanistan infant mortality rate compared with world rate per 1,000 live births, 2000–17  228 8.5 Afghanistan under-5 mortality rate compared with world rate per 1,000 live births, 2000–17  228 8.6 Percentage of immunizations of children ages 12–23 ­compared with Canada’s rate, 1994–2017  230 9.1 Percentage of female teachers, primary and secondary ­education, 2007–17  261 9.2 Proportion of unqualified teachers by province  261 9.3 Percentage of female students from primary to upper secondary school, 2001–13  263 9.4 Girls’ primary-school attendance rates in the most and least violent provinces, April 2016–March 2017  264 9.5 Enrollment rates and proximity to nearest school  267 10.1 Ethnic composition of Afghanistan. Map by Rainer Lesniewski courtesy of Shutterstock  284 10.2 Total official humanitarian aid and other official ­development financing to Afghanistan, 1995–2009  296

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Figures and Tables xi

ta b l e s

2.1 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5

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Canada’s total O DA to Afghanistan, 1990–2001, in millions of USD  18 Paris Declaration commitments  78 Military contributions to Operation Enduring Freedom (O E F ) in Afghanistan  100 IS A F Troop Deployments, 2003–14  106 Canadian casualties by year, 2002–11  113 Biggest donors to Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund 129 Electoral participation of Afghan women, 2004–10  186 Percentage of female population in various age groups with no education  193 Pupils with access to primary education, 2009–14  198 Progress against selected key health indicators for Afghanistan, 2003–10  201 Sampling of MoP H health sector strategies and plans, 2003–13 203 Logic framework for access to health, 2007–11  207 Logic framework for access to health, 2008–11  209 Logic framework for health outputs and outcomes, 2011–14 212 Polio projects, 2011–14  217 Improving maternal, newborn, and child health programs 218 Reported cases of acute flaccid paralysis and wild polio virus 229 Canadian education priorities, 2006–14  242 Logic framework for rural livelihoods and social protection, 2004–09 244 Logic framework for access to education, 2007–11  245 Logic framework for access to education, 2008–11  249 Logic framework for access to education, 2011–14  252

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Preface

Both of us have been working on different aspects of the peace- and statebuilding intervention in Afghanistan over the past few years, including Canada’s role and standing therein. The idea for this project emerged during the discussions in one of our monthly research colloquiums on Peace, Conflict, and Transition. Laura’s PhD project assesses the effectiveness of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (P RT s) in Afghanistan. Her case studies include Canada and the US. While the colloquium vividly discussed the Afghan peace- and statebuilding mission and Canada’s role therein, we started to realize that there is an apparent, and wide, gap in the literature assessing Canada’s development programs and projects in Afghanistan. Since both of our earlier research and writing projects had closely intersected with the development side (known as the security-development nexus in the literature), we decided to explore this project a bit more by probing some of the data that we had already collected through our joint field research in Washington, DC , in June 2017. Although we knew that the data was difficult to get hold of and is extremely complex, we saw sufficient promise to start working on this joint project. However, writing an analysis of Canada’s development programming in Afghanistan is by no means an easy task, and we benefited significantly from colleagues in the writing process. In overcoming a number of theoretical and methodological obstacles, we benefited tremendously from the research assistance of Shermeen Umar Khan, Ikram Handulle, and Esengul Tasdemir at the University of Ottawa, who helped us to trace and collect the information on each of the development programs that Canada engaged in in Afghanistan. This was not only a tedious task, it was also sometimes confusing because

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xiv Preface

the information found in different sources was oftentimes not identical or even misleading. Collecting the data alone took us more than one year to complete before we were confident about its reliability. The research assistant team at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Konstanz in Germany, where Benjamin spent two consecutive academic years as a fellow (2017–19), were of tremendous help in collecting missing information and compiling the bibliography. Emily Markowitz at Harvard did a superb job of formatting the bibliography. Also of great help was Dr Nipa Banerjee, who served as Canada’s first CIDA development official in Kandahar Province from 2003–05 and is now senior fellow in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa (SIDGS). Her wealth of experience and detailed insights into Canada’s development programming, especially in the early days of the mission, allowed us to think more clearly about those multi-million-dollar programs, to better understand what rationales drove the government’s decisions, and what factors significantly impacted them. Dr Banerjee also generously shared some primary information and private notes from her time serving in Afghanistan.  We also thank the three reviewers, who were very generous with their time, for their helpful comments and suggestions as well as our colleagues in the Fragile States Research Network at the uOttawa for the very fruitful discussions we had over the past several years on fragile states, and Afghanistan in particular. Their comments and suggestions undoubtedly made this book much better.  Jonathan Crago, editor-in-chief at McGill-Queen’s University Press, and our editor Jacqueline Mason were very enthusiastic about this project from the beginning when we first exchanged ideas at the Metropolis conference in Montreal in early 2017. Their wealth of experience and vision made the publication of this monograph a very smooth ride and both were very enjoyable to work with. We also appreciate their humour with us not meeting self-imposed deadlines, which we admit is so typical of academics. Gillian Scobie is a meticulous copy editor and deserves credit for going over the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb, alerting us to problems, and making the overall text shine. Last but certainly not least, we benefited tremendously from the generous funding from the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Konstanz in Germany where much of this manuscript

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Preface xv

was written during an academic leave; an Insight Development Grant of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (Funding no. 430-2015-00502); the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa for granting a sabbatical leave; as well as a SSH R C doctoral fellowship and two Ontario graduate fellowships. Without this generous financial support this project would not have been possible. It also benefited tremendously from the wonderful and extremely intellectually stimulating work environment of the Canada Program based at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard as well as the Department of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, with which Benjamin is affiliated (2019–21).  Needless to say, although we are indebted to all of them for helping us get the book on the shelves, all errors, of course, remain ours. Konstanz/Cambridge, Brussels in April 2019

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c a n a d a a s s tat e b u i l d e r ?

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1 Introduction

What development projects did Canada run in Afghanistan, and did they give Afghans the tools to help themselves? Did these projects deliver what they promised? Which projects worked, which ones did not work, and why? These are the central questions that this book answers. Having assessed the primary data on Canada’s development projects in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014 inductively, we argue that right now Canada has limited capacity to effectively run future development programs and projects in fragile states like Afghanistan. Canadian or Canadian-sponsored development projects were undoubtedly ambitious and showed a lot of outputs (i.e., the services or products that are the direct result of specific programming or a specific project). However, when we assess their outcomes – that is, their short- and long-term impact on the ground, as discussed in detail in chapter 4, the Canadian record is less impressive. Our objectives in this monograph are twofold. First, we assess an extensive dataset covering the entirety1 of Canada’s development projects in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2014 (for details on the dataset see the appendixes). Second, we “rack and stack,” to use the language of John Sopko, US special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SI GA R ). That is, we assess Canada’s best and worst performing projects with the aim of (a) deriving lessons learned for future statebuilding missions that Canada might decide to undertake in the future, and (b) knowing where Canada should invest further and where to cut its losses. In that sense we are contributing to evidence-­based discussions of one of Canada’s most important foreign policy activities in recent years, the Afghan mission. We expect that

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4

Canada as Statebuilder?

this analysis will be of interest to academics and policy makers alike and we hope this volume contributes to discussions of Canada’s future role in international peace- and statebuilding missions. These discussions are clearly at the intersection of theory, policy, and practice. Trying to build a bridge between the three camps allows us to overcome the reservations and suspicions that are prevalent in those worlds, and to enable fruitful cross-fertilization. Why this book now? The combat operation in Afghanistan ended on 15 March 2014. The time has come to reflect on Canada’s engagement there, and to ask whether its investments were worth the effort and the resources (including human resources) deployed.2 At this point, nobody has answered that question. We are thus filling a significant gap in the literature. Moreover, the questions raised above are much more complicated than one might assume, above all because Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan was so multidimensional, complex, and involved many actors, both from government and from N G O s and international organizations. As a result, an easy answer seems nearly impossible. The subject requires a careful and balanced analysis. A definitive assessment of a recent and major foreign policy engagement is always difficult and remains provisional at best, even with this book in hand, because many documents – for example, government decisions, policy, and planning reports – remain classified, and cannot be used to analyze the government’s development decisions and policy practice in Afghanistan. However, recent scholarship and public debates opted for an alternative approach beyond trying to offer a “grand understanding” of Canada’s overall impact in Afghanistan. That scholarship has started to look at certain segments of Canada’s involvement (e.g., defence and diplomacy). For example, two recent and in our view excellent volumes have assessed Canada’s military deployments to Afghanistan and derived lessons learned from these operations.3 In this book we contribute to this line of research by shifting the analytical focus from defence to development policy. We thus fill a well-known gap in the literature by examining Canada’s development efforts in extremely fragile states like Afghanistan. Why focus on development policy? First, Canadian development policies were clearly part of Canada’s Afghan war effort, and the statebuilding mission there. Second, scholarly as well as public debates and discussions often overlook the fact that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was one of the first Western

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Introduction 5

organizations to deploy to Afghanistan.4 Third, successive Canadian governments have spent, on the civilian side, over roughly CAD$3 billion in development assistance on Afghanistan alone to support the development of Afghan society, public infrastructure, and health, to name a few domains. Figure 1.1 underlines these commitments and investments. However, very little is known from the literature, or from public debates for that matter, as to whether these extensive, and in many ways unprecedented, development investments of a middle power, have made an impact – financially and otherwise – on the ground for the Afghans. What is missing from these discussions is an accountability assessment of the development programs and projects that Canada carried out in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. The point here is not to doubt whether Canada’s donations and overall engagements (official aid and otherwise) were significant for a middle power. That is a normative question that only politicians can answer. Our objective as academics is to evaluate Canada’s development programs and projects in that country as well as their impact. Because such analysis and assessment does not exist at present, this monograph clearly contributes to the literature as well as offering the very first line of accountability of Canada’s development policy and practice in Afghanistan, by holding the government to account using evidence-based research. Again, we consider this a starting point for future discussions that assess Canada’s development efforts and impacts in Afghanistan. To understand the importance and significance of the Afghan mission for Canada’s foreign policy, one only needs to briefly scan some quantitative indicators to grasp how much Canada spent on its engagement there. According to the government’s official summative evaluation, Canada’s Official Development Assistance (O D A ) to specific programming in the province of Kandahar was about one-third of all total Canadian disbursements in Afghanistan, with the largest amount disbursed from 2007 to 2010 (D F AT D 2013). Again, this is not an insignificant number for a middle power like Canada that has a limited amount of foreign policy resources. From 2004–05 to 2005–06, Canada’s annual aid disbursements for Afghanistan were around C A D $100 million per year. That amount rose significantly to over $150 million in fiscal year 2006–07 to over $250 million in fiscal year 2007–08. Figure 1.2 clearly shows this spike. To put these numbers into context, the 136 development projects

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6

Canada as Statebuilder? 400 350

US$ Million

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

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2018

Year

Figure 1.1  Canada’s official ODA to Afghanistan 2001–16 Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (D F A T D ). (2015). Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program 2004–2005 to 2012–2013 – Synthesis Report.

between 2001 and 2014 that we were able to examine totalled more than $1 billion ($1,069,431,839.25 to be exact).5 The official evaluation of Canada’s entire Afghanistan mission listed Canada’s total disbursements of development aid to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2013 at $2.264 billion (Ibid. 34), of which CIDA shouldered $1.886 billion. However, Canada was not alone in providing O D A to Afghanistan. In total there were more than sixty bilateral (working with the Government of Afghanistan (G oA ) donors and forty-seven troopcontributing countries who, combined, spent more than US$50 billion on ODA (87 per cent on development assistance and 13 per cent on humanitarian assistance; based on O E C D -D A C data) (Ibid. 19). Canada’s ODA was only a very small fraction of the total ODA spent by all contributing countries on Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014.6 However, we consider our $1 billion sample and the projects we selected to be representative enough that we can derive reliable conclusions on the effectiveness of Canadian aid in Afghanistan.7 On the other hand, as we will see in the empirical chapters below, these large disbursements are not that surprising given that Canada took the lead of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (P R T ) from the Americans in Kandahar Province from 2005 to 2011, so a concentration of Canadian development disbursements was normal. It

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Introduction 7 300 250

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Figure 1.2  Annual Canadian disbursements to Afghanistan programs, 2004–05 to 2012–13 Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DF A T D). (2015). Synthesis Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program, fiscal years 2004–05 to 2012–13.

also reflected Canada’s new strategy for Afghanistan, to focus on Kandahar Province. t h e d ata

To answer the research questions that we set out at the beginning of this introduction, we created a database that tried to capture as many of the development projects that the Government of Canada funded directly or indirectly through either international organizations (e.g., World Bank, United Nations) or non-governmental organizations (e.g., Oxfam), or on a bilateral basis.8 Based on publicly available information, we were able to identify and assess 136 development projects that the Government of Canada helped to finance either directly or indirectly (through international organizations, NGOs etc.) between 2001 and 2014. We were interested in collecting some very basic information on the programs and projects, such as who was carrying out the project (Canada itself or one of its international partners)?; in which city and province were these projects carried out?; when were they carried out?; and how many funds were allocated and spent? All this information was noted in Excel spreadsheets.

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8

Canada as Statebuilder?

As expected, collecting this information was not an easy task and took close to a year to complete, primarily because only a small fraction of the information on each of the programs and projects was publicly available either on the government’s website or in reports released by the respective ministries and agencies (Defence, Development, Foreign Affairs). And often the information that the government published either online or in hard copy conflicted with those published by, for example, the World Bank or the United Nations (UN), not to mention their differing accounting practices. The restructuring and subsequent merger of CIDA, first into DFATD (Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development) and later Global Affairs Canada (G A C ), did not help either and has actually led to reports cited in other research that are no longer available online. For example, although GAC’s website provides some generic info on some projects, it mostly focuses on their immediate outputs rather than actual outcomes. This is an important distinction to remember when reading ahead. Furthermore, mid- to long-term monitoring and evaluation is done very selectively, mostly on the larger projects, with information not readily available to the public. Against this backdrop, we had to go out of our way to supplement the missing data through Access to Information Requests, conduct interviews with retired civil servants, and search for evaluation reports from Canada’s partners in the field, be they international organizations, NATO allies, or non-governmental partners. In fact, one of the first findings that we can already report is that Canada’s reporting on its development programs and projects in Afghanistan – whether they were carried out by CI D A or through international agencies and partners – is not only extremely unclear, it is also tremendously deficient, showing significant gaps, sometimes in the dollar amounts allocated to the specific program, or in offering no follow-up reporting on whether the amounts were spent and what for. For example, multiple reports show different timelines and amounts spent for projects, especially between 2003 and 2006. The Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (M I S F A) that ran from 2004 to 2010 is a case in point. Multiple MISFA reports state spending that ranges from C A D$94.5 million to US$95.3 million. In other words, Ottawa’s report cards to Canadians do not score financial accountability high for Canada’s development efforts in Afghanistan; it is actually at the bottom of the list. This leads to the clear policy implication that clear oversight and project monitoring and reporting must be set up when the time comes again to deploy a

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Introduction 9

peace- and statebuilding mission to a fragile or conflict-affected state. Because if the government cannot oversee, monitor, and coordinate its development projects and programs in these operations, it cannot know if it is contributing to the reconstruction effort or not, and what Canadians have received in return for their investment. Out of the total of 136 projects we analyzed from 2003 to 2014, the following are relative percentages of projects that focused on certain issue areas. These numbers are approximate because some projects are cross-cutting with others: • • • • • • • •

Education – 21% Women – 18% Security Sector Reform – 14% Health – 21% Emergency Services – 8% Governance – 20% Agriculture – 8% Other – 5%

After creating this database, we started to inductively analyze the data. This was a deliberate choice. Rather than applying a particular theory onto the data to help structure the vast amount of information therein, we decided to let the data speak to us. This inductive approach is not uncommon in the field of international development. Its advantage is clearly that researchers can observe and analyze a rich dataset rather than looking to verify or disprove the theory’s hypothesis, thereby losing the perspective of the “bigger, more holistic picture.” The downside of our inductive approach is that it is very time-intensive. As authors we had to do due diligence to verify the information for each of the projects we analyzed in our dataset. One of the first things we found is that from 2003 to 2014 Canada’s development assistance to Afghanistan was, in qualitative and quantitative terms, by no means linear but varied over time and depending on the context. In a second step, we tried to inductively cluster the data and better organize the volume of entries by attempting to identify principal themes that run through the dataset. We found four such central clusters: security, women, health, and education.9 The chapters in Part II analyze each of these further. We also decided to include Canada’s so-called signature projects in our analysis. The Manley

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Canada as Statebuilder?

Panel (the 2008 panel headed by John Manley to advise on Canada’s future role in Afghanistan) found that neither Afghans nor Canadians knew how much Canadian aid had gone to Afghanistan, and that the government should rectify this. The government took up this suggestion and asked CIDA to create three signature projects to showcase Canada’s development role in Afghanistan and raise its international profile there. These were, first, eradicating polio in Afghanistan; second, building, expanding, or repairing a total of fifty schools in key districts of Kandahar; and finally, supporting the rehabilitation of the Dahla Dam and its irrigation and canal system, thereby, according to the Canadian government, generating Afghan jobs and fostering agricultural production. These projects were highlighted as being of particular importance to the successive Canadian governments in power throughout that period,10 and a lot of resources were poured into them. For example, Canada has invested more than $50 million into the Dahla Dam Project so far. These signature projects can thus be seen as symbols of Canada’s (development) engagement in Afghanistan, and significantly changed Canada’s role and engagement there. However, context is important for assessing Canada’s development projects. We cannot cluster the data without paying attention to the circumstances in which these projects took place. They were all carried out at different and/or overlapping time periods with different specific goals. To start with, 2003 to 2005 marks the period before Canada took over the PRT in Kandahar Province. The second period could loosely be considered from 2005 to 2008, when Canada took the lead of the Kandahar PRT. The next period, 2008 to 2011, marked a clear shift in Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan, because this period was heavily influenced by the Manley Panel. After the Panel’s recommendations, Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan changed significantly and its programs and projects were subsequently adjusted to reflect the recommendations. The final period is loosely from 2011 to 2014. Here, we saw a more comprehensive and detailed approach to development and thus a higher concentration of Canadian engagements. This is just a brief scan of the time periods; we discuss each of them in greater detail in chapter 2, which provides background information on what Canada did in Afghanistan and sets the context for its role and thus potential impact there. The Manley Report also changed the bureaucratic mechanics of Canada’s projects by detailing how to plan, prioritize, execute, and evaluate Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. Before the report was

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Introduction 11

published, for example, virtually no strategic planning had occurred, leading to ad hoc development projects and monitoring and evaluation. Poor planning, as well as minimal oversight and lack of proper reporting, characterized Canada’s development engagements for more than five years, up until 2008, when the Manley Report came out. The government also changed course in 2008 by concentrating on five policy priorities. The first priority was to enable the Afghan National Security Forces (A NSF ) in Kandahar to have a more secure environment and promote law and order there, and to be increasingly independent of Canadian soldiers. The second was strengthening the Government of Afghanistan’s capacity to deliver core services and promote economic growth, thereby enhancing Kandaharis’ confidence in their government, and contributing to effective, accountable public institutions and electoral processes. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (O E CD ), this strengthened the Afghan government’s effectiveness and efficiency and increased its legitimacy among Afghans (O E C D 2011). The third priority became providing humanitarian assistance for extremely vulnerable people, including refugees, returnees, and internally displaced persons. Fourth, Canada prioritized its support for enhancing border security, by facilitating dialogue between Afghan and Pakistani authorities. And fifth, Canada facilitated Afghan-led efforts toward political reconciliation between the Taliban, the newly appointed government, and the citizenry. note on methods

By selecting these clusters, it is natural for the researcher or the research team to choose to highlight some projects over others. This is normal. We did so by selecting four clusters or areas that we wanted to assess, as well as Canada’s three signature projects. However, we clearly recognize a bias in the selections we made. To mitigate (not overcome) that bias, we made an effort to have full transparency by making the database available to the public, thus allowing other researchers to use it in future projects and studies.11 This will allow the data to be replicated and further analyzed, and thus contribute to one of our objectives, to start a conversation on the impact of Canada’s development efforts in Afghanistan. Our analysis is, of course, affected by a Canadian perspective on Canada’s development programs and projects in Afghanistan, primarily because most of our

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Canada as Statebuilder?

information and data is predominantly Canadian (produced by the Government of Canada and/or Canadian N G O s). As a result of the previous point, our analysis mainly concentrates on Canada’s development programs and projects in the province of Kandahar, because that was where the Canadian P R T was deployed. To be sure, some projects, including signature projects, were directed at the national level in Afghanistan and thus outside of Kandahar. We include them in our analysis rather than discussing them in separate chapters because they pertain to the four clusters discussed above. In our analysis we used a mixed-methods approach, combining a quantitative with a qualitative analysis of the data. Here, we need to direct the reader to an important distinction for assessing international development projects, namely the distinction between project “outputs,” “outcomes,” and “impacts.” This distinction is important, because the terms are often used interchangeably, yet they mean different things, and most analysts are not aware of what distinguishes one from another. When governments, international organizations, or humanitarian agencies list and count how many schools or clinics they built, or how much money they put on a particular contract for a particular development project, they are listing “outputs.” “Outcomes” is an assessment of the longer-term effects that these development projects might have had. In our example above, for instance, it might be interesting to know the demonstrable outcomes of those schools or clinics that were built or refurbished. What was Canada’s impact, not only in building these schools, but also in ensuring a quality education with well-trained teachers while minimizing drop-out rates? The focus here is on whether Canada achieved the objectives it had set for itself. Last but not least, a note on the reporting of information: our default reporting and assessments are all in Canadian dollars, unless indicated otherwise. plan of the book

In Part I we provide background information on Canada’s role and development programming in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014, when Canada decided to leave Afghanistan and temporarily leave behind only a small contingent to train Afghan security forces (the Afghan National Police Force and the Afghan National Army). We offer some basic background information on Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan,

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Introduction 13

including a basic timeline of Canadian development projects and programs. Our overview includes military, diplomatic, and development aspects, three policy areas12 that often informed and depended on each other in the field.13 In this section we also introduce the basic tenets of aid effectiveness in Afghanistan as well as the results-based evaluation framework that we are using in this book to assess the various development projects that Canada helped to finance throughout its time in Afghanistan. In Part II we discuss the four clusters introduced above – security, women, health, and education – and assess Canada’s development programs and projects in each of these areas. Because we decided against separate chapters for discussing Canada’s three signature projects (education, women, and health), we wove them into the discussions of the four clusters, because they often intersect. Each of the chapters in Part II is divided into discussions of the outputs, outcomes, and long-term impacts of these projects. The security chapter comprises two separate chapters: the first discusses the military side of security, the second the non-military side. Although we noted above that an assessment of that domain has been done elsewhere, we decided that a brief analysis of the military dimension of Canada’s engagement would provide useful background information on Canada’s overall engagement in Afghanistan. It would also allow readers to better understand its priority of focusing on the Kandahar P R T , which undoubtedly intersected with the security-development nexus in Afghanistan and is thus important for our discussions in this book. The other security chapter focuses on the non-military dimensions, especially Canada’s support of Afghanistan’s Security Sector Reform (S S R ), and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (D D R ) processes. We finish this monograph with a conclusion that not only summarizes our findings, but also discusses the variables that influenced Canada’s Afghanistan programming and thus its outcomes and effectiveness, and the lessons learned for policy makers and academics.

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pa rt o n e

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2 Setting the Stage: Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan (2001–14) The purpose of this chapter is to familiarize the reader with the main historical events that led to and characterized Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Our aim here is not to offer a full history of what Canadians experienced in Afghanistan. We discuss only the main relevant events that are pertinent to our discussion in this book to establish a very basic historical understanding of Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. Furthermore, we have structured this narrative into several sections to allow a better overview of what has become Canada’s most costly, complex, and challenging engagement in a fragile state thus far. a f g h a n i s ta n b e f o r e 2001

In retrospect, the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Center in New York as well as the Pentagon in Washington clearly changed the world’s and Canada’s perception of Afghanistan. In the years before 9/11, Afghanistan was not on anybody’s radar and did not “qualify” as of special interest for foreign and development policy officials on the list of fragile or even failed states.1 For example, as shown in table 2.1. the Canadian International Development Agency (C I D A ), which administered Canada’s foreign aid programs in developing countries before it merged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (D F A I T ) in 2013, funded rather insignificant projects in Afghanistan in the 1990s, ranging between roughly $5 million and $10 million per year between 1990 and 2001,2 primarily for humanitarian aid.

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Table 2.1 Canada’s total ODA to Afghanistan, 1990–2001, in millions of U S D Recipient/ Year South & Central Asia, total Afghanistan

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995 1996

1997

1998 1999 2000 2001

171.13 185.25 167.35 113.66 115.79 93.14 91.88 130.97 99.65 71.05 75.84 89.82

2.73

5.31

4.67

7.63

7.17

7.14

3.88

13.37

4.8

8.67

6.66 14.23

Source: OECD, STAT; Data extracted on 21 Mar 2019.

In many ways, the political conflicts in Afghanistan began when Afghanistan’s Communist party took power in 1978 after a coup and installed Nur Mohammad Taraki as president. The new government tried to radically modernize the country, which became extremely unpopular, especially among the more traditional rural population. The government suppressed members of the opposition, and killed political prisoners and unarmed civilians. Unsurprisingly, these actions led to the rise of a huge anti-government movement. By April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion. When President Taraki was murdered in September 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan that December to restore order; the war lasted until 1989. In the literature the insurgent groups were known as the mujahedeen, who fought a classic guerrilla war against the Soviet Army, particularly in the rural countryside. Backed by the US and Pakistan, the mujahedeen’s objectives were to oust the Soviet invaders, which made the country largely ungovernable, and to defend the local population. With the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989 and in the absence of a unified government, many mujahedeen groups started fighting among each other over power in the capital Kabul (1992–96), resulting in anarchy. The Taliban group was among them; it continued to receive support, including financial support, from Pakistan. This Sunni movement is made up of peasant farmers and men studying Islam in Afghan and Pakistani religious schools or madrasas that teach a conservative form of Islam called Wahhabism that is backed financially by Saudi Arabia. The word “Taliban” means “students” in Pashto and refers to how most of the Taliban grew up: in Pakistani refugee camps during the 1980s, where they received free education. From their beginnings in Southern Afghanistan, the Taliban acquired a great deal of power and influence, and successfully took control of

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Setting the Stage 19

Kabul in 1996, then formed a government from September 1996 to December 2001. They maintained this control and power, despite international condemnation on human rights grounds. By 1998 they controlled around 90 per cent of Afghanistan (Yung 2007). However, their influence was not enough to capture the northwestern part of Afghanistan, which remained in the hands of the Northern Alliance.3 During that time Afghanistan’s economy deteriorated, driving a lot of rural farmers into the opium business. It was therefore hardly surprising that Afghanistan became the world’s largest opium producer, with the ethnic Pashtuns, who lived mainly in the south, experiencing a significant decline in living standards, increasing their dependence on the opium trade. The Taliban emerged in 1994 during the civil war and quickly became a national power. Initially a rather loose group of fighters, it slowly but surely developed its organizational structures while maintaining its primary objective of attaining a pure Islamic state in Afghanistan. The Sunni tradition of Islam followed by the Taliban places great importance on the role of Islam in private and public life. This means that they prioritize Sharia law, or Islamic law, which is the political basis for any Islamic state, and sets standards politically and socially. This was well demonstrated in the 1990s, when the Taliban banned music, movies, and other “Western” or “non-Islamic” activities and influences. Also based on Sharia law, the Taliban banned girls from going to school past a certain age and women from working certain jobs. The Taliban are a nationalist and pro-Pashtun organization composed mainly of ethnic Pashtuns. This background arises from their origins as a counterbalance to the pro-communist powers in place in Afghanistan during and after the Soviet invasion. Their use of Pashtun tribal law as the basis of many of their decisions has led them to a more “traditional and patriarchal interpretation of Islamic ideology” (Qureshi 2014). s ta b i l i t y a n d r e c o n s t r u c t i o n p h a s e , 2001–05

The events of 9/11 brought Afghanistan to the forefront of the international community’s concerns. It also set in motion a number of responses from various countries as well as from supra- and international organizations, such as the European Union (E U ), the North

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Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the UN. All of them shaped how to “deal” with the country at an international level as Afghanistan had become a problem for the maintenance of international peace and security.4 One of those early steps was the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1368 on 12 September 2001, which supported efforts to root out terrorism in Afghanistan, as well as N AT O ’s first invocation of its collective defence, Article 5, on 12 September. With these legal provisions in hand, the United States and the United Kingdom launched Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) to dismantle the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan and to remove the Taliban regime from power. OEF was designed as part of the strategy for the global war on terrorism between 2001 and 2014;5 it is also the umbrella term for counterterrorism operations in other countries, such as OE F -Philippines and O E F -Trans Sahara (Lamothe 2014).6 Canada also joined these voices. It clearly sided with the United States on the importance of ousting the Taliban, and endorsed the various UN Security Council resolutions, as well as the invocation of NATO’s Article 5. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien addressed Canadians in a nationally televised broadcast on 7 October and confirmed that Canada would be participating militarily in the international intervention in Afghanistan that aimed to overthrow the Taliban regime. Chrétien said that “the principal role that we hope they [the troops] will have whenever and if they go there – because there is no final conclusion yet – will be to make sure the people who are going into Afghanistan with food and clothing and so on can go to the people who need it” (Laghi 2001, A1). The prime minister went on to note that Canadians “do not have a big fight there. We want to bring peace and happiness as much as possible” (Ibid.). One day later, the government announced that it would contribute air, land, and sea forces to OEF. Defence Minister Art Eggleton offered “unqualified support of the Canadian Forces for US military efforts to strike at terrorists and their supporters in Afghanistan and elsewhere” (McCarthy 2001, A1), and reassured Canadians that the roughly 2,000 troops would serve in Afghanistan for no more than six months, and likely be pulled out immediately in the face of “a full-conflict situation” (Laghi 2001, A1; see also Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development 2008a; 2008b; 2008c; Lang and Stein 2007). However, to some, it was probably the most dangerous country that Canada had ever sent troops to (Gimblett 2002, 14–16; Welsh 2004).

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Setting the Stage 21

December 2001 was an important and busy month for Afghanistan. The rapid defeat of the Taliban in November had left behind a governance gap. The first milestone in the rebuilding of the country was the Bonn Conference on 5 December which discussed how to rebuild Afghanistan’s political institutions (Fields and Ahmen 2011; Rubin and Hamidzada 2007; Edwards 2010; Wiejer 2013). It brought together representatives from different ethnic and exile groups in Afghanistan as well as members of the international community to map out provisional arrangements for rebuilding Afghanistan and establishing permanent governance institutions there. Specifically, it established a five-year plan to create parliamentary and presidential elections, including an Interim Authority that would be able to govern the country politically. This would be followed by an emergency Loya Jirga, a traditional assembly of leaders, to select a new interim head of state. And finally, federal elections were set to be held in 2004. Moreover, under the Interim Administration, a constitutional drafting committee was to be established to work on a constitution for the country, paving the way for Afghanistan to become a state with executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government (Fields and Ahmen 2011). The Bonn Conference was to be implemented over the course of four years; it officially came to an end, more or less as scheduled, with the inauguration of the new Afghan National Assembly in 2005. Unfortunately, although peace and democracy in Afghanistan might have been on the minds of many leaders arriving in Bonn in December 2001, the state they envisioned for Afghanistan fails to resemble the situation one sees today (Fields and Ahmen 2011; Rubin and Hamidzada 2007; Weijer 2013). Today Afghanistan remains a war-torn country, governed by corrupt institutions that have failed to secure peace or stability, and characterized by under­ development, corruption, insecurity, and continuous political instability. Furthermore, the institutions themselves remain weak and ineffective, incapable of providing essential goods and services for the Afghan people (Weijer 2013). The plan for statebuilding following the Bonn Conference may have established institutions, perhaps even institutions that give the appearance of state capacity, but the current landscape fails to resemble a functioning state apparatus acting in the interests of the Afghan people. With the Bonn Conference creating a roadmap for building Afghan institutions, Hamid Karzai was sworn in on 22 December 2001 as

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Canada as Statebuilder?

chairman of the Interim Authority of Afghanistan. He was given six months by a transitional government, which was selected by the Loya Jirga.7 That same day, the UN Security Council authorized the creation of an International Security Assistance Force (I S AF ) with a mandate to maintain security in and around Kabul so that employees of the Afghan interim government as well as international donors could operate safely there. Events in 2002 laid the groundwork for Canada’s development engagements in Afghanistan, with around $100 million of disbursements per year (D F A T D 2013, 24), primarily through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (A R T F ) and the U N . Canada’s central objective was to help build a centralized state in Afghanistan that could deliver public goods to the Afghan people, focusing on democratic governance and economic growth as the key areas of development. In January 2002, Ottawa followed up with the commitments it had made at the Bonn Conference and re-established diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which had been broken off after the Saur revolution in 1978. Ottawa also took part in the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan in Tokyo, which provided the international donor community with an opportunity to support the Afghan reconstruction process with specific commitments and pledges while reaffirming the time frame that was set by the Bonn Agreement. Moreover, the Bonn Conference decided that assistance was conditional on all Afghan parties positively contributing to the process and goals agreed in Bonn with the aim of establishing peace, representative governance, and stability in Afghanistan, as well as eliminating terrorism and the production and trafficking of narcotics. It also brought in a significant number of international consultants to fill gaps in the Afghan government. In turn, the Afghan Interim Authority itself laid out several key priority areas for reconstruction, including enhancing the administrative capacity of the government and Afghanistan’s economy, as well as investing in education (especially for women and girls), health and sanitation, infrastructure (roads, electricity and telecommunications), and addressing issues of food security. These areas became the focus of Canadian aid. The Tokyo Conference also underscored the importance of the international NGO community, who agreed to focus their work on education and training, particularly for women, and to help Afghans

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Setting the Stage 23

contribute to the reconstruction process themselves. Overall, international donors pledged over US$1.8 billion for the reconstruction effort alone in 2002, and more than US$4.5 billion cumulatively.8 Moreover, participants agreed to create the ARTF to be administered jointly by the World Bank, and decisions about disbursements from this trust fund to be made by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the government of Afghanistan. The A R T F , as well as, later, the Afghanistan Infrastructure Trust Fund (A ITF) provided donors with ways to channel money to the Afghan Transitional Government, and to realize large projects.9 The Bonn and Tokyo conferences thus laid the groundwork for international intervention in Afghanistan’s reconstruction as well as specific and targeted programs in development, security, and diplomacy. Thus, Afghanistan all of a sudden became the single largest recipient of Canadian bilateral aid.10 That work, worth $1.9 billion from 2001 to 2011 (US$2.4 billion until 2014), was primarily carried out through CIDA’s aid program, which alone disbursed in the neighbourhood of $1.6 billion (DFATD 2014, XIV). This aid consisted of reconstruction and development assistance directed at rural development and governance priorities identified by the Afghan government in its National Development Framework (NDF),11 which sets out national strategies, priorities, and policy directions. The Canadian government also responded to Afghans’ appeal for long-term development investments (e.g., demining, improving health care). Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program was the biggest country program that CI D A had ever administered. Indeed, it was new territory for the department, and arrived with significant organizational and practical challenges. Moreover, only about 12 per cent of that amount was channelled directly through the federal budget of the Afghan government (DF A T D 2013, 19), as opposed to the minimum of 50 per cent that Canada had agreed to internationally. The final institutional benchmark for understanding Canada’s development engagements in Afghanistan was the creation of the U N Assistance Mission (UNAMA) by the UN Security Council on 28 March 2002. Together with the Afghan government, UNAMA became responsible for coordinating all humanitarian relief efforts, as well as the U N ’s development and reconstruction efforts. As we will see in our discussions in the next chapters, UNAMA has been an important pillar

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Canada as Statebuilder?

in Canada’s engagement for reconstruction in Afghanistan. Some significant funds were channelled through U N A M A , even though UNAMA’s presence during this time could be characterized as a “light footprint” given the lack of UN funding, especially in the early years. However, Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan was not only a civilian one; it also had a strong military component. By now it is widely established in the literature that Canada first deployed troops to Afghanistan in January 2002 for three reasons. First, Canada wanted to assist its American ally in a time of need; second, it responded to the invocation of Article 5, N AT O ’s collective defence clause; and third, Canada supported U N Resolution 1363, which determined that the situation constituted a threat to international peace and security and implemented international sanctions against Afghanistan (Zyla and Sokolsky 2010; for more details see chapter 5 in this book). Canada’s Afghanistan engagement indeed had a strong bilateral Canada-US dimension to it. Following up on the request for Canada to join ISAF, the US had asked Ottawa to provide troops for a combat mission under US control in Southern Afghanistan (Graham 2015, 54–6). The US request would involve initially deploying up to 750 Canadian troops, and “represented a “better fit” with Canada’s capabilities,” according to Defence Minister Art Eggleton: “This is the first time that the Americans have asked a coalition ally to join them on the ground with their operations in Afghanistan. This is the first time they have done that for any country, and they asked Canada first” (Leblanc and Mahoney 2002, A1), the minister noted proudly. In other words, Canada was perceived in Washington as a serious partner in the fight against terrorism, which, according to the hope of the government at the time, would produce an environment of goodwill, ensuring that the Canada-US border would not be permanently closed. It had been severely tightened on 9/11, resulting in the loss of billions of dollars worth of trade (von Hlatky 2013, 94).12 Being part of OEF also permitted Canada to be involved in the US war against terror much more prominently than the potentially peripheral role in ISAF would have allowed. A nice side effect for the government was that Canada’s commitment muted some of the criticisms by US policy makers and their representatives about Canada’s defence capability, and clearly raised Canada’s international profile among its allies (von Hlatky 2013; Massie and Zyla 2018). Between 700 and 900 combat

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Setting the Stage 25

troops deployed to Kandahar Province in February 2002, flanked by special forces units, and returned home at the end of that year. At the same time Canada emphasized to its US ally that its focus of engagement would be solely on Afghanistan, not Iraq. On 17 March 2003 Prime Minister Chrétien told the House of Commons that Canada was not going to participate in the invasion of Iraq and was instead sending additional troops to Afghanistan.13 In February 2003, the new defence minister, John McCallum, had announced the government’s decision to return to Afghanistan and send troops there again to take part in I S A F ’s mission to maintain security in Kabul and the surrounding areas.14 The government’s decision not to support the US with their invasion of Iraq was clear. Canada also opened an embassy in Kabul. Although there is still debate as to whether the Chrétien government redeployed to Afghanistan to avoid supporting the unilateral US invasion of Iraq in 2003 (see e.g., Stein and Lang 2007, 13–17; Fitzsimmons 2013; Graham 2015), Canada’s Afghanistan mission was now defined in terms of its liberal internationalist tradition (Sjolander 2009, 85), including its reputation as a helpful fixer, honest broker, and global mediator, and in clearly supporting the expansion of the ISAF mission.15 The Department of National Defence now estimated that the government’s new commitment represented between 1,500 and 2,000 troops. In August of 2003 N A T O took command of the UN-sanctioned I SA F mission and began to expand its activities to other regions of Afghanistan outside of Kabul where many of its earlier deployments had been focused. As Canada’s then chief of defence staff, General Ray Henault, noted: “We were focused clearly on the overall expansion of NATO. This was a decision which was framed within a NA T O perspective” (quoted in Stein and Lang 2007, 136). Then prime minister Paul Martin echoed this rationale: “As members of NA T O , which is after all a self-defence pact, we had a moral if not a legal duty to support them” (Martin 2009, 361). s tat e b u i l d i n g p h a s e , 2005–09

In this second phase, Canada continued its engagement by focusing on building a functioning and effective state in Afghanistan (statebuilding). Moreover, in line with the Manley Report (see below for discussion), it started specific development activities in the province of Kandahar and also contributed to the stabilization efforts there.

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Canada as Statebuilder?

Those activities were embedded in the so-called Whole-of-Government (WoG) approach that was supposed to combine Canada’s development, diplomatic, and military activities under one single policy. During that time, Canadian development disbursements rose to $250 million in the fiscal year 2007–08 (D F A T D 2013, 25). From 2008 to 2011 the Canadian government further concentrated its efforts on the province of Kandahar, particularly around the signature projects. The total disbursements during that time peaked at $225 million per year; around 30 per cent of these funds were spent on Kandahar, thus about 20 per cent below what Canada had agreed to spend at international conferences and ministerial meetings. Canada’s engagements at the federal Afghan level were reduced. Moreover, this was the time that we witnessed an increased number of Canadian private actors and NGOs starting to operate in Afghanistan, a deliberate strategy by Ottawa. In January 2004 Afghanistan adopted a new constitution. In March, Canada committed $250 million in aid to the country, as well as an extra $5 million to support the U N -administered presidential election scheduled to take place in October, which produced a large voter turnout (DFATD 2013, 27) and confirmed Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. President Karzai signed the new Afghan Constitution on 26 January 2004, which had some influence on the national strategies for development with its focus on human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls. By mid-2004 the population of Afghanistan had increased to an estimated 25.7 million people, including about 5.7 million Afghans who had returned from the refugee camps in Pakistan. It was estimated that about half of these refugees had arrived in 2002 and 2003 (DFATD 2013, 14). Second, NATO had also developed plans to expand the P R Ts in the west and south of the country, whose objective was to foster security and development while providing assistance to the local population. P R T s could thus be considered an application of the W oG approach. They were heralded by then prime minister Martin as the “next step” in Canada’s military contribution to Afghanistan (Alberts 2004, A 18). P R T ’s primary objectives were to help the Afghan government expand its authority beyond Kabul, and assist with capacity-building tasks (Stapleton 2015) such as building schools, mediating local conflicts, and providing security sector reforms (S S R s) and public goods to Afghans (e.g., security, health, education etc.) (Bird and Marshall 2011; N A T O

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Setting the Stage 27

2015). As then minister of foreign affairs Pierre Pettigrew told the House of Commons, I can say that the Provincial Reconstruction Team reflects ­precisely what we have in our international policy statement. We want defence, diplomacy and development to work in a more coordinated and integrated way. It is clear that for now, the work is focused more on stability, with a significant military presence. Eventually we expect elements of diplomacy and development to become more of a priority. It is essential that we take responsibility for a territory. However, in addition to the military effort, we must ensure that other aspects of development are included. That is why C I DA is very involved in this exercise. (Pettigrew 2005) Initially, PRTs were composed of up to sixty soldiers working alongside Afghan advisors and aid workers to reach out to Afghans on their daily patrols and provide public goods to them. PRTs also became the longterm presence of the international community in the country. In August 2005, for the first time, Canada assumed command of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT) in the province of Kandahar (about the size of Nova Scotia) with about thirty-five soldiers, police officers, diplomats, corrections officers, and development experts assisting the Afghan government in providing governance, security, and development throughout the province.16 The daily challenge of the KPRT, as well as of Canada’s battle group, was the growing insurgency, the result of the Taliban regrouping in Pakistan, in the province of Kandahar which severely limited development activities there. One other clear watershed moment of Canada’s Afghan mission was the realization, after the killing of Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry, and the injuries to three Canadian soldiers in a suicide bomb attack in January 2006, that the Afghanistan mission was not a “traditional” peacekeeping mission but a combat mission (Graham 2015, 55). This had a trickle-down effect on policy that limited the ability of civilians to move beyond the so-called wire as well as to interact regularly with Afghans. The restrictions ultimately negatively affected how Canadian development policy was designed and implemented. When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives took power in February 2006, the new government fully embraced the justifications for Canada’s presence in Afghanistan, both militarily and developmentally.

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Canada as Statebuilder?

Indeed, all successive governments believed that international terrorism and radical Islamist groups posed a threat to Canada, and that Canada therefore had a significant national interest in stopping them, by military means, if necessary (Zyla 2013). According to Harper, Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan was justified, First, because our national security is at stake. As North Americans learned on September 11, 2001, terrorism is a menace to us all. It is a global phenomenon and it must be confronted wherever we find it, at home or abroad. We were unmistakably reminded of this by the recent arrests of a number of people charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Second, we are doing this because we are determined to ­demonstrate Canada’s leadership on the world stage and to show that we will pull our weight in United Nations missions. Third, we are doing this because the government and the people of Afghanistan have asked us to help them, and it is in the nature of Canadians to share the peace and prosperity we have achieved with countries torn by war, poverty or natural disaster. (Harper 2006) At the same time, in January 2006 the Canadian Armed Forces’ (CAF) presence in Afghanistan had grown to about 3,000 troops and it had restarted combat operations as part of Operation ATHENA. However, the public perception increasingly became that Canada was following the US lead in war (in Afghanistan and Iraq). Public dissatisfaction started to take root that Canada had become too close to US defence policy and its foreign interventions, especially because the majority of Canadians considered the US invasion of Iraq illegal. Another aspect of this discussion, of course, was the huge financial commitments that Canada had already made until this point. On top of the more than $2 billion of development money and foreign aid that Canada had spent on Afghanistan, its military had spent an estimated additional $9 billion (2001 to 2011) (Government of Canada 2010). All this was also the result of confusion created by the contradictory messages on the justifications for the war in Afghanistan and Canada’s role and mission there. Indeed, opinion polls showed a clear decline in the public’s confidence in Canada’s mission in Afghanistan and wanted to see the troops come home (cf. Moens 2008, 577–80).

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Setting the Stage 29

For example, an Angus Reid poll as well as an Environics poll in September 2008 suggested that 59 per cent and 56 per cent, respectively, disapproved of Canada contributing forces and resources beyond 2009.17 In April 2006, concerns over the costs of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan grew into full public dissatisfaction and outright frustration when, following the deaths of four soldiers from an improvised explosive device (I E D ) detonation north of the city of Kandahar, the Conservative government announced that the Canadian flag on the Peace Tower would not be flown at half-mast to mark their deaths (Curry 2006, A 1). A month later, the government began a surprise political debate and vote, to be held two days later, on whether to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan until February 2009, ten months before the expiry of the current mission. To be sure, by law the Canadian government is not obliged to consult or seek permission from the House of Commons to deploy the C A F abroad (unlike Germany, for example). The motion was passed. For the government, the decision to call a parliamentary vote had one clear political advantage: to demonstrate the extent to which the Liberal party was divided over the issue of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. It also marked a clear politicization of the Afghanistan mission. Afghanistan had become a key issue in the Montreal byelection campaign in Outremont in the fall of 2007, made more compelling by the growing death toll of soldiers serving in Kandahar and the NDP’s insistence that Canada withdraw militarily from Afghanistan. In October the Harper Conservative government responded by depoliticizing the mission and creating a five-person panel (the Manley Panel) to recommend Canada’s future course of action in Afghanistan after the mission’s new expiry date. The Panel was another clear watershed moment for Canada’s Afghan mission. This is also evident when examining Canada’s development projects, which we discuss in Part II. The Panel released its public report in January 2008, recommending that Canada needed to remain in Afghanistan beyond its February 2009 deadline (see figure 2.1). However, it also asked the government to place more emphasis on the civilian aspects of the mission, recommending that its continued presence, even in a combat role, should be increasingly focused on training the Afghan National Security Forces to take on a greater share of the security burden – with a concomitant diminution of Canada’s combat role as the Afghan forces

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gained skills and experience. The report also pressed the government for a greater insistence on diplomacy, reconstruction, and development assistance in Canada’s overall engagements in Afghanistan,18 as well as to increase the frequency of its updates to Canadians on the progress there, and better integrated planning. CIDA officials, for example, should be allowed to leave their compound or “wire” as it was called, and be freed from their overly tight administrative constraints. The report concluded that if those conditions could not be met, “the Government should give appropriate notice to the Afghan and allied governments of its intention to transfer responsibility for security in Afghanistan” (Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan 2008, 35). The military mission was made contingent on the “redeployment of Canadian troops out of Kandahar and their replacement by Afghan forces … as soon as possible.” The report did not address what would happen if no Afghan forces were ready to assume such responsibilities but it did name an official representative of Canada to Kandahar Province (who became known as the RoCK) whose rank would be equal to that of the military commander of the C A F in Afghanistan, along with a departmental task force for coordinating Canada’s WoG efforts. Moreover, a special cabinet committee on Canada’s Afghan mission was to be created to bolster the mission’s transparency and accountability.19 As a result of its recommendations, the Manley Report, as well as the motion in the House, led to significant operational changes and priorities. That same year, in February, the Government used the Manley Report to reset the course and priorities of its Afghan mission until 2011 by focusing its efforts on five priorities and three signature projects, and shifting at least half of its development programming to Kandahar Province. In retrospect, only 20 per cent of all programming was refocused on Kandahar. The rest retained a national focus.20 The first four priorities – maintaining security and the rule of law; helping to build the Afghan National Army and police services; providing jobs, education, public goods; and providing humanitarian assistance – focused primarily on the province of Kandahar, where the Canadian P R T was stationed.21 At the national level, Canada’s priorities were to help build Afghan national institutions, support democratization processes, and assist with the reconciliation process for national healing. Three signature projects were also identified: the Dahla Dam and its irrigation system, building and

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Setting the Stage 31 Six government priorities and three signature projects 2008–11 The first four priorities focus primarily on Kandahar: • Maintain a more secure environment and establish law and order by ­building the capacity of the Afghan National Army and Police, and support complementary efforts in the areas of justice and corrections; • Provide jobs, education and essential services, like water; • Provide humanitarian assistance to people in need, including refugees; and • Enhance the management and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The last two priorities have a national focus: • Build Afghan institutions that are central to our Kandahar priorities and support democratic processes such as elections; and, • Contribute to Afghan-led political reconciliation efforts aimed at weakening the insurgency and fostering a sustainable peace. The three signature projects are: • Rehabilitate/Build and repair/Eradicate • Kandahar Province

Figure 2.1  Government of Canada’s response to the Manley Report

repairing fifty schools in Kandahar Province (including training 300 teachers), and eradicating polio nationally. We discuss each of these projects in greater detail in Part II as well as their impact. However, we can say at this point that since the Canadian engagements had been refocused, Canada’s civilian presence in Afghanistan – that is, civilian government officials as well as members of the NGO community – had grown three times larger. Indeed, Canadian officials had realized that statebuilding could not occur by exclusively concentrating on military tools and strategies but required a holistic understanding of the security-development nexus (cf. Carment and Yiagadeesen 2011; Chandler 2007; Reid-Henry 2011; Duffield 2006; Klingebiel and Roehder 2005). It was therefore not surprising when the government announced an increase of its ten-year commitment allocation (from 2001–11) to Afghanistan from $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion, with development assistance reaching about $190 million per year.22 More than 76 per cent of these disbursements were channelled through either the U N or international financial institutions like the World Bank (D F A T D 2013, 38). From 2004 to 2008 that percentage increased to 90 per cent of the funds channelled

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through the World Bank or the A R T F (which was administered by the Bank).23 In June 2008 the Paris Conference on Afghanistan took place with sixty-seven countries pledging $20 billion for development projects and programs in Afghanistan. The conference also reaffirmed the importance of the Afghanistan Compact, which was the outcome of the London Conference on Afghanistan in 2006. The Compact served as the basis for the next planning stage of reconstruction – strategies for security, governance, economic growth, and poverty reduction.24 It required Afghanistan to rely more strongly on its own institutions, and recognized that success in this mission would require efforts along three lines: security, governance, and development. The London Conference marked the formal end of the Bonn Process, which had launched the reconstruction process in 2001, and reached its goal in the 2005 elections.25 The Compact committed Canada to contributing to the rehabilitation of Afghanistan until 1 February 2011. However, the development programs were faced with the Afghan government’s significant inability to absorb the external assistance. Also, despite OECD-DAC guidelines (OECD 2007), Ottawa did not fully understand the local contexts, the complex political economy, or the main drivers of the conflicts in Afghanistan society. It also mainly concentrated on short-term projects and engagements that did not consider or produce long-term and sustainable effects (or even impacts). During the summer of 2008, the Canadian Governance Support Office started to offer technical advice to the Afghan government in key areas (such as policing, human rights, elections, education, and public administration) in accordance with the Afghan National Development Strategy (A NDS) that was drafted in consultation with tribal and religious leaders, the private sector, NGOs, and international donors.26 A few months later, in May 2009, the Harper Conservative government initiated a fundraising campaign to support the development projects of Canadian organizations in Afghanistan. A second conference on Afghanistan held in London tightened the focus of international donors on the security-development nexus and reaffirmed their commitment to better integrate the two approaches in the international community’s stabilization efforts. The conference also started the process of increasingly placing responsibility for reconstruction on Afghans, particularly for security, governance, and economic development.

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Setting the Stage 33

t r a n s i t i o n p h a s e , 2010–14

At the end of 2010, the Canadian government announced that it would, once again, shift its focus of engagement in Afghanistan, and concentrate on four priorities at the federal level: education and health, security, regional diplomacy, and humanitarian assistance, shifting back to a national-level focus during this last period of transition, and away from Kandahar-specific programming. Canadian disbursements also significantly decreased, from their peak at over $200 million per year starting with the fiscal year 2007–08 to about $100 million annually. There were at least two significant security developments in 2011. In March, the Afghan government announced that it would begin assuming some responsibility for security in Afghanistan in seven areas, and full responsibility for the security of the entire country by 2014. At about the same time, Canada became the second-largest contributor to Operation ATTENTION, the name of the NATO training mission delivering training to Afghan security forces. The number of international troops had risen significantly from about 25,000 international troops from 2005 to 2009 to more than 100,000 in 2009, and 127,317 in 2011. In July 2011, the Canadian government terminated its combat mission in the province of Kandahar and handed the KP RT – which had achieved nearly all of its objectives, according to the Canadian government – to the US. An international donor conference held in Kabul in July 2010 had decided to successively phase out the P RT s throughout Afghanistan as well as any functions duplicating the authority of the Afghan government. Canada’s development program followed suit, with a national rather than provincial focus and gradually phased out development activities in Kandahar. The new focus on children, advancing security, the rule of law, and human rights as well as delivering humanitarian assistance became the new priority of the government. Later that year, in December 2011, the second Bonn Conference took place, exactly ten years after the first one, and the international community agreed on a renewed partnership based on mutual commitments of the donor states and the recipient state. That same month the last rotation of Canadian soldiers returned home from Kandahar after shutting down all military operations in that province. However, Canada did not retreat from Afghanistan entirely and maintained a development presence in the country. During

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the summer of 2012, for example, it announced a contribution of $227 million from 2014 to 2017 to continue its development programs and projects there; it also contributed to the G8 Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. The following year, in May, Prime Minister Harper declared that Canada would contribute another $110 million per year from 2015 to 2017 to develop the Afghan National Security Forces. We assess the full impact of these initiatives and announcements in Part II.

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3 Statebuilding vs Nation-Building: A Conceptual Anchoring

Undeniably, one of the foremost challenges for the international community in the post-Cold War era is rebuilding states in the aftermath of conflict. As the number of UN peace- and statebuilding operations rose exponentially in the early 1990s, statebuilding more than ever demanded not only better analysis and conceptual clarity but also practical advice for policy makers on how to rebuild states effectively. Statebuilding is defined as “the creation or recovery of the authoritative, legitimate, and capable governance institutions that can provide for security and the necessary rule-of-law conditions for economic and social development” (Sisk 2013, 1). In that sense, as Marquette and Beswick remind us, statebuilding has “an explicit aim of development, rather than a side-effect” that occurs in the post-conflict period of a fragile state (2011, 1711). The sister term, peacebuilding, which is often used interchangeably with statebuilding, is the broader analytical concept of the two. It is defined as preventing conflict from recurring and beginning to address its root causes. Peacebuilding is thus the overarching concept of the more specific statebuilding approach (Sandole 2011, 21). The purpose of this chapter is, first, to provide greater analytical clarity and discussion of these two key concepts,1 which will allow us to better locate and anchor our (empirical) analysis in Part II in the relevant literature, as well as to better understand how and why Canada engaged in the Afghanistan peace- and statebuilding missions the way it did. Our discussion highlights some of the most important contexts in which the peace- and statebuilding concepts and policies emerged. Understanding these contexts is helpful for us to better comprehend how and why the statebuilding concept and respective

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policy became the predominant approach the international community (including Canada) reflexively reverted to after overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. t h e n e w wa r s

The end of the Cold War brought about a significant change to our understanding of security (Homolar 2015; Buzan and Hansen, 2009; Baldwin 1995) by moving away from state-based conceptions of security to focusing on “human security” instead (Zyla 2019), and explicitly acknowledging the multidimensional aspects of people’s insecurity (Shepherd 2013). Mary Martin and Taylor Owen define human security as “the combination of physical protection and material security” (Martin and Owen 2010, 219). Canada was at the forefront of pushing the human security agenda (Axworthy 1997). In 1999, Japan established the UN Trust Fund for Human Security to operationalize the human security concept. Canada joined the initiative and helped to establish the Human Security Network and in 2000 the independent Commission on Human Security (CH S ) to address questions such as the root causes of conflicts and the protection and development of people. The CH S ’s mantra was that states must produce sustainable economic growth and target the very poor by providing education, health services, and employment. The term “human security” was first employed in the U N ’s 1994 Human Development Report (H D R ), which argued for a “peoplecentric” concept of security and against the dichotomy of “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” (U N D P 1994; see also Goucha and Crowley 2008). The H DR also explicitly recognized the interdependence of security and development, which, as we will see, informed most of post-Cold War international crisis management practice.2 In particular, the H DR proposed a broad, multidimensional concept of human security that comprised economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security. Human security thus advanced to be an allencompassing concept at the individual (rather than state) level as the HDR recognized the many causes of human vulnerability, including armed conflict, human rights violations, environmental challenges, and resource deprivation (Rothschild 1995; see also Wibben 2008).3 Translated to the policy level, the resulting policy recommendation for international crisis managers in fragile and conflict-affected states

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Statebuilding vs Nation-Building 37

was to investigate sustainable economic growth, education, health services, and employment for the poor (Owen 2004).4 Unsurprisingly, this broad definition and subsequent policy approach to human security produced quite a backlash since it challenged the relative importance of “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want.” Critics charged that such a definition lacked conceptual rigour and clarity, and was difficult to operationalize (Paris 2001). For example, Krause et al. (2008) recommend working with a narrow definition of human security that concentrates on violent threats; this argument was heavily critiqued by Newman (2016). In part, the growth of the concept of human security occurred in response to fundamental shifts in the nature of armed conflict. In what Mary Kaldor calls the “new wars,” non-state actors emerged as conflict participants. In the “old days,” state soldiers marched into foreign countries to overthrow a government or occupy parts of the state. In the “new wars” era, highly motivated and well-armed nonstate actors (e.g., rebel groups, radical extremists, terrorists etc.) increasingly replaced traditional soldiers. These new non-state actors transnationalized conflicts through their illegal activities and organized crime (Kaldor 1999; Münkler 2002; Makarenko 2008), such as smuggling, drugs, weapon trades, illegal migration, and harbouring terrorism (Herbst 2004; Hagman and Hoehne 2009, 43; Stewart 2007).5 Second, the new wars era has seen a change from intra-state to inter-state armed conflicts (Wallensteen and Sollenberg 2001) as the main threat to global peace and security (Von der Schulenberg 2014, 3; Kaldor 1999).6 Evidence of this shift was found in the numerous ethnic armed conflicts surfacing in the 1990s, in Europe (e.g., Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992), as well as those in Africa (e.g., Sierra Leone in 1991; Somalia in 1992; Rwanda in 1994), Asia (e.g., East Timor in 1999) or the Caribbean (e.g., Haiti in 1994) to name just a few. Against this backdrop, the demands for U N peace interventions and thus more financial resources to help contain and ideally solve these conflicts had risen exponentially by the mid-1990s.7 For example, from 1990 to 1993, the budget for peacekeeping increased nearly 9,300 times, from US$400,000 to US$3.7 billion (Fetherston and Nordstrom 1995, 100; Bellamy, Williams, and Griffin 2010). Third, in this new era, so-called fragile states were added to the vocabulary of international crisis managers, and almost immediately made it to the top of the policy agenda (Patrick 2011; Rocha Menocal 2011). An estimated 25 per cent of the global population (about

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1.5 billion people at that time) live in fragile or conflict-affected states in nearly sixty countries, and close to 90 per cent of the civil wars that occurred from 2001 to 2011 took place in countries that had already experienced a civil war within the previous three decades (World Bank 2011). Fragile states are generally defined as having a “weak capacity to carry out basic functions of governing a population and its territory, and lack[s] the ability to develop mutually constructive and reinforcing relations with society” (OECD 2011, 21; see also Zartman 2005).8 More precisely, they lack the capacity to exert political control over their territory and to deliver essential public goods (e.g., water, electricity etc.) to its citizens (Stewart and Brown 2009; Stern and Orjendal 2010), or enforce state laws uniformly.9 Such inabilities might be caused by a variety of factors, such as an extreme level of political corruption, high crime rates, judicial ineffectiveness, an ineffective bureaucracy, military interference in politics, or ethnical tensions (Nay 2013). Fragile states have also been found to be “prone to political crises and violent episodes, crime and armed violence, chronic poverty, and the seeming inability to break out of conflict and poverty” (Sisk 2013, 17). As we will see in the next chapters, the Afghan conflict was “in line” with these broader developments of the 1990s. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that civil wars and thus fragile and failed states emerged as the two principal threats to international peace and security in the 1990s (Fukuyama 2004). agenda for peace

Despite the rising demand for UN peacekeepers, they were ill-prepared to address these new post-Cold War insecurities and conflicts in the new world era. The new UN peacekeeping missions slowly but surely evolved from traditional methods of mediation and negotiation (socalled classical peacekeeping10 operations under Chapter VI of the UN Charter) to integrated and multidimensional approaches to conflict management and resolution that seek to build peace through comprehensive political, economic, and social reforms (Diehl 2014; Bellamy et al. 2010). An Agenda for Peace (1992), a U N report, ­formally introduced this new concept of peacebuilding (Ibid., 3) and challenged accepted notions of state sovereignty. Peacebuilding aims to prevent conflict from recurring. It entails the creation of a positive peace, meaning that the root causes of violence and conflict must be eradicated so that actors are no longer motivated to resort to violence

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Statebuilding vs Nation-Building 39

to settle their disputes or conflicts. Thus, as the UN states, “peacebuilding is aimed at prevention of the outbreak, the recurrence or the continuation of armed conflict and therefore encompasses a wide range of political, development, humanitarian and human rights programmes and mechanisms” (U N 2001). It “involves a range of measures aimed at reducing the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict, by strengthening national capacities for conflict management and laying the foundations for sustainable peace. It is a complex, long-term process aimed at creating the necessary conditions for posi­ tive and sustainable peace by addressing the deep-rooted structural causes of violent conflict in a comprehensive manner. Peacebuilding measures address core issues that affect the functioning of society and the state” (U N D P K O 2008). Thus, peacebuilding is a more holistic approach than statebuilding, focusing on short- and long-term mechanisms with the goal of maintaining peace over long periods of time. Ramesh Thakur (2012) therefore considers it consistent with the provisions of Chapter VI of the UN Charter, which emphasizes the peaceful settlement of disputes. In contrast, as noted, the term statebuilding is a sort of sub-approach to peacebuilding. It seeks improvements in the capacities of governments to deliver security and development goods (Sandole 2011, 21), for example effective civil service, tax collection, infrastructure development (Marquette and Beswick 2011, 1705). However, both concepts (state- and peacebuilding) can be characterized as being inherently strategic due to the international donor community’s strong political and financial support for them and their associated self-interests. Couched in liberal language (hence the later use of the term liberal peacebuilding)11 and encouraged by the end of the Cold War stalemate in the U N Security Council that had blocked most of the U N peacekeeping interventions during the war, An Agenda for Peace also called for expanding the U N ’s military capabilities, especially in light of the lack of “robust” peacekeepers in places like Somalia or Rwanda (Berdal and Ucko 2015; U N 1998; 2000; Mandel 2013); a merger of the respective security and development policies; increased budgets for peacekeeping; and generally more preventive action through diplomacy, military deployments, and development (U N 1992, 11). In other words, An Agenda for Peace gave modern peace-operators (including the C A F ) new and multifaceted tasks (Egnell 2009), including providing humanitarian relief for conflictaffected societies, monitoring elections, protecting the host

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population, or reconstructing states’ social well-being (U N 2004; Picciotto 2004; Uvin 2002).12 Indeed, post-Cold War peacebuilding interventions aim to “reduce the duration, magnitude, or violence associated with the conflict” (Regan 2002) and reflect a multidimensional approach to managing conflicts in fragile states by addressing social, economic, and institutional concerns (UN 2004), with a clear preference for fostering democratic and representative institutions as well as the rule of law. Such tasks of contemporary peacebuilding, as Newman et al. note, is an inherent “liberal project, which not just entails managing instability between states, but seeking to build peace within and between states on the basis of liberal democracy and market economies” (2009, 7). More specifically, liberal peacebuilding is rooted in the assumption that “the surest foundation for peace, both within and between states, is marked by democracy, that is, a liberal democratic polity and a market-oriented economy” (Sriram 2009, 114) as well as individual rights and freedoms, and constitutional limits on arbitrary power. In consequence, as Barnett, Fang, and Zürcher (2014, 610) observe, this liberal approach to peacebuilding is characterized by “the desire to produce a particular kind of state, a liberal, democratic state, organized around markets, the rule of law, and democracy.”13 The strategic idea behind liberal peacebuilding is that democracy and a free market economy allow citizens to effectively communicate and settle their differences peacefully, and that this then creates the strongest basis for sustainable development and governance (Newman 2009). It implies a form of liberal statebuilding, initiated by international organizations such as the U N , international financial institutions (e.g., World Bank, Asian Development Bank), states, and non-governmental organizations (e.g., Oxfam, CARE etc.). As Richmond puts it succinctly, “liberal peacebuilding has been turned into a system of governance rather than a process of reconciliation” (2010, 24–5); indeed, it became the go-to policy tool of the UN in the post-Cold War era (Diehl 2014).14 Canada fully bought into this liberal peacebuilding approach, and has practised it with its partners in the various interventions it has participated in since the 1990s (e.g., Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan). s o u r c e s o f s tat e f r a g i l i t y a n d fa i l u r e

Each fragile or conflict-affected state, of course, is unique and thus requires distinct policy responses (Carmet, Gazo, and Prest 2007).

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Statebuilding vs Nation-Building 41

Unfortunately, this complicates analytical clarity as to what the causal pathway to states experiencing fragility or even failure is. It also complicates developing universally applicable blueprints for how to overcome state fragility. A few observations, however, are noteworthy, based on the experience in the 1990s. Fragile states are mainly to be found around the earth’s “belly,” with the most fragile states being found in Central Africa and less fragile ones in Latin America and South Asia. One other basic characteristic is that fragile and conflictaffected states are incapable of sustaining themselves as members of the international community (Ratner and Helman 1992–93, 3). They are also known to “spread” their fragile conditions to neighbouring states or regions, as, for example, the conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia clearly show (see Wallensteen and Sollenberg 1998), and thus “infect” their immediate neighbourhood. Moreover, they often cause humanitarian emergencies that require interventions to protect civilians or deliver disaster assistance (Wheeler 2000; Barnett 2011). With growing interest at the political level, especially in the early 2000s after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, scholars began to study fragile and conflict-affected states more systematically, especially the factors that lead to such conditions. They found that weak or fragile states are characterized by a specific range of problems: they often experience a loss of physical control over their territory or their monopoly on the legitimate use of force, the erosion of (legitimate) authority to govern the country, or an inability to provide reasonable public services for their people (Fund for Peace 2016; Lemay-Hébert 2009, 21). They have also been found to harbour terrorists and given rise to violent non-state actors (O’Rourke 2016, 4), bitter communal conflict, violent ethnic nationalism, militarism, or, at times, endemic regional conflict (recent examples include Afghanistan, Iraq, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [I S I L ]) (e.g., von Einsiedel 2005; Herbst 2004; S I G AR & U S I P 2016). They can thus pose a significant challenge to other states (Nay 2013; Ghani and Lockhart 2008), especially those in their immediate neighbourhood, as well as international peace and security (Chandler 2007).15 The institutional perception of the state and its duty to provide public goods for its citizens is rooted in a Weberian definition of the state and what roles and functions it should carry out (Lemay-Hébert 2009, 29; Goldstone 2008), also vis-à-vis its people. As Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart put it, the “state has a certain set of responsibilities to its people and an array of mechanisms it can use to fulfil these

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responsibilities” (2008, 115).16 In particular, they identify three fundamental state functions: the provision of security, representation, and welfare (see also Berger 2006; Miliken and Krause 2002). Failing to realize these functions is indicative of a weak or fragile state with decreased government legitimacy17 (Lemay-Hébert 2009, 24; Milliken and Krause 2002, 756). The practical and policy consequences of this line of thought demand that fragile or failed states be reconstructed by international statebuilders. A detailed understanding of the links between legitimacy and state capacity (social contract) is central to the statebuilding approach and matters at every stage of that approach. However, before being able to help fragile and conflict-affected states and develop effective policy tools, intervenors need to understand what makes states experience fragility or even lapse into full state failure. In most cases, some form of conflict within the state (e.g., ethnic conflict or social grievances) precedes state fragility, and its sources can be numerous. To start with, the number of ethnic conflicts in the early 1990s underline that ethnic enmity18 and societal grievances – a systematic (political) discrimination (e.g., restriction of political rights and freedoms) against certain ethnic or social groups – can significantly aggravate societal conflicts up to the point where ethnic identities and group belongings are used to address perceived ethnic, social, or religious injustices (relative deprivation) or even discrimination. For example, before 1989, the former Republic of Yugoslavia consisted of six republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Ethnically, all the republics were Slavs but differed according to which community they were associated with: Croatian, Muslim, or Serbian. Civil unrest and ethnic tensions among the various ethnic groups followed after former president Josip Broz Tito’s death in May 1980. A new rotating federal presidency did not resolve these tensions and the executive branch of government was unable to agree on a new federal structure of government. Several declarations of independence followed (e.g., Slovenia, Bosnia), and with it quests for territory, as well as political and ethnic domination (see e.g., Bennett 1995, 156–60; Mann 2005). The growing ethnic conflict was hard to contain, and ultimately required the U N to send in peacekeepers with its United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), which was deployed based on a UN Security Council mandate. Overall, 35,304 troops were deployed to the Balkans from 1992 to 1995, of which 2,091 or roughly 17 per cent were Canadians. The UNPROFOR

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Statebuilding vs Nation-Building 43

deployment cost Canadian taxpayers more than $1,084,100 (in millions of dollars without incremental costs added) (Zyla 2015). The rest of the history of the various ethnic-religious conflicts in the Balkans is well known (Judah 1997, 2002), and does not need to be retold here. However, the logical conclusion of this small example should not be that ethnic or religious diversity makes a country more prone to war; on the contrary, the literature found that more homogeneous ethnic groups are more likely to experience increased conflict. Second, fragile societies often also experience horizontal inequalities that could exacerbate grievances, impose barriers to upward social mobility, or encourage violent separatist movements (Horowitz 1985; Jenkins and Gottlieb, 2007; Stewart 2008; Gurr 2000). Poverty is considered a significant factor in contributing to historical grievances; so is the lack of formal infrastructure for economic activities or opportunities for average people (not the elite) to make a living. Moreover, extreme forms of poverty and social conditions are found to facilitate conflict by providing easily available combatants for insurgents because recruiting fighters is generally easier in low-income countries with no viable economic alternatives. Thus, using the variable of poverty to explain conflict, as Laitan and Fearon (2003, 83) remind us, should not be underestimated, because, statistically speaking, a $1,000 drop of income per capita in a fragile state increases the odds of a civil war, on average, by 41 per cent. Third, greed and competition between elites over natural resources could undoubtedly fuel grievances (Collier and Höffler 2004; Zartman 2005), because most often not all segments of society benefit from the extraction and sale of these natural resources. This is known as a distributive conflict. Thus, it is not surprising that oil-rich countries, for example, are twice as likely to experience conflict (10 per cent vs 21 per cent) (Lacina 2006). Fourth, insurgents often finance their activities through exportable natural resources (the example of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Iraq illegally exporting oil is a case in point) (e.g., Levy 1998; Cramer 2002), which fuels conflicts. In short, the unequal distribution of wealth that results from the extraction of natural resources can cause civil wars and can make them last longer (Fearon and Laitin 2003; Ross 2004). The wealth of natural resources thus makes conflict more likely (e.g., Goldstone 2008). All these variables in and of themselves are not sufficient enough to explain state fragility or even state failure.19 For that to happen

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the social contract between the government and society must be broken (O E C D 2008; 2010; 2011).20 Put positively, as Goldstone asserts, for a state to be stable, it must possess two qualities: it must be effective in providing its citizens with public goods, and its government must possess legitimacy. In other words, a stable state is both effective and legitimate. Effectiveness refers to the ability of a state to carry out specific functions, such as providing security, promoting economic growth, making law and policy, and delivering social services. Legitimacy refers to whether state actions are perceived by elites and the population as “just” or “reasonable” in relation to prevailing social norms (2008, 285) and a state gains its legitimacy by being accountable to its people. The social contract emerges from the interaction between expectations that a given society has of a state (legitimacy) and the state’s capacity to provide services to its population (efficiency) (OECD 2008, 17). As a result, the OE C D recommends that “[s]tate-building efforts should be concerted, sustained, and focused on building the relationship between state and society” (OECD 2008, 67–8). A stable state is founded on a mutual agreement between the state and society on each party’s roles and responsibilities; this constitutes a well-balanced and resilient social contract. As Sisk reminds us, “[I]n practice, this means focusing on the ability of the state to rule with authority or to provide internal security across its territory, to have the capacity to implement the rule of law, provide justice, deliver essential services needed for development, and enjoy the legitimacy that emanates from its being responsive to citizen demands” (Sisk 2013, x). Increasing the legitimacy of a state is far more complex than simply improving the institutional capacity of fragile states to deliver public goods. It concentrates on the relationship between institutions and civil society that these institutions are supposed to represent, “as expressed through the ability of state authorities to generate domestic consensus and a legitimate political order (Lemay-Hébert 2009, 27). Goldstone concludes this institutionalist perspective by noting that “institutional patterns of change … lead to state failure” (2008, 288).21 The consequence of this line of argument is that a state collapse is not only the result of institutional failures, but also the result of the “collapse of legitimacy of the central authority” (Lemay-Hébert 2009, 28). This argument is underpinned by the concept of the nation-state, which is more than a set of government institutions; it is a “socio­ logical process subject to alteration, modification, reinterpretation,

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or even wholesale creation by politics” (Ibid., 35). In other words, a nation is shaped by collective identity, history, tradition, and language, and so cannot, like a state or its institutions, be constructed by an external state or its institutions. Thus, Bliesemann de Guevara finds that the assumptions underpinning the international community’s approach to statebuilding, as we will see in our Afghanistan case study in chapters 7 to 10, tend to “lack legitimacy, as they are not socially anchored” (2010, 121). These findings question the international community’s influence on promoting local legitimacy (Hanania 2012, 585). Again, this has been a recurring problem of the intervention in Afghanistan. For example, as Ghani and Lockhart (2008) explain, parallel administrative government structures emerged because Afghanistan was highly dependent on foreign aid to deliver public services and goods. This is the definition of a rentier state. In turn, such high dependence has created administrative and accountability structures outside those of the Afghan government, which ultimately undermined the government’s authority (Lemay-Hébert 2009) as well as its legitimacy (OE C D 2010). For instance, approximately 75 per cent of the foreign aid Afghanistan has received does not pass through the Afghan government’s accounts (World Bank 2015). This is due to the government’s accountability deficits (as well as widespread corruption), and it weakens the trust between the government and its citizens, aside from the country’s lack of long-term fiscal sustainability and low level of development (RAN D 2007). Often fragile or failed states also maintain public administrations that promote discrimination against certain societal groups or have no institutionalized grievance processes in place to overcome their societal cleavages or conflicts (Fearn and Laitin 2004). Others have pointed to the deep colonial legacies that corrupt local political elites as a contributing factor to state fragility (Debiel et al. 2005; von Einsiedel 2005; Bates 2008; Ratner and Helman 1993, 3–5). All these factors contribute to the state’s lack of authority, effectiveness, and accountability, which in turn bring into question the legitimacy of the government and its representatives. The state thus becomes ineffective and loses trust and legitimacy among its population. This process may arise suddenly or develop due to a slow deterioration of capacity, effectiveness, or legitimacy. In sum, when a state is incapable of meeting the expectations of its citizens or fails to manage changes in their expectations, the social contract breaks down. A state is defined as being fragile when there

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is a lack of balance between society’s expectations of a state and a state’s capacity to deliver services. Thus, “[r]ather than a static condition, fragility is better conceptualized as a dynamic continuum, along which societies can experience state failure and violent conflict at one end and a more cohesive society moving up the continuum” (Alexandre et al. 2012, 13). Movement along the continuum of fragility is not a linear process; it is unique for each country. The extent of the fragility of state-society relations in a given country varies and can generate diverse outcomes (the most alarming of which is internal conflict). In contrast, a government that is able to manage complications within its state-society relations while avoiding vulnerabilities to internal conflict, a humanitarian crisis, or a collapsing state, is considered stable (Krug 2016). It is thus resilience in the social contract that produces stability in the state (O E C D 2008, 19). the security-development nexus

Informed by the human security debate and the publication of the UN’s An Agenda for Peace, development ultimately signifies progress in human well-being, whereas the conventional understanding of security has been considered the property of states rather than individuals (Zyla 2019; Chandler 2012; Martin and Owen 2010; Owen 2004).22 The security-development nexus refers to a cyclical phenomenon whereby both security and development affect one another – that is, security is instrumental for development policies and practices to be successful, and vice versa (Stewart 2004, 278; O E CD 1997; I S N E T H Zurich 2012, 1) – whereas the direction of causality in that relationship remains unclear.23 In other words, it became accepted wisdom that conflict carries significant development costs, and therefore, promoting security is instrumental for development to take root (Suhrke and Wimpelmann 2012). In turn, inclusive development is a vital element for avoiding conflict. Development is thus instrumental for achieving security (especially creating jobs and the rule of law; World Bank 2011). For example, security policies have come to include explicit references to development and poverty reduction in the global fight against terrorism as well as in debates on humanitarian interventions (Hettne 2010, 31). The presence of military forces and peacekeepers could, for instance, promote cooperation, reduce the risk of civil conflicts, or ensure that local communities and foreign workers are protected

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(Ibid., 34; I SN E T H Zurich 2012, 1), at least in theory. In that sense the security-development nexus has a clear and obvious policy dimension in thinking of how to stabilize fragile states, how to operationalize the highly contested human security paradigm, and to address the root causes of insecurity, underdevelopment, and conflict more generally (Stewart 2004; Chandler 2007, 367). Sisk ties the security-­ development nexus together with the concept of statebuilding by noting that “[s]tatebuilding has become an overarching concept to security and development in fragile states that envisages the improvement in governance institutions and processes at the national and local level as a way to channel and manage social conflicts away from the battlefield or streets and into regularized processes of non-violent resolution of social conflict through professional public administration, elections and parliamentary politics, and through participation and voice of citizens” (Sisk 2013, 1). The World Bank devoted its entire 2011 report, Conflict, Security, and Development, to better understanding the circular relationship between security and development. Such analysis is highly unusual for an institution that up until that point was not known to have vested interests in international security issues; it usually concerns itself with reducing poverty and supporting the development of states. However, the Bank recognized that security had become the primary development challenge, and that the insecurity that affects many fragile states is often repeated in a “vicious cycle,” disrupting development through state weakness, social dislocation, and economic and environmental problems. Specifically, the report charges that civil conflict, intra-state violence, and political instability are among the main causes of states witnessing a significant drop in their GDP output. Citizens are much less likely to make long-term investments of any kind when they fear their investment could be destroyed due to political instability (World Bank 2011). Bank officials calculate that civil conflict costs the average developing country roughly thirty years of G DP growth, that countries in protracted crisis can fall over 20 percentage points behind in overcoming poverty, and that states that are neighbours to a conflict-affected state experience a 0.7 per cent decline per year in their GDP . The key to understanding why some countries are more vulnerable than others to “vicious cycles of violence” is those states’ lack of capable, accountable, and legitimate institutions that are unable (e.g., due to corruption or mismanagement) to provide public goods for

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their citizens. That absence, according to the World Bank’s analysts, is the root cause of underdevelopment, and explains why the risk of violence increases when forms of internal and external stress (e.g., price shocks, youth unemployment, etc.) join weak institutions and disrupt development. Moreover, youth unemployment is highly correlated with criminal activity, and lower GDP per capita is correlated with higher levels of violence (Ibid.). s tat e b u i l d i n g

As a concrete policy response and as a way of strengthening the resilience24 of fragile states against these types of shocks, the World Bank recommends strengthening the legitimate institutions of the state in fragile societies and states’ ability to govern – to enhance the state’s means of providing citizens with security, justice, and employment (World Bank 2011), that is, the Bank is recommending statebuilding. It urges the international community to increase their foreign direct investments in fragile states to kickstart the latter’s domestic economy, help build their basic infrastructure, grow the economy, stop the loss on the monopoly of violence, and, overall, increase the accountability of the government and its civil servants. Others argue that foreign aid can help poor countries break out of the vicious cycle of poverty by funding “the core inputs to development – teachers, health centers, roads, wells, medicine, to name a few” (Quian 2015; Sachs 2005). Some empirical studies support this perspective and find that aid increases growth (Dollar and Burnside 2000; Collier and Dehn 2001, Galiani et al. 2014).25 Most of this assistance, however, is technical (Ratner and Helman 1992–93, 12). Other policy recommendations to fix states experiencing fragility or even failure is to delegate the matter to the U N . States could also be placed under UN trusteeship – with the UN (or its representatives) carrying out the responsibilities of a government and delegating problems and policy issues in a top-down manner (Ratner and Helman 1992–93, 13–17). Critics of U N trusteeship (e.g., in Kosovo and Timor-Leste in 1999) have found them to be neocolonial (Marquette and Beswick 2011) and perpetuating historical biases of local ineffectiveness (Gordon 1997). Butler (2012), for example, calls these trusteeships “neo-trusteeship,” defined as “third-party multilateral initiatives to design and steward political, social, and economic institutions within societies transitioning from conflict, as a part of (or subsequent to) peace operations.”

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At the policy level and to set fragile states on a path out of fragility, the World Bank says that there needs to be profound change that would transform institutions and restore confidence in the government. These transformative processes need to occur several times to help strengthen a country’s domestic institutions. With each stress that a country faces, there will be a slow restoring of confidence in the government, and thus a step toward institutional transformation, ultimately bolstering resilience against specific shocks. However, institutions in and of themselves are not sufficient in this process; it also requires a determined national leadership and international donors who need to focus their assistance programs on preventing criminal and political violence, and reform their procedures of aid delivery and international cooperation (Balthasar 2015). Put differently, a very specialized array of programs and policies combining elements of security and justice, as well as social and economic development, is needed in fragile states to strengthen legitimate institutions and their governance to deliver justice, jobs, and security to citizens (Houten 2007). The World Bank finds that security and development are not just intrinsically connected; they are mutually reinforcing and essential to understanding the vulnerabilities of fragile states. Francis Fukuyama (2004) defines statebuilding as “the creation of new state institutions and the strengthening of existing institutions.” This can happen by liberalizing the economy to encourage the development of economic growth, which, according to Fukuyama, would increase the general wealth of states and thus decrease their poverty. More specifically, Fukuyama highlights the difference between the scope and strength of the state. The former refers to the functions and goals of the state, whereas the latter refers to the ability of the state to enact policies and achieve certain policy objectives (Ibid.), similar to Milton Friedman, who promoted statebuilding through improving the strength – rather than the scope – of the state. Against this backdrop, statebuilding is associated with a wide range of political, economic, social, and psychological factors at various global, national, and grassroots levels with the key objective of building more inclusive political processes and institutions that facilitate a continuous exchange between the state and society (OECD 2008; 2010; 2011). In contrast, driven by a focus on state-society relations, the OECD (2008; 2009) considers statebuilding an “endogenous process to enhance capacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state driven by state-society relations” (O E C D 2011, 20).26 In that sense, as noted, statebuilding is an approach that complements

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peacebuilding (Wyeth and Sisk 2009; Rocha Menocal 2009). It is also highly political for all actors involved. According to Lakhdar Brahimi (2007), the U N ’s former special advisor and chair of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations that produced the influential Brahimi Report, four pillars of statebuilding are essential: constitution making – developing a constitution in a fragile or failed state in the aftermath of conflict; reintegrating combatants into society and reconciling the conflict parties; electoral processes – running elections at various political levels; and making sure the state is following the rule of law. Brahimi concluded that “[w]ithout functioning and self-sustaining government systems, peace and development will be, at best, short-lived, and the disengagement of the international community will take place in less than ideal conditions.” In that sense, statebuilding can be considered good governance – the development of specific state institutions that improve the strength of the state rather than its scope. Once again, we see here the merger of the security and development discourses (the securitydevelopment nexus). The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is an ideal case to illustrate figure 3.1 and to better delineate the boundaries between peacebuilding and statebuilding. The lack of state functions in virtually all administrative and policy areas has created the desire among Afghans for a strong state, to ensure that its economy is prospering, its political and justice system is secure, and that the population’s basic needs are being met (Barnett 2010). Moreover, the state is expected to provide very basic state services for its population in an effective and efficient manner. In that sense, the goal of the Afghan statebuilding process is to create a “strong” state and to move away from being a “welfare” (or rentier) state that relies almost exclusively on external donors (Barnett 2006). Against this backdrop, the O E C D-D A C (2012) has defined statebuilding as a “developmental theory constructed by a set of six principles:” 1 2 3 4

providing legitimate and inclusive politics; providing inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution; establishing and strengthening people’s security; addressing injustices and increasing people’s access to justice (often referred to as relative deprivation); 5 generating employment and improving the livelihoods and stability of the population;

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Figure 3.1  Difference between peacebuilding and statebuilding Source: Sue Ingram. 2010. Key Concepts and Operational Implications in Two Fragile States: The Case of Sierra Leone and Liberia. Washington, DC: New Work; Geneva: The World Bank and UNDP .

6 managing revenue and building capacity for accountable and fair service delivery. However, it is not the sheer individuality of these factors that helps states to overcome their fragility, but the relationship between the state’s legitimacy, its effectiveness, and its efficiency (Risse 2014), and thus its relative stability. Sisk puts it succinctly: “[T]he statebuilding approach puts the social contract between citizen and the state at the forefront of long-term efforts to create the conditions for the management of conflicts within societies and for the provision of public goods necessary for their prosperity” (Sisk 2013, x). In sum, peacebuilding typically occurs in the immediate aftermath of a conflict; statebuilding focuses on the long-term development of institutions and state capacity. It is strategic and clearly located at the security-development nexus in its aim to externally stabilize war-torn societies and create the domestic conditions for governments to seek economic gains and human development. 27 Thus, as Sisk notes, the “statebuilding approach resides at the intersection of traditional security approaches, such as military intervention, stabilization, and

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security sector reform” on the one hand, “and long-term development agendas, such as enabling macro-economic growth and providing essential public goods or services (such as clean water, health care, and education)” on the other hand (2013, 65). s tat e b u i l d i n g i n p r a c t i c e : the challenge of coherence

Statebuilding has been the international community’s “standard” response since the early 1990s (Autesserre 2014a; 2014b; Barnett 2006; Mac Ginty 2007; Barnett, Fang, and Zürcher 2014; Stern and Orjendal 2010) as a means to “stabilize the international system and to protect the people of weakly institutionalized non-Western states from fear and want” (Bliesemann De Guevara 2010, 114). As noted, the Canadian government fully bought into this approach and applied it in Afghanistan. Although the statebuilding approach operates on the assumption that the sovereign state is the strongest form of political order, modern crisis managers quickly realized that single states cannot run successful statebuilding operations alone, and that a combination of security and development related measures and interventions from a number of countries are needed for success. To this end, as we will see in the next chapter, international donors voiced a concrete need to harmonize the actions of civilian and military crisis managers to achieve greater efficiency as well as effectiveness in their peace- and statebuilding interventions (O E C D -D A C 2006). Furthermore, donors not only need to use the “right” policy tools; they must also have the capacity to interact and coordinate with a wide array of (international) actors (states, international organizations, and NGOs) that operate at the same time in the same political statebuilding space, as well as the local population that is at the receiving end of the external assistance (Balthasar 2015). In short, policy coherence is key to mission effectiveness and efficiency.28 These approaches call for harmonizing policies and practices among international donors (OECD-DAC 2005), which has been a struggle for international donors in Afghanistan since the beginning of the mission in 2003, as well as well-developed and well-funded partnerships with NGOs and between national and local actors (OECD-DAC 2008; O E C D -D A C 2012; World Bank 2011; U N D P 2012). Jointly with the creation of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission and Peacebuilding Fund in 2005 (U N 2005, 24–5), W oG , or

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comprehensive approaches (CAs), were developed to institutionalize and distinguish state- and peacebuilding activities from more traditional peacekeeping interventions (Crocker et al. 2000). These CAs to crisis management and national W oG approaches became the new “doctrine” for international peace-/statebuilders (Chandler 2007; Tschirgi 2002). The OECD defines the W oG as “external assistance that is designed and implemented in a coherent, co-ordinated and complementary manner across different government actors within an assisting country (most critically security, diplomatic and development agencies)” (OECD 2011, 60), and to “[w]orking effectively across these domains … involving departments responsible for security, and political and economic affairs, as well as those responsible for development aid and humanitarian assistance” (OECD-DAC 2006, 7). WoG or CAs operate at different levels of analysis (OECD 2007): national approaches focus on developing coherence within national institutions on a broad range of actions, from development to security. These have been referred to as national W oG approaches. Intra-agency approaches focus on bringing different agencies or units together to work on an issue in a holistic way, as exemplified in the UN’s integrated mission approach. Inter-agency approaches focus on a more ambitious type of cooperation among national as well as international actors, with few examples as of yet. And finally, international-local approaches focus on host-donor relations and cooperation among national institutions and international partners, both organizations as well as states.29 While Canada was not the first country to develop the WoG concept (it was the UK), it vigorously fostered the concept of the 3Ds (defence, diplomacy, and development). Following the change in government in the 2006 federal election, the discourse then shifted from 3D to W oG. The foundation for Canada’s 3D approach to failing and fragile states has its roots in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (D F A I T ), when the 3D concept appeared in a 2002 international security policy document. Thereafter, 3D quickly entered the political marketplace following the release of Canada’s interdepartmental International Policy Statement (I P S ) – a policy paper drafted in 2005 under the aegis of Paul Martin’s minority Liberal government – according to which consolidated efforts by defence, diplomacy, and development gained new currency. The advent of the IPS symbolized “an ambitious attempt to establish the priorities and parameters of Canada’s global engagement in the 21st century, with an eye toward harmonizing the roles of DFAIT, DND, and CIDA

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in the achievement of Canada’s national objectives” (Patrick and Brown 2007, 60). The I P S compelled public officials to leverage cooperation among government departments and agencies to “avoid a pathological pattern of redundancy and incoherence that would arise if each agency simply went its own way in approaching these problems” (Ibid.). In principle, the I P S provided an authoritative rationale for Canada to develop a WoG approach to global peace and security. In practice, however, “the document’s painful gestation is a testament to the difficulty of convening interagency buy-in on an overriding principle of how and why Canada should be engaged around the globe” (Ibid., 59). Afghanistan was the first intervention to employ Canada’s W oG approach and brought together the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (R C M P ), the Department of Justice, Elections Canada, and the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), among others. Canada’s W oG comprises the three pillars of the Afghanistan Compact: security, governance, and development, as manifested in the dynamic cooperation among D F A I T , D N D , and C I D A . Moreover, Canada’s W oG demands specific policy actions that are required at the operational or country level. For example, actions may include an annual national action plan with an assessment, an operational action plan, a description of how these plans are going to be coordinated, and a monitoring and evaluation plan. Since 2005, Canada has led the 330-person Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (K P R T ) based at Camp Nathan Smith in the city of Kandahar in the southern province of Kandahar. Located in the former heartland of the Taliban regime, Kandahar is among the Afghan provinces most targeted by insurgent attacks. A critical test of Canada’s WoG , the K P R T draws on the combined expertise of diplomats, corrections experts, and development specialists to perform a wide range of enabling roles, such as training the Afghan National Police (ANP) and strengthening the local governance capacity of the Afghan government. Several observations about Canada’s W oG in practice can be made, even though it is outside the objective of this book to discuss them in detail. They should simply be highlighted here for the purpose of perhaps outlining a roadmap for future research. First, Ottawa ­recognizes that WoG efforts should put primary emphasis on statebuilding to allow the Afghan government to create a legitimate and accountable state that is capable of delivering essential public goods (legitimacy and effectiveness). Second, Canadian officials acknowledge

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that any W oG effort must adapt to the underlying roots of fragility and conflict within the country in question. Consequently, “while certain general principles of engagement may apply, there can be no ‘cookie-cutter’ approach to Canada’s response” (Ibid., 60). Third, Canada’s WoG is more than a simple 3D approach to post-conflict reconstruction. It includes a range of technical and domestic agencies, such as the Department of Justice, Elections Canada, the RCM P , the Department of Finance, and Public Safety Canada (P S C ). Fourth, practising the WoG reveals that some Canadian government agencies do not have an equal role or ranking among all of the agencies involved, which is something that we can confirm from our study in Part II of this book. This short excursion through the Canadian W oG example is representative of a larger trend among international donors who developed similar WoG approaches in their polities. It is thus hardly surprising that by the end of the 1990s both theory and policy emphasized the need for longer term, comprehensive approaches to peace (von der Schulenberg 2014, 2; Paris 2010) and, as noted, the inclusion of development aspects in peace-/statebuilding interventions. Against this backdrop, there are a number of policy priorities for interventions in fragile and conflict-affected states. Perhaps one of the most obvious ones is that the international community should try to strengthen states before they fail (von Einsiedel 2005) – to build their capacity and responsiveness to act before they experience forms of fragility. The flip side of this argument is that the international community must increase its capacities to better predict state fragility and failure as well as increase its efforts to offer targeted assistance. Such foresight would also reduce the expenses associated with the costly state- and peacebuilding operations, such as those in Afghanistan (SIGAR and USIP 2016). And the international community, as Debiel et al. remind us, should focus on failing but not yet failed states and boost that government’s legitimacy. Along similar lines Lemay-Hébert points out that nation-building needs to accompany statebuilding policies to become effective (Lemay-Hébert 2009). In contrast to statebuilding, nation-building focuses on the reconciliation of ethnicities, religious groups, or minorities. Neither Canada, nor its statebuilding partners for that matter, have ever achieved success in either the statebuilding or the nation-building exercise. The liberal peacebuilding paradigm is based on the argument that necessary preconditions must be in place and established in a

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well-sequenced order before the process of democratization in postconflict societies is initiated (Fisher and Keashley 1991, 29, 32; Mansfield and Snyder 2007; Caplan 2012).30 Paris (2004), for example, cautions that functioning domestic institutions should be in place before liberalizing polities and economies can take effect. Call (2008) supports such a plea for sequencing and argues that there are tensions between consolidating peace in a war-torn society and building a robust, self-sustaining state in the aftermath of a conflict. This perspective on peace- and statebuilding acknowledges that what is desirable in the long term might be incompatible with what is possible in the short term. Fukuyama, however, finds that the international community is “effectively locked into a non-sequencing norm with regard to state-building” (2007, 13; see also Carothers 2007) where the rule of law and democracy are promoted and implemented with little to no flexibility for post-conflict states. Fukuyama also charges that state-formation is a violent process. He warns that the strategy of the international community may halt conflicts only temporarily, and that violence is likely to return in ungoverned spaces (see also Menkhaus 2007; Raeymaekers, Menkhaus, and Vlassenroot 2008). Berman, on the other hand, is less concerned about premature democratization processes, because European history demonstrates that “false starts, problems, and reversals” were essential aspects of the long-term process through which non-democratic institutions and elites lost their legitimacy and the path was paved for democratic successors (2007, 16). Carothers rejects sequentialism, because it is “putting off democracy – especially open, competitive elections – until some time in the indefinite future while pursuing statebuilding and the rule of law in the meantime” (2007, 21). Instead, Carothers recommends using a gradualist approach to statebuilding that seeks to assist countries without the necessary democratic preconditions (i.e., effective political institutions). This approach consists of taking “incremental, but definite steps toward open political competition while simultaneously pursuing statebuilding and rule-of-law reforms” (Ibid.). In short, the debate on sequencing is highly controversial and far from being decided. l i m i tat i o n s o f t h e s tat e b u i l d i n g a p p r o a c h : some critical voices

Although liberal peacebuilding has been the favoured approach of international intervenors since 1990, it has been heavily criticized

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(Suhrke 2007). These debates concern the impact and legitimacy of promoting liberal democracy and market economies in conflict-prone societies, the nature of the state, the policy of statebuilding in the developing world, threats to international security, and broader issues of Western cultural assumptions, top-down statebuilding approaches, and the neocolonial nuances of peacebuilding to name a few points of criticism (Newman 2009, 26). Externally imposed democratic institutions are what the international community commonly considers to be best practice. However, outside intervention may in fact do more harm than good (Coyne 2006). For example, external intervenors in fragile states frequently tend to ignore existing local governance structures and focus solely on officially recognized state institutions, thereby failing to benefit from the capacity and legitimacy of governmental arrangements already in place. Moreover, the intervenors have yet to develop procedures and policies to systematically incorporate local knowledge into their operations (Miller and Rudnick 2010, 63; Eckhard 2018). Such negligence further undermines the legitimacy of the peace- and statebuilding receiving state. Furthermore, intervenors disregard the fact that indigenous mechanisms for stabilization might eventually be more effective and more sustainable than those produced by exogeneous interventions. Above all, on the practical level Ottaway (2002) finds that building democratic institutions in the aftermath of internal conflict does not work (see also Ross 2000), because they are not considered “significant” or established” in the eyes of local actors (Ottaway 2002, 1004). Roy agrees with this assessment and notes that prescriptions for institution building, which international actors have imposed, were problematic because they were incompatible with the Afghan context in which they were applied, because it “ignore[d] the key issue of political legitimacy – a legitimacy that can be rooted only in the history and political culture of the country.” (2004, 169) From this perspective, international intervention failed to understand the context and culture of the country in which it was applying models of political institutions. As noted in the previous section, many Afghans did not perceive the models of governance that were imposed on them as legitimate forms of governance. In the absence of legitimacy, Afghan institutions were unable to act effectively in the interests of the Afghan people. As a result and in line with broader trends in development policy (OECD-DAC 2005; 2007; 2008; 2012; U N 2011; U N D P 2011), more recent peace- and statebuilding interventions try to increase their emphasis on promoting

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local legitimacy and ownership, acknowledging the complex nature of fragility and conflict (Donais 2009; Autesserre 2014; Cohen 2014). Likewise, our understanding of what constitutes “local” and “civil society” engagement is expanding. International intervenors must recognize that institution-building (and thus statebuilding) is an indigenous and slow process that takes years, not months, to complete, and thus requires local agency and long-term international commitments. For example, international donors need several years to understand or even solve societal (im-)balances of power and authority (e.g., by disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating armed and nonstate military forces as well as reforming the police forces and the armed forces) (Brozka 2006). Furthermore, the results must be accepted by the local population. All of this takes time and a longterm commitment. In Afghanistan, for example, the fact that the Taliban were not invited to the Bonn Conference and only recently to the entire peace process reflects a predominantly Western and externally driven peacebuilding process. Call (2008, 60–3) draws attention to the conditions of distrust that permeate societies in the aftermath of warfare: “[I]f the emergent state is endowed with too many powers too quickly … statebuilding can spark or facilitate armed conflict.” In that sense, statebuilding can also be considered the successful demilitarization of politics. However, enhancing state legitimacy from the inside requires increased public participation in the early stages of post-conflict processing (Menkhaus 2007; Hagman and Hoehne 2009). If the process of building states does not strike a balance between the interests of external donors, internal legitimacy, and popular support and participation, it could undermine the prospects for peace. Again, the absence of such local buy-in, let alone ownership or leadership of peacebuilding activities, leads to misinformation and distrust, not only between local actors but also between international donors and the Afghan leadership. For instance, in spite of their significant security investments into Afghanistan’s security forces (military and police), donors (Canada included) remained skeptical about how much Afghanistan’s political elite was really committed to reforming its security institutions and keeping them free from patronage and corruption. It is thus hardly surprising that the Afghan government never turned out to be a “capable and reliable partner” (SI GA R and U S I P 2016, 1). To cope with their distrust and reduce the widespread corruption among Afghan security forces, donors, for example, withheld funds from

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Afghan fuel contractors in exchange for the Afghan government eliminating “ghost soldiers” from its payroll system (Bushra and Ghufran 2009). As a result, since the beginnings of the Afghan intervention, Afghanistan’s security sector has not been able to act without external support (Banerjee 2015, 7). Many of these criticisms relate to the Western, hegemonic discourse of state failure and peace-/statebuilding interventions (Kaplan 2008; Logan and Preble 2006; Suhrke 2007), as well as the unchallenged normative, supposedly universal, assumptions that underpin the international community’s approach to addressing these issues. Richmond, for example, notes that these assumptions have produced a “‘regime of truth’ – a discourse about making peace – which illustrates how the international system itself may have framed, created, and replicated conflicts” (2001, 318). As we will see in our Afghan case study below in Part II, the outcome of this dominant, unproblematized, and unquestioned discourse is that it reproduces the current international order, replicates conflict, and thus no substantive change happens in how it builds peace. As a result, Richmond (2001), Fetherston (2000), and Jones (2008), for example, call for the need to “think differently” about theories and practices of peace- and statebuilding interventions. Fetherston explains that the impetus for this critical analysis is the “scale of current problems and continuing inability for interventions to initiate long-term sustainable solutions to them,” as seen, for example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2000,191). Similarly, Jones (2008) points to the dominant discourse of state failure that is consistently repeated by academics, politicians, and journalists. Most important, it ignores the underlying, explanatory, substantive accounts of current crises. As a result, as Jones argues while using a post-colonial perspective, intervenors must “prioritize historical specificity over [the] unhelpful generalization” of failed state discourse and, accordingly, the structural crises in many of Africa’s neocolonial states that “must be situated historically in the imperial history of global capitalism” (2008, 182–3). Otherwise the false portrayal of the social conditions in conflict-affected states and the incorrect identification of their causes will lead to legitimizing and recreating the imperial international order that, according to Jones, is at the core of state failure. Fetherston refers to the reproduction of this hegemonic discourse as the “progressive linearity of knowledge” (2000, 199). Both Fetherston (2000) and Richmond (2001) further advance the idea that Foucault’s genealogy of understanding history as a

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“profusion of entangled events” offers the means of exposing and dismantling the international community’s dominant truth and thus the opportunity to develop an alternative, critical perspective (Fetherston 2000, 208). Accordingly, Richmond outlines the “genealogy of peacemaking”31 (2001, 318) as a way of revealing the peacemaking discourse that is framed and reproduced in the international system. This method of fundamentally rethinking the international community’s approaches to making peace offers a possibility of creating an “antihegemonic, post-Westphalian international society” that allows for “regional and local pluralism … without impinging on social, ethnic, cultural, or religious differences” (Richmond 2001, 336). It is the protection of “local distinctiveness,” along with integrating local, regional, and global dynamics that, according to Richmond, offers an alternative to coercive and externally imposed practices that reproduce conflicts (Ibid., 336). Moreover, Fetherston suggests employing Habermas’s concept of communicative action as a means of creating a (analytic and policy) space in which intersubjective dialogue can understand, evaluate, and challenge the “discursive reproduction of social meaning of war zones, as well as practices of local peace-building” (2000, 213). Ultimately, the expectation of this type of social forum is to enable pluralism and inclusivity in international peace- and statebuilding processes to transcend the dominant Western ideology of peacebuilding discourses and policies. However, it remains unclear how communicative action could operate on the ground in active peace- and statebuilding missions. A critical rethinking of the international community’s peace- and statebuilding discourse, policy, and practice, along with including and empowering locals, is needed to allow hybridized (local, regional, global) policies and practices to develop that are aimed at creating real, long-lasting peace in conflict-affected states. Scholars have criticized these policies, first, because they fail to encourage local ownership in the post-conflict rehabilitation process. In fact, they ignore issues and concerns that pertain to local contexts in the externally driven liberal peace-as-governance approach. Second, as Visoka and Doyle point out, there is a dual accountability deficit, that of international intervenors and an “absence of local democratic legitimacy in executive authority in post-conflict societies” (2014, 688, our insertion). Visoka and Doyle reference the U N and EU cases in Kosovo to demonstrate the weakness of existing accountability mechanisms and a lack of legitimacy due to the immunity and

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diplomatic privileges of external peacebuilders, as well as the fact that peacebuilding structures were implemented, funded by, and reported to the organization they are supposed to hold responsible (Visoka and Doyle 2014, 89). Third, liberal peacebuilding prescribes various top-down, elite-led liberal remedies, including demobilization and security sector reform, the construction of democratic institutions of governance, the opening of markets, judicial reform, and the establishment of processes of transitional justice. As Newman (2009) points out, considerable scholarly analysis now relates or even conflates this form of peacebuilding with statebuilding. Fourth, as Call reminds us, approaches to consolidating peace in the initial stages of a conflict are substantially different than the approaches to building an effective and legitimate state (2008). Fifth, the promotion of liberal democracy and associated economic practices are not universally applicable values, or policies for that matter. The liberal peace- and statebuilding model is based on a narrow Western conception of what constitutes a state as a working political community (Brown et al. 2010, 100; Bellamy 2004). Postconflict peacebuilding activities and reforms imported by the international community reflect this foreign form of governance but overlook informal indigenous societal institutions (Brown et al. 2010, 103). Thus, liberal peace- and statebuilding endeavours often deviate significantly from traditional, local ways of governance and knowledge. However, transplanting democratic institutions and a marketoriented economy requires “deep changes in society and challenges to the status quo” (Newman 2009, 42). Ultimately, there is a disconnect between the local reality of the conflict-affected state and the Western-backed model of the ideal (Weberian) state. In this regard, the liberal peace- and statebuilding model is criticized for its “alleged ethnocentrism – its promotion of essentially Western values and its belief in the universalism of liberal goals” (Mac Ginty 2010, 394). hybrid approaches

Although “deductive” approaches to peacebuilding dominated the 1990s and early 2000s, these externally constructed and imposed interventions were increasingly challenged by calls for more “inductive” contextually and historically specific efforts (Tschirgi 2002, 27). In a sense, these hybrid approaches thus abandon technocratic and

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(liberal) institutionalist solutions to peace (Brown et al. 2010, 10; Mac Ginty 2010, 407; 448). Richmond charges that the so-called hybrid peace- and statebuilding approach especially takes the technical assistance that is central in the liberal peace- and statebuilding project and connects it to the “existing social contract … or, more importantly, to open [peacebuilding] up to the cultural, customary dynamics of the local environment concerned” (2010, 31). Indeed, hybrid peace- and statebuilding constitutes a shift in the ontology and epistemology of the liberal peace- and statebuilding paradigm. These hybrid approaches to peace- and statebuilding reflect the interests, identities, and needs of all state and non-state actors (Richmond 2010, 26; Boege et al. 2009, 11). Mac Ginty writes that hybridity is an active process relating to the interaction between various international and local actors that mix to create peace (2010, 392). However, that process requires intervenors to be flexible, adaptable, and sensitive to context, as well as to commit time for the long term (Marquette and Beswick 2011). This is in line with the O E CD DA C Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations which call for taking “context as the starting point” to facilitate effective interventions that avoid negative impacts and acknowledge capacity deficits that must be overcome to attain stability and peace (OE C D -D A C 2007, 1; OE CD -D AC 2008, 8).32 We will dive into this further in the next chapter. The premise of this hybrid perspective of the peace- and statebuilding approach is that the state is only one of many actors in the process of post-conflict societal rehabilitation (Debiel et al. 2005). Often informal, non-state institutions and actors represent an integral dimension of governance, and intervenors must pay attention to local power dynamics and indigenous institutions “that implement their own logic and rules within or alongside state structures” (Brown et al. 2010, 103). Hybridity provides an avenue for more flexible and contextually appropriate models of governance that “recognize the strengths of social order and resilience embedded in the communal life of societies within the global south” (Ibid., 101). Accordingly, indigenous societal institutions must be recognized as decisive players in post-conflict governance processes and encouraged to implement their own logic and rules alongside state actors. Hybridity is about understanding a state as a political community. The coexistence and interplay of various elements, including external statebuilding models, indigenous institutions, differing logics of order, and the influences of

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globalization shape a country’s political community and thus the relationship between the government and its citizens. They also ensure that domestic cultures and identities are preserved in the process of post-conflict reconstruction and ultimately, enable social cohesion, giving the recipients of peace- and statebuilding interventions a greater degree of agency (Rubin 2003). Richmond adds that engaging with the local population indicates the importance of “legitimacy, custom, culture, identity, reconciliation, and local politics or power structures” and “the more we know about them … the more we understand ‘our’ limitations” (2014, 697). Barnett et al. go even further and show that not only is a hybrid conception of peacebuilding more plausible; this “compromised peacebuilding” (2014, 616) approach, as they call it, is the “most likely outcome to be observed empirically” from the liberal peace- and statebuilding project (Ibid., 609).33 conclusion

Countries experiencing state fragility or even failure arrive at that point in several ways. The first one is the result of an escalation of ethnic or religious conflicts when a major communal group or groups no longer has sufficient incentives to accept the government’s authority and the government in power is unable to prevent their rebellion (e.g., in Nepal from 1996 to 2006). This first scenario has two distinct nodes. The first node occurs when a discriminatory effective government has excluded certain communal groups from power or the economy, and then loses effectiveness. The loss of effectiveness creates incentives for even former regime allies to seek a change in the government (Goldstone 2008, 288). The second node occurs if certain regional or ethnic interests believe the democratic regime is deeply corrupt, or tilting against their interests; they may decide to withdraw from and rebel against the government (e.g., in Nicaragua, 1979 to 1990). If the government is too weak to suppress the rebellion, it can spread and threaten the regime (Goldstone 2008, 289). The second pathway to state fragility or even failure is state predation. This particularly takes place in authoritarian regimes that can stay in power because they retain legitimacy in the eyes of crucial elites (Goldstone 2008, 290). The third pathway is marked by regional or guerrilla rebellion (e.g., in Colombia since 1964) – when a regional group or economic class suffers discrimination or exclusion (Goldstone 2008,

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290–1). The fourth pathway particularly affects emerging democracies, which are sometimes unable or not effective in providing economic and physical security. Democratic regimes can also be paralyzed by factionalism, or rendered ineffective by a lack of adequate resources to maintain the security of the population (e.g., Nigeria in 1983; Goldstone 2008, 291–2). The fifth pathway explains state failure as the direct result of poor trade-off management between state effectiveness and state legitimacy in a succession or reform crisis in authoritarian states (Goldstone 2008, 292). Should a state experience conditions of fragility or even failure, the standard go-to approach of international intervenors, including Canada, in the 1990s and early 2000s was to deploy peace- and statebuilding interventions to that state to prepare its domestic institutions and help to (re-)build a liberal-inspired democratic polity that adhered to the basic principles of democracy, the rule of law, and representativeness (Autesserre 2014a; 2014b; Barnett 2006; Mac Ginty 2007; Barnett, Fang, and Zürcher 2014). This approach, as noted, has become known as liberal peacebuilding, which maintains the necessity of effectiveness, and pursues the attainment of legitimacy through democratization as one of its key elements (Barnett 2006). With the significant underperformances of the peacebuilding missions in the mid-2000s, especially those in Afghanistan and Iraq (Donais 2009; Owen 2004), heavy criticism of the peace- and statebuilding approach emerged. This critique paved the way for the departure of the technocratic, liberal, top-down approaches of the 1990s and early 2000s (Mac Ginty 2010, 407; 2011, 54) that alienated “local societies by rendering them passive” (Boege et al. 2009, 11) and restricted the institutional forms to be built or used in building peace (Brown et al. 2010, 101; Mac Ginty 2010, 408), to prioritizing locally owned and bottom-up as well as context-sensitive approaches (Cohen 2014; Donais 2009; Fetherston and Nordstrom 1995; I D P S 2011; UN General Assembly 2015). This trend to hybrid or fully local peacebuilding approaches was consistent with those implemented at the international policy level, as we will see in the next chapter (IDPS 2011; OECD-DAC 2005; 2007; 2008; 2012; UN 2011; UNDP 2012). The expectation was that this “local turn” would deliver more agency to local recipients of the peace- and statebuilding interventions than its liberal donors could offer (Mac Ginty 2010). Statebuilding is a deeply political process that touches upon the legitimacy and effectiveness of fragile or conflict-affected states.

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Understanding the context of that process – especially what the local community perceives as being legitimate and effective – is essential for international peace- and statebuilding interventions to be successful (Mac Ginty 2007; Call 2008; Duffield 2001; O E CD 2005; O E CD 2007; World Bank 2011). Though these interventions have an international component, the domestic side involving local actors, local societal groups, and local power structures in the intervention is indispensable, but unfortunately often overlooked by intervenors, on purpose or otherwise, as the case of Afghanistan clearly demonstrates. The social contract between the state and its citizens must be intact for an effective and responsive state to prevail. If societal demands are not heard, the state risks sliding into fragility (OECD 2010; 2011).

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4 Understanding Aid Effectiveness and Results-Based Evaluations in Afghanistan introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with a basic overview of the conceptual development of aid effectiveness, its tenets and limitations, and what it means to measure aid effectiveness. Interestingly, many of the recent significant developments in aid effectiveness occurred concurrently with the mission in Afghanistan, which undoubtedly influenced how Canada chose to approach its development programming. These developments also created a feedback loop that allowed programs to be refined over time, reflected in how Canada framed its efforts later in the mission. This will be further discussed in chapters 5 to 9 in Part II. Afghanistan’s development and economic growth has been largely dependent on foreign aid since the Soviet invasion, even more so after the US intervention began in 2001. Not only was a large portion of Afghanistan’s G D P funded by foreign aid but close to 100 per cent of its development budget1 and approximately 35 per cent of its operating expenditure are paid for through external assistance (Bawaar Consulting Group 2010). According to the O E C D , Canada spent approximately US$1.76 billion on Official Development Assistance (ODA) between 2003 and 2014 but the subsequent underwhelming results have brought into question the effectiveness of how aid was delivered. The issue of aid effectiveness has a long history, spanning from the end of the Second World War to the present. However, aid effectiveness only came under a critical spotlight with the end of the Cold War as former Soviet republics and countries in sub-Saharan Africa suffered

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massive socio-economic degradation in spite of the massive inflows of aid (Lancaster 2006). That brought into question the fundamental assumption that aid can be used to effectively bolster economic growth and improve the lives of those in developing countries. The 1990s thus became characterized by aid fatigue as more and more Western countries looked at development aid with increasing skepticism, causing a decline in official aid flows. For example, in 1992 the US was the largest single aid donor with disbursements of O D A totalling US$11,709 million, but by 1995 its aid had fallen to US$7,367 million, below the aid disbursements of Japan, France, and Germany (Bird 2004). However, increasing levels of poverty in some countries after 1997 (such as Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea) provided a strong rationale for redirecting aid to alleviate poverty and for helping to build institutions that could help increase a country’s resilience to exogenous shocks (Thorbecke 2000). The interest in aid was thus renewed despite the lingering questions about how to make aid more effective. A global effort then began to try improving the effectiveness of development aid, culminating in the release of the Paris Declaration in 2005. Despite subsequent reports and forums, the Paris Declaration remains the most influential document on how development aid should be practised today. The literature on aid and aid effectiveness is vast and it is outside the scope of this book to comprehensively review it. However, it is important to familiarize the reader with the basic evolution of foreign aid to better understand what influenced the creation of the Paris Declaration and why it is significant to the mission in Afghanistan. This will be followed by a discussion of the Declaration’s limitations and the debate on how to measure aid effectiveness. The section after that will discuss result-based evaluations as well as how we are going to use that material for our analysis in this book. f i r s t g e n e r at i o n o f a i d

The first generation of aid began after the Second World War. During this time the development community’s main policy objectives were economic growth and modernization because other social and economic objectives were thought to be complementary to – if not resulting from – GNP growth (Thorbecke 2000). Using GNP growth as the yardstick for development was very much in line with the conceptual state of aid and development, with such analysts as Rosenstein-Rodan

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(1943) talking of the “big push,” and Rostow’s (1960) “take off into sustained growth,” among others, dominating the aid literature. The “big push” emphasized the importance of economies of scale and discreet injection of investment. The “take off” principle simply stated that for the growth rate of income to be higher than the growth rate of the population a minimum investment to G N P ratio was required, given the prevailing capital to output ratio. The emphasis on the crucial role of investment as the primary source of development meant that much large-scale aid was poured into modernizing industries to help with this savings-investment gap. It is important to note that aid at this time was also highly politicized due to the Cold War, and the West largely only invested in countries viewed as friendly to Western interests to shore up national security (Bird 2004). Much development aid was thus directed to serving the national interests of donor countries rather than meeting the real development needs of the recipient country. However, over time it became apparent that this line of thinking did not actually improve economic growth, calling for a re-examination of this concept. s e c o n d g e n e r at i o n o f a i d

This leads to the next generation of aid, during which it was being increasingly recognized that large aid flows might actually have an adverse effect and harm the economies of developing countries. This became more apparent by the 1970s with the proliferation of development and economic problems that questioned the G N P -oriented development strategy and led to a careful re-examination of the processes of social and economic development. Thorbecke (2000) summarized the main development problems of this generation as follows: (1) the increasing level of unemployment and underemployment in a large number of developing countries; (2) the tendency for income distribution within countries to have become more unequal; (3) having to maintain a very large number of individuals experiencing poverty, (4) the accelerating migration of people to urban centres, creating significant congestion, and (5) the increasing balance-of-payments pressures and mounting foreign indebtedness. This resulted in the dethroning of G N P -focused development policy and brought in a more balanced approach that focused on simultaneous growth and objectives for alleviating poverty. In particular, the World Bank under Robert McNamara and the International Labour Office (I L O ) through its World Employment

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Programme became big proponents of poverty-focused aid (Riddell 2007). Poverty, it was argued, needed to be addressed directly rather than using the institutional approach taken in the previous decade. The World Bank’s approach was centred around redistribution-with-growth (Chenery et al. 1974), and the ILO took the basic-needs approach to development (Ghai and Lee 1980). They both acknowledged that economic growth was still important to alleviate poverty, but that directly targeting the poor was both necessary and urgent. However, this focus on poverty and the poorest of the poor did not last. During this time, aid saw significant destabilization as the effects of decades of borrowing manifested itself as the 1980s debt crisis. This became known as the “lost decade of development” and poverty reduction was promptly forgotten (Singer 1989). Achieving external balance-of-payments equilibrium and internal budget equilibrium became the overarching priorities. The role of foreign aid became a stop-gap measure to stabilize the shaky financial system and to encourage the adoption of appropriate adjustment policies through conditionality attached program lending, which would greatly influence aid in the following decades (Arndt, Jones, and Tarp 2010). This set the scene for the 1990s and how aid practices would change as a result of the end of the Cold War. t h i r d g e n e r at i o n o f a i d

In the first half of the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, stabilization and adjustment were still the key objectives, a carry-over from the 1980s debt crisis. However, the steep rise in aid in the 1980s was somewhat predictably followed, most notably after 1992, with a fall in aid levels even greater and more prolonged than at the beginning of the 1980s. The 1990s are thus often associated with “aid fatigue,” the most prominent explanations being that the end of the Cold War lessened the political relevance of the West providing aid for some countries and that foreign aid was generating relationships of aid dependency (Thorbecke 2000). The discussion of aid dependency in particular argued that too much aid encouraged recipients to depend continuously on aid as a source of finance, thereby discouraging those governments from finding ways to domestically create revenue and self-sustaining development (Riddell 2007). Simultaneously, however, new purposes for aid emerged, including supporting economic and political changes in former communist countries, addressing global problems, and promoting democracy and

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post-conflict rehabilitation. Although official aid flows fell during this time, aid for emergency and humanitarian aid doubled (Riddell 2007). There were two primary reasons for this: the growing numbers of people affected by natural disasters and the expanding number of post-Cold War conflicts in which civilians increasingly became the target of violence. This human-centred conceptualization of security pointed to the deep interconnectedness between development and security (now referred to as the security-development nexus, prominent in the mission in Afghanistan) and that the proper referent for security should be the individual rather than the state. Although not everyone subscribed to the concept of human security, the maxims “freedom from want, freedom from fear” contributed to the shift of development aid back to human-centred social development (U N D P 1994) The debates surrounding poverty alleviation and human security resulted in two competing approaches to using aid to further development. One was the top-down approach, often associated with the World Bank; the other was the bottom-up approach advocated for by NGOs that focused more on small-scale projects (Lancaster 2006). This debate saw some resolution in the middle of the decade when the former president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, began emphasizing the importance of the recipient country being in control of shaping aid interventions and NGOs acknowledging the importance of a good policy environment (Kagia 2005). However, this debate fell out of the spotlight in the latter half of the decade as the focus shifted to critically analyzing the overall effectiveness of development aid. For example, one of the more influential studies on aid effectiveness, conducted by Burnside, Pritchett, and Dollar (1998), concluded that aid can be a powerful tool for promoting growth and reducing poverty if used in an already strong policy environment, that is, in countries that are already helping themselves with growth-enhancing policies. However, this study was refuted by Hansen and Tarp in 2000. Using the same dataset as Burnside, Pritchett, and Dollar but including country-specific fixed effects and the dynamic nature of the aid-growth relationship, they showed that it is the country-specific characteristics of recipient countries (not just the policy regime being followed) that has a major effect on aid effectiveness. These studies served to emphasize the complex relationship between aid and effectiveness. As Lancaster (2006) argues, this refocusing on aid effectiveness was prominent again during this time for the following reasons: (1) the Cold War often shielded development aid against attacks because it

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was justified as a matter of national security; (2) economic data improved and was more available; and (3) the countries in sub-­ Saharan Africa had absolutely dismal economic performances. Aid faced criticisms such as the lack of “ownership,” because donors still largely controlled how the money was spent; that there were too many stand-alone projects that had no overall strategy for poverty reduction and economic growth in mind; and that donors were not overly selective about who received aid, resulting in large aid flows going through corrupt or autocratic governments that lacked the capacity to use aid effectively (Thorbecke 2000). These were themes that are still very relevant to Canada’s development efforts in Afghanistan. These events created the foundation for what was to be the most comprehensive attempt at improving aid effectiveness in the 2000s. But first, it is important to delve a bit deeper into some larger, ­overarching debates that helped shape some of the discussion of aid  effectiveness, namely the micro-macro paradox, ownership, and harmonization. m i c r o - m a c r o pa r a d o x

The micro-macro paradox was introduced by Paul Mosley (1986), and refers to one of the most controversial issues of aid, that is, that no significant correlation can be established between the inflow of aid and GNP growth for the recipient country, even though project evaluations often show a positive rate of return. Mosley cites three reasons for this: first is the issue of inaccurate measurement; second, the fungibility of aid by local governments, and last, the backwash of aid, or more specifically, the hypothetical negative impact of aid on the private sector. White added two additional causes in 1992. The first is the problem of scale analysis or over-aggregation, that research should be more geographically focused. The second is the issue of data comparison between micro and macro studies with the former using more socio-economic data and the latter using financial data. In other literature, Rajan and Subramanian (2008) seem to confirm the view that the aggregate impact of aid on economic growth is non-existent, questioning the validity of macro-level assessments. Instead, alternative methods to assess aid effectiveness often forgo cross-country macroeconomic analysis in favour of specific micro- and meso-outcomes (Temple 2010). For example, a study by Masud and Yontcheva (2005) found that aid helps to reduce infant mortality, but

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the effect is only significant when the aid is provided by NGOs. There appears to be a cautious optimism about the effectiveness of microlevel aid programming, but the lack of evidence at the macro level seems to give new credence to the micro-macro paradox. So why measure the macro level at all? In a 2010 study, Arndt, Jones, and Tarp argue that the macro level still has value for several reasons: first, methodological improvements in measuring aid effectiveness have made strides in identifying causal effects in economic phenomena; second, there are more reasonable expectations about the returns of foreign aid; and last, there appears to be a recognition that foreign aid interventions will only result in positive growth outcomes over long time horizons. The micro-macro paradox can still be found in more updated evaluation methodologies, particularly those that look at outputs and outcomes. Outputs refer to the services or products that are the direct result of specific programming or a specific project. Outcomes describe the mid- to long-term changes in development conditions that result from the interventions of government and other stakeholders, including international development agencies (O E CD 2010b). It became apparent early on in this research that outputs garnered the majority of attention in Canadian development programming in Afghanistan, with limited efforts to study the longer-term outcomes and impacts. By only focusing on the outputs most projects saw significant levels of success. However, when looking at the level of outcomes or even impacts, such as the long-term improvement of capacity in governance, the results suggest that aid was less effective, evidenced by the continued high level of corruption, the weak rule of law, and a government that could not project much authority beyond Kabul. o w n e r s h i p a n d h a r m o n i z at i o n

Beginning in the 1980s, donors increasingly used conditionality, often called the “carrot and stick” approach, to support macroeconomic change in recipient countries. This significantly contributed to the question of ownership because many interventions did not reflect what the recipient government wanted, but rather what the donor thought was the ideal course. By the early 1990s, aid critics and practitioners realized that without such ownership, recipients were unlikely to make the kinds of commitments needed to realize

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long-term results (Gibson 2005; Brunetti and Weder 1994; O E C D 1992); it took international statebuilders until the early 2000s to realize the importance of such ownership. Critics thus pushed donors toward development programming that would increase beneficiaries’ ownership capabilities. Otherwise they would continue to see the unsustainable development aid characterized by the previous decades. Many studies emphasize this dynamic. For example, based on the World Bank Operations Evaluation Department’s evaluation of nearly 100 adjustment programs in 42 countries, Johnson and Wasty (1993) highlight the “symbiotic relationship between outcome and ownership.” They found that 44 per cent of highly satisfactory or satisfactory program results were associated with a very high or high degree of ownership. Likewise, they found that 28 per cent with poor results were associated with low levels of ownership. Furthermore, they listed a number of factors affecting the likelihood of government ownership of reforms: political stability; political influence of pressure groups / vested interests; historical traditions and ideological underpinnings; nature of the political regime; exogenous shocks; initial conditions of the economy; and nature of donor-recipient relationship. Many of these factors speak truly to the case of Afghanistan, which will be further discussed in Part II. In response, many development agencies have adopted the concept of ownership into their development policies. For example, U S AI D placed emphasis on the idea of “partnerships,” stating that Partnerships begin with collaboration between donors and host nations. Donors must recognize that development, in every sense, depends on the developing country itself. Donors assist. They can help facilitate, even accelerate, but the major task must be carried out by the host nation, not the donor. Sustainable development is built upon a sense of ownership and participation. It is not something that donors do for developing countries; it is ­something that donors help the people of developing countries do for themselves (2000, 5). Similarly, the O E C D has embraced ownership through partnership as a means for more effective aid: “[P]artnerships are increasingly based on the principle of helping governments and people of developing countries strengthen their capacities to direct their own development initiatives … the partnership approach recognizes the importance

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of a dynamic private sector, local ownership and participation by civil society” (2002, 66). Ownership continues to be an important concept for aid effectiveness. Yet the concept suffers from a number of problems. There are concerns over whether ownership in practice is a euphemism for the adoption of just an externally driven reform, with development still largely remaining in the hands of the donors (Booth 2011). Implementing ownership also assumes that the recipient governments are both willing and able to lead. Reality sometimes makes this untenable, especially where states experience fragility or conflict, as in Afghanistan. Furthermore, ownership is also inherently political and deciding who holds the power over programming can be contentious, making it difficult for recipient countries to take genuine control of the process (Ibid.). The lack of ownership has another side effect besides limiting longterm effectiveness: recipient countries are, in general, hesitant to turn down aid, and thus accept initiatives that donors want to set up despite it drawing attention away from plans that recipient governments would otherwise have prioritized (Brautigam and Knack 2004). According to Van de Walle, in the average African country, aid is provided by “some thirty official donors in addition to several dozen international NGOs ... through over a thousand distinct projects and several hundred resident foreign experts” (2001, 58). Having so many donors and agendas not only results in duplicating projects and wasting resources unnecessarily but can also undermine the quality of governance. Barbara Geddes (2004) takes the question of aid fragmentation and governance further, arguing that governments in weak states remain weak because they are unable to resist the pressure from donors with vested interests to distribute funding in ways that often undermine government capacity, thereby reducing their effectiveness. These fragmented and uncoordinated donor efforts place a great burden on recipients’ state structures and mechanisms, often creating the opposite effect to what was intended (Knack and Rahman 2007). Ownership and harmonization are thus viewed as complementary and necessary for effective aid. Harmonization refers to donors implementing good practices in aid delivery by simplifying procedures, sharing information, and using common arrangements to minimize redundancies and duplications (Rogerson 2005).2 The concept of harmonization was further developed at the Rome Forum on Harmonization in 2003 (discussed in the

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next section), which was followed up by the World Bank introducing the International Harmonization Agenda in 2004 to better understand harmonization and further the discussion on indicators and mechanisms (International Development Association 2004).3 Harmonization and ownership came to be two of the more dominant concepts in aid effectiveness literature, greatly influencing the lead-up to the Paris Declaration and subsequent high-level forums on aid effectiveness. high-level forums on aid effectiveness

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, a movement had begun to challenge the nature, function, politics, and effectiveness of aid. A series of conferences and high-level forums highlighted the issues surrounding development and the use of aid, which deeply influenced the debate around aid effectiveness. Although this is not a comprehensive discussion of these events, it does provide a brief overview of three significant events that contributed to the creation of the Paris Declaration. First, the Millennium Development Goals (M D G s) deserve to be mentioned because they represented an important global commitment to improving development and aid and set the stage for the Paris Declaration. The MDGs were eight international development goals that came out of the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. Every UN member state and at least twenty-two other organizations committed to achieving the following goals by 2015: • • • • • • • •

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Achieve universal primary education; Promote gender equality and empower women; Reduce child mortality rates; Improve maternal health; Combat HI V /A I DS, malaria and other diseases; Ensure environmental stability; and Develop a global partnership for development (United Nations 2000).

Although the MDGs proved to be a prominent rallying point for global discussions about development priorities and progress, they also faced significant criticisms, including the following: the goals were unrealistic; there was significant discontent over what was left out (such as

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reducing the gap between the rich and the poor); there was uneven progress on the goals, with some receiving more attention than others (such as reducing infant mortality vs ensuring environmental stability); the arbitrariness of the 2015 deadline; and, most important, the difficulties about how to measure progress on the goals (Dabelstein and Patton 2013). However, the attempts to measure progress on these goals produced reports that helped to later inform the Paris Declaration (Wood et al. 2011). Second, the 2002 International Financing for Development conference, held in Monterrey, Mexico brought together heads of state, finance ministers, foreign affairs ministers, U N agencies, the I M F , World Bank, and the WTO to help increase donor countries’ financial commitments to foreign aid. It also established positions on debt relief, reducing corruption, and increasing policy coherence. The conference covered six areas of agreement: • •

• •

• •

Mobilize domestic financial resources for development; Mobilize international resources for development, including private sector investments; Use international trade as an engine for development; Increase international financial and technical cooperation for development; Deal with the drag of external debt; and Address systemic and implementation issues such as enhancing the coherency and consistency of aid (United Nations 2003).

The unprecedented amount of cooperation between the U N , I M F , World Bank, and the WT O as part of the effort to promote a holistic and integrated approach to the multidimensional nature of global development became known as the Monterrey Consensus and contributed to the shift toward the new paradigm of aid as a partnership between donors and developing countries (Wood et al. 2011). As part of the follow-up to Monterrey, a third high-level conference needs to be mentioned: the First High-Level Forum on Harmonization in Rome in 2003. Representatives from seventy-four donor and partner countries and other bilateral and multilateral development institutions committed themselves to aligning development assistance with partners’ strategies and harmonizing donors’ policies and procedures. The following points agreed to in Rome largely influenced the Paris Declaration:

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•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

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Ensure that development assistance is delivered in accordance with partner country priorities; Review and amend policy, procedures, and practice to facilitate harmonization; Implement good-practice principles in development assistance delivery; Intensify donor efforts to work through delegated cooperation and increase the flexibility of staff to manage country programs and projects more effectively and efficiently; Develop incentives to foster recognition of the benefits of harmonization; Provide support for country analytic work in ways that will strengthen government leadership and ownership of development results; Mainstream country-led efforts to streamline donor procedures and practices, including demand-driven technical cooperation; Apply good-practice principles, including aligning with national budget cycles and poverty reduction strategy reviews to provide budget, sector, or balance-of-payments support; Promote harmonized approaches in global and regional programs (O E C D 2003).

Together, these international agreements were key in defining the priorities and objectives for the aid effectiveness agenda that ultimately culminated in the Paris Declaration. t h e pa r i s d e c l a r at i o n (2005)

One of the most influential statements on aid effectiveness to date, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is the most comprehensive attempt at coordinating how donors and recipient countries work together to foster change. It introduced five new partnership commitments that aimed to improve effectiveness, as summarized in table 4.1 below: Along with these five commitments, the Paris Declaration laid out a monitoring and evaluation program to ensure full implementation by 2010 using the following twelve indicators of progress: • •

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Countries operationalize their development strategies; Public financial management systems are reliable;

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Table 4.1 Paris Declaration commitments

Commitment

Description

Ownership – “Partner ­countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies, and ­strategies and coordinate development actions.”

Partner countries commit to: (1) exercising leadership in ­developing and implementing their national development ­strategies; (2) translating national strategies into prioritized results-oriented operational programs and; (3) taking the lead in coordinating aid at all levels in conjunction with other ­development resources in dialogue with donors, encouraging the participation of civil society and the private sector. Donors commit to: (1) respecting partner country leadership and helping to strengthen their capacity to exercise it. Donors commit to: (1) basing their overall support on partner country’s development strategies and periodic reviews of progress and; (2) linking funding to a single framework of conditions and/or set of indicators derived from the national strategy.

Alignment – “Donors base their overall support on ­partner countries’ national development strategies, ­institutions and procedures.”

Harmonisation – “Donors’ actions are more harmonised, transparent and ­collectively effective.”

Managing for Results – “Managing resources and improving decision-making for results.”

Mutual Accountability – “Donors and partners are accountable for ­development results.”

Partner country commits to: (1) integrating specific capacity strengthening objectives in national development strategies and pursuing their implementation through country-led capacity ­development strategies where needed. Donors commit to: (1) implementing, where feasible, common arrangements at country level for planning, funding, disbursement, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting to government on donor activities and aid flows and; (2) working together to reduce the number of separate, duplicative, missions to the field and diagnostic reviews and promote joint training and sharing of lesson learnt. Partner country commits to: (1) making progress building institutions and governance structures that deliver effective services and; (2) encouraging broad participation of a range of national actors in setting development priorities. Partner country commits to: (1) strengthening the linkages between national development strategies and budget processes and; (2) endeavouring to establish results-oriented reporting and ­assessment frameworks that monitor progress against key ­dimensions with a manageable number of indicators. Donors commit to: (1) linking country programming and resources to results and align then with effective partner country performance assessment frameworks and; (2) harmonizing their ­monitoring and reporting requirements. Partner country commits to: (1) strengthening as appropriate the parliamentary role in national development strategies and/or budgets and; (2) reinforcing participatory approaches by ­systematically involving a broad range of development partners when formulating and assessing progress in implementing national development strategies. Donors commit to: (1) providing timely, transparent, and ­comprehensive information on aid flows to enable partner ­authorities to present comprehensive budget reports to their ­legislatures and citizens.

Source: The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, 2008, 3–8.

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• • • • • •

•

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Aid flows are accurately recorded in country budgets; Technical cooperation is aligned and coordinated; Donors use country’s public finance management and public procurement systems; Donors avoid parallel project implementation units; Aid is more predictable within the year it is scheduled; Aid is increasingly untied; Donors use coordinated mechanisms for aid delivery; Donors coordinate their mission and their country studies; Countries develop sound frameworks for monitoring development results; and Mechanisms for mutual accountability are established at country level (OE C D 2008).

The 2005 and 2008 rounds of monitoring and evaluation of the Paris Declaration determined that although some progress had been made, much more needed to be done. For example, the O E C D notes that the concept of ownership has gained greater prominence. However, “it often remains narrowly based in partner countries” and there is “a generalized weakness in making national strategies operational” (2008: 11). Improving country capacity had also made very little progress since 2005, the most cited reason being “because there is limited understanding of what the Paris commitment is on the issue” (2008, 17). Another issue that was raised during this time was that the declarations were difficult to apply to states identified as fragile or in conflict, like Afghanistan, and needed to be more fully addressed. This spurred the creation of the Accra Agenda for Action and the Dili Declaration. a c c r a a g e n d a f o r a c t i o n (2008) a n d d i l i d e c l a r at i o n (2010)

The Accra Agenda for Action in 2008 set out to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Declaration and added four more commitments to further strengthen aid effectiveness: 1 Predictability – “Donors will provide 3–5 year forward information on the planned aid to partner countries.” 2 Country Systems – “Partner country systems will be used to deliver aid as a first option, rather than donor systems.”

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3 Conditionality – “Donors will switch from reliance on prescriptive conditions about how and when aid money is spent to conditions based on the developing country’s own development objectives.” 4 Untying – “Donors will relax restrictions that prevent developing countries from buying the goods and services they need from whoever and wherever they can get the best quality at the lowest price” (Baawar Consulting Group 2010). The Accra Agenda for Action emphasized and reaffirmed the commitment to the MDGs, but also noted the widespread lack of progress for the absolute poorest, and for women and girls (both of which issues were noted in Afghanistan). Development assistance is necessary but not sufficient and cannot replace a strong national commitment to action. The Accra Agenda asserted that “developing countries and donors will ensure that their respective development policies and programmes are designed and implemented in ways consistent with their agreed international commitments on gender equality, human rights, disability and environmental sustainability” (O E CD 2009, 2). However, neither document fully addressed the difficulty of applying their principles to fragile or conflict-affected states. In April 2010, a high-level forum held in Dili, Timor aimed to adapt the Paris Declaration to states experiencing fragility and conflict. Known as the Dili Declaration, it identified obstacles to effective peace- and statebuilding endeavours, including conflicting interests of stakeholders; competing goals and strategies among donors; unrealistic time frames; lack of flexibility and adaptability; insufficient context and conflict analysis and; lack of trust between developing countries and development partners (O E C D 2010). These obstacles became readily apparent early on in the mission in Afghanistan, but many were never overcome. Though the Dili Declaration provided little direction on how to deal with these issues, it did manage to bring into the spotlight that about 1.4 billion people live in fragile states, and that to achieve the MDGs (now the Sustainable Development Goals) new and innovative ways must be developed to help penetrate these volatile situations to help improve stability and address humanitarian crises. The Dili Declaration did eventually lead to The New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States in 2011 after the Fourth High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea. However, these were released near the end of Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan, so it is less relevant for the purposes of this book because it would be unfair to assess

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Canadian engagements against policy principles that had not been internationally adopted or recognized at the time Canadians operated in Afghanistan. l i m i tat i o n s o f t h e a i d e f f e c t i v e n e s s f o r u m s

These high-level forums made significant strides in trying to better understand aid effectiveness and how to measure it. However, the indicators of aid effectiveness often fail to grasp the complexity found in contexts like that of Afghanistan. International development problems were, and largely still are, treated as simple, closed problems. As a result, donors fail to take account of the whole range of complex issues (see Horton 2013; Wenar 2006; Lancaster 2009). Development challenges are highly complex, involving diverse networks of players and actors, and their interests and relationships. Despite the prevailing awareness of this complexity, international donors still have a tendency to adopt standard solutions in developing countries through significant development aid. This applies both to policy issues (applying aid effectiveness policies without taking into account local context; measuring all countries against a similar set of indicators despite differences in local context, etc.) as well as to practice (applying uniform results-based management approaches in implementing international development projects/programs; neglecting local practices and realities). As a way of dealing with those complexities, donors are encouraged to adopt complex adaptive systems, known for their flexibility, adaptability, and focus on non-linear, unpredictable change. Another limitation of the Paris Declaration and other aid effectiveness documents is that there is little attempt to tackle the issue of measuring aid effectiveness. The Paris Declaration in particular has been criticized as having a weak set of indicators, being too technocratic, being overly focused on the management of aid, and imposing most of the responsibility for change on recipient countries (Booth 2011; Pinan 2015; Lie 2015). It is simple to state that aid should have local ownership and that aid programming should be harmonized, but finding a way to meaningfully measure the effect of the implementation of these commitments is an entirely different matter. problems with measuring aid effectiveness

Measurement issues in aid effectiveness remain one of the most debated subjects in the aid effectiveness literature. Neither quantitative,

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econometric studies, or qualitative approaches analyzing various aspects of efficiency have produced a consensus on how to measure the effectiveness of foreign aid. This includes debates about the conditional nature of foreign aid; the domestic situation in recipient countries (poor governance, rule of law, types of regimes, etc.); donors’ own foreign aid and international development policies and approaches; environmental issues; the extent of state fragility; preoccupation with donors’ self-interest; as well as regional and global developments that potentially have an impact both on developments in aid recipient countries as well as the measures taken by both donors and aid recipients that attempt to address some of these issues. Some collective efforts have been made to address these issues, for example through the International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) and the group of G7+ countries that tried to create a set of measures to promote greater inclusiveness in developing peacebuilding and statebuilding objectives, and addressing aid effectiveness issues in the context of fragile and conflict-affected countries. Despite these efforts, the approaches that have been taken to measure the effectiveness of aid are likely to remain scattered. Whereas econometric approaches (carried out through four generations of aid-growth studies) focus on the causality between foreign aid and domestic growth and produce mutually exclusive arguments, qualitative approaches attempt to analyze efficiency from the perspectives of donors’ commitment to aid effectiveness policies and instruments. These include the Paris Declaration, and other internationally developed policies and instruments, as well as the extent to which aid is provided in a fragmented, incoherent, and unharmonized way. These two approaches to aid effectiveness have not produced any conclusive results. Measuring the effectiveness of aid is further complicated by conflicting priorities among donors. On the one hand, donors need to show programmatic results (number of outcomes/outputs achieved); on the other hand, they also need to demonstrate accountability to governments/public/taxpayers in their home countries. Another issue with measuring aid effectiveness is the problem of attribution and identifying the counterfactual (what would have happened to beneficiaries in the absence of the intervention) (Bourguignon and Sundberg 2007). There is a lack of consensus on how to evaluate the impact of foreign aid and which evaluation approaches to use (results-based management outcome evaluations, International Development Research Centre’s outcome mapping approach,

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randomized control trials etc.). In addition, in some areas of development assistance (e.g., democracy, governance, human rights) impact assessment approaches are not likely to capture possible achievements that will appear in the long-term perspective, or achievements that are not easily quantifiable. It appears that deciding which approaches to select to assess the impact of foreign aid will depend on development areas (i.e., environment, governance, health, agriculture etc.), development contexts (types of regimes, fragility level, the degree of concentration of foreign aid), and types of projects (infrastructural vs capacity development projects, long-term vs short-term projects etc.). More research and capacity building in the area of impact assessment and evaluation (especially in recipient countries) is required. It is also important to note that much of the aid effectiveness literature assumes that there is a ceasefire or peace agreement that allows space for development. This was not the case in Afghanistan. Indeed, the arguments on whether development can actually help stabilize a country and win “hearts and minds” are inconclusive (World Bank 2011; Berrebi and Olmstead 2011). A study conducted by Eli Berman et al. (2013), using a panel on development assistance and violent incidents over the first five years of the Iraq War, compares the effects of development programs. Their results show that small amounts of conditional development spending, particularly through the Command Emergency Response Fund (C E R F ), was six times more effective at reducing violence than spending large amounts. In Afghanistan, the majority of CERF implementers practised conditionality in accordance with US policy. In a survey conducted by Berman in 2011 of officers and officials with CERF implementation authority, 61 per cent of the 210 respondents said that they would “halt implementation of a CERF project if the local population increased its support for anti-­government elements” (2011, 776). According to Berman, conditional CERF funds in small amounts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, mixed with good contextual knowledge, had violence-reducing effects. However, the majority of spending (approximately 90 per cent of non-CERF funds) did not reduce violence. Last, it is accepted wisdom that the poor quality and availability of aid data provide serious challenges for interpreting donors’ performance and in measuring the impact and efficiency of their activities (Easterly and Williams 2011). For example, available aid data that is aggregated only at the country level (which is how most studies

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analyze the effectiveness of aid) is not going to be helpful to analyze aid effectiveness in specific locations within the country (Findley et al. 2011). Rather, given that the level of fragility, and socio-economic and other factors, will be different in diverse locations within the country, data that is disaggregated by locations and regions within the country would be best suited to offer a more comprehensive analysis of donors’ performance. The country-aggregated data does not allow for a proper analysis of the foreign aid’s impact, especially in conflict-affected countries. Developing open data instruments (aid management systems, data portals, analytical products, databases etc.) can potentially contribute to the effectiveness of foreign aid by strengthening transparency and providing accurate information and data, which in turn could be used to improve donor coordination. The experience of selected countries (for example, see Kuteesa’s (2010) analysis of the governance of aid in Uganda) tends to confirm the important role that aid data can have in improving aid management and in providing an accurate interpretation of donors’ performance. Improving the quality and availability of data in general is important because collecting data on foreign aid through the O E CD database, the AidData portal, and other datasets leads to generating different figures for the same donor country or recipient country. Information on aid provided by non-DA C donors is also not properly captured by most of the datasets. All of the above-mentioned issues are applicable when trying to determine the effectiveness of Canada’s effort in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2014. The lack of consensus on how to measure aid effectiveness in Afghanistan has led to a hodgepodge of different methodologies and indicators producing vastly different results. External assessments, like that done by Bawaar Consulting Group (2010), to the Government of Canada’s own summative evaluation (2015) show significantly different results. The complexity of doing development in Afghanistan alongside a massive coalition and partners with their own policies and agendas also created significant issues for attribution. Canada funnelled much of its programming through the different U N agencies, making it difficult to determine a direct link between Canadian funding and outcomes. Last, Afghanistan is infamous for its poor data. Before the intervention began in 2001, the last census completed was in 1979. It was thus nearly impossible to accurately assess baseline conditions, let alone have access to something like gender-­disaggregated data. Without reliable data it is hard

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to determine how much has improved as a result of the coalition’s effort in Afghanistan since 2001. With an awareness of these limitations, this book takes a resultsbased evaluation approach. The objective of this approach is to assess whether certain projects or programs have had the intended or unintended results via outputs and outcomes. This approach asks such questions as: Have governments and organizations achieved what they originally promised? How were these results achieved, or why were they not achieved? In sum, in addition to using the Paris Declaration and its subsequent elaborations (as discussed above) as  a first starting point to assess Canada’s aid effectiveness in Afghanistan, this results-based approach that we use as a second layer of assessment allows for a more nuanced view on the various factors that have played a role in achieving (or not achieving) certain development results. r e s u lt s - b a s e d e va l u at i o n a p p r o a c h

With the onset of aid fatigue in the 1990s, governments and organizations had to become more accountable and responsive to both internal and external stakeholders while demonstrating tangible results to justify the continued spending on aid. By the late 1990s, the international development community began to make significant strides in developing new and innovative ways to better manage and implement development projects and programs. Results-based monitoring and evaluation is one approach in particular that many development agencies adopted, including Canada’s former Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),4 to improve development performance. Unlike more traditional implementation-focused monitoring and evaluation practices, results-based evaluation moves beyond inputs and outputs to place a greater emphasis on outcomes, impacts, and the actual process of implementing aid. Because this approach also focuses on the process of implementing aid, it is wellsuited to incorporating broader concepts within the domain of aid effectiveness, such as those laid out in the Paris Declaration (e.g., ownership and harmonization) and other related aid effectiveness concepts, such as those discussed in the previous paragraph. The following section explains the results-based evaluation concept, definitions, and the limitations and challenges of applying this approach to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.

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r e s u lt s - b a s e d e va l u at i o n c o n c e p t s and definitions

A critical component of any good development project or program is a feedback element to provide information to better manage and implement projects and programs, usually in the form of a monitoring and evaluation system (M & E ). This system goes beyond more narrowly-defined M&E approaches that only focus on immediate inputs and outputs to a much broader-based analysis that includes more contextual elements that affect aid implementation. The OECD defines results-based monitoring and evaluation as follows: Monitoring is a continuous function that uses the systematic ­collection of data on specified indicators to provide management and the main stakeholders of an ongoing development intervention with indications of the extent of progress and achievement of objectives and progress in the use of allocating funds (2002, 27);5 Evaluation is the systematic and objective assessment of an ­ongoing or completed project, program or policy, including its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the relevance and fulfillment of objectives, development efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision-making ­process of both recipients and donors. (Ibid. 21) In other words, monitoring provides information on the progress of a policy, program, or project at any given time using targets and indicators whereas evaluation speaks to why targets and outcomes are (or are not) being achieved. Answering the why question better informs donors, recipients, and any other major stakeholders for future development projects and programs. It goes beyond traditional before and after analyses, and incorporates the following key elements in the analysis: •

•

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using baseline data to describe the problem or situation before the intervention; collecting data on outputs and how and whether they contribute toward achieving outcomes;

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focusing more on perceptions of change among stakeholders; reporting systemically with more qualitative and quantitative information on the progress toward outcomes; and capturing information on the success or failure of partnership strategy in achieving desired outcomes (Kusek and Rist 2004, 17).

Although results-based evaluations shift the focus to outcomes, it is important to understand the other concepts that are a part of resultsbased evaluations. Outcomes and impacts are the results of a number of preliminary steps that need to take place first. First, inputs and activities encompass the financial and human resources that are used to implement a specific activity to achieve a specific objective. This is then followed by the recorded outputs, which are usually products, capital goods, or services that are a direct outcome of the activity, and will eventually lead to the outcomes and impact. The results chain diagram in figure 4.1 summarizes these steps and uses the more commonly used OE C D (2002) definitions of the concepts: The logic of this results chain shows that inputs and resources are used to carry out activities; activities lead to services or products delivered (outputs); outputs contribute to change (outcomes); and outcomes, usually over a long time horizon, will contribute to an impact. Although this diagram suggests that these different areas are easily distinguishable, in practice this can be more difficult to determine. For example, one common confusion is between outputs and outcomes. The difference between these two concepts can be subtle and may depend on the nature of the development project or program, and the delivering organization’s definition of the concepts. The OEC D-D A C definition of outputs tacitly acknowledges this when it states that an output “may also include changes resulting from the intervention which are relevant to the achievements of outcomes” (OEC D 2010, 28). For example, some organizations only list deliverables as outputs whereas others list initial changes, such as the knowledge gained from a training course, as an output as well. This can become a particularly sticky point in a multinational intervention when the different executing organizations may define outputs and outcomes differently, making third-party results-based evaluation more difficult. However, for the purposes of this monograph and to avoid confusing the concepts, we use the definitions provided by the results-based

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Description

Results Chain Outcomes and impacts describe the intended mid-to long-term changes in development conditions that result from the interventions of governments and other stakeholders, including international development agencies.

Outputs are the services or products that are the direct result of specific programming or a specific project.

IMPACTS

OUTCOMES

OUTPUTS

ACTIVITIES

Inputs and activities are defined and managed by the donor(s) or stakeholder(s)

INPUTS

Positive and negative, primary and secondary long-term effects produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended The likely or achieved short-term and mid-term effects on an intervention’s outputs

The products, capital goods, and services that result from a development intervention; may also include changes resulting from the intervention, which are relevant to the achievement of outcomes Actions taken or work performed through which inputs, such as funds, technical assistance, and other types of resources, are mobilized to produce specific outputs

Evaluation Criteria

Effectiveness is a measure of how well governments and donors contributed to developmental changes.

Efficiency is a measure of how well governments and donors organized themselves in delivering quality outputs.

The financial, human, and material resources used for the development intervention

Figure 4.1  Results chain logic model Source: Adapted from U N D P (2011). Outcome-Level Evaluation: A Companion Guide to the Handbook on Planning Monitoring and Evaluation for Development Results for Programme Units and Evaluators. http://web.undp.org/evaluation/­ documents/guidance/UNDP_Guidance_on_Outcome-Level%20_Evaluation_ 2011.pdf.

management lexicon used by the Government of Canada (G oC) and its results chain (figure 4.2):6 Input – The financial and non-financial resources used by ­organizations to implement policies, programs, and initiatives to produce outputs and accomplish outcomes (e.g., funds, ­personnel, equipment, and supplies). Activity – An operation or work process an organization ­performs, which uses inputs to produce outputs (e.g., training, research, construction, negotiation, and investigation). Output – Direct products or services stemming from the activities of an organization, policy, program, or initiative, usually within the control of the organization itself (e.g., pamphlet, research study, water treatment plant, and training session).

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Outcome – An external consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program, or initiative. Outcomes are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program, or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence. Outcomes are usually further qualified as immediate or intermediate. Immediate outcome – An outcome that is directly attributable to outputs from a policy, program, or initiatives. These shortterm outcomes are often reflected in the changes in capacity of a target population, such as an increase in knowledge, awareness, skills, abilities, or access. Intermediate outcome – An outcome that is expected to logically occur once one or more immediate outcomes have been achieved. These are medium-term outcomes and often occur at the changeof-behaviour level among a target population. Final outcome or impact – The highest-level outcome that can be reasonably attributed to a policy, program, or initiative. They are long-term outcomes that represent a change of state of a ­target population, the consequence of one or more intermediate outcomes that have been achieved. These outcomes usually ­represent the raison d’être of a policy, program, or initiative. Ultimate outcomes of individual policies, programs, or initiatives contribute to the higher-level departmental strategic outcomes. The definitions used by the Canadian government offer a slightly more nuanced approach than other international conventions by further breaking down the term “outcomes.” Although the OECD-DAC (2002) definition does mention short-term and medium-term outcomes, it does not clearly define those terms and what they encompass. The GoC’s definitions give more guidance for immediate and intermediate outcomes and the level at which these definitions function – level of awareness and behavioural level, respectively. They are also not without shortcomings since awareness and behaviour themselves can be difficult to define, but the G oC ’s definitions do provide more of a foundation on which to base our analysis. Furthermore, the Canadian model directly references the possible effects of external factors’ midto long-term outcomes. Using these definitions allows for some uniformity for our empirical analysis in the next chapters because some of our data comes from third-party evaluations that may have used slightly different definitions and approaches to their analyses.

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AREA OF CONTROL INTERNAL TO THE ORGANIZATION

INPUTS (RESOURCES)

ACTIVITIES

AREA OF INFLUENCE EXTERNAL TO THE ORGANIZATION

OUTPUTS

IMMEDIATE OUTCOMES (DIRECT)

INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES (INDIRECT)

FINAL OUTCOME

EXTERNAL FACTORS

EFFICIENCY EFFECTIVENESS

Figure 4.2  Government of Canada logic model for results-based evaluations Source: Government of Canada (2018). Results-Based Management Lexicon. https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/audit-evaluation/­ centre-excellence-evaluation/results-based-management-lexicon.html. ­

l i m i tat i o n s a n d c h a l l e n g e s

Results-based evaluation presents a number of limitations and challenges. First, it is generally difficult to establish a direct causal link between activities and their outcomes. Often, the evaluative data does not reveal the extent to which the program or service was the cause of the measured outcomes. Many other outside influences can play a role in determining outcomes that the program simply does not have control over, and that cannot be captured in an evaluation. Second, in most cases there is a shared responsibility to produce outcomes. In the case of Afghanistan, for example, many of the projects and programs worked with either the Afghanistan government or local N G O s to assist with implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Capacity and institutional practices can differ greatly between donors and the executing partners and this can further confuse the issue of attribution – who is responsible for what – as well as making it more difficult to pinpoint where things may have gone wrong (or right) and any other unintended consequences due to poor monitoring and evaluation. Third, some long-term learning and capacity-building programs cannot reasonably be measured with available tools and resources. Broad-based outcomes, such as a more secure and democratic Afghanistan, are very difficult to measure, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. However, the use of proxy measurements can be

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useful. For example, the percentage of people that travel at night might indicate the level of security felt by the population. Last, and particularly relevant to Canadian development programming in Afghanistan, is the issue of unreliable data and the lack of disaggregated data to help establish the baselines needed for resultsbased evaluation. Before the intervention in Afghanistan, as noted, the last census had been completed in 1979, and the data available on education and health was almost non-existent after the ousting of the Taliban in 2001. There was thus little effort made to establish baseline data that development workers could have used to inform projects and programs and, later, could have measured progress against. This brings us to the other issue with data. There was little monitoring and evaluation of Canadian programming, both mid-term and after program or project completion.7 Moreover, although Global Affairs Canada’s (G A C ) website provides basic information on the projects done in Afghanistan, it mostly focuses on immediate outputs rather than actual outcomes – mid- to long-term monitoring and evaluation is done very selectively with information that is not readily available to the public. These are some of the general challenges noted in using results-based evaluations as a methodology. However, there are additional challenges when applying this method to a conflict-affected fragile state like Afghanistan. First, there is a very real risk of violence for both evaluators and evaluated. This adds a unique set of challenges for collecting on-the-ground data. Much of our data is from open source, secondary materials whose data was collected in-country by specific evaluators. The risk of harm might mean that some of that information may be biased, incomplete, and/or (voluntarily or involuntarily) censored. Second, the context of conflict-affected fragile states is very complex, “combining multifaceted, multidirectional change processes with high levels of unpredictability, a general lack of information, and potential strategic misinformation” (O E C D 2012). Because of this, there may be a large difference between how a project or program is planned and how it is implemented since executing organizations and practitioners will often have to quickly adapt to rapidly changing situations. Third, the theories that underpin statebuilding are highly diluted or insufficient. They disagree on proven strategies for effectively creating a sustainable peace. Consequently, the logic underpinning many donor activities is often unclear, has ill-defined objectives, and little understanding as to how this will effect positive change.

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Last, conflict-affected fragile states are highly politicized environments. International donors’ vested interests can shape the narrative coming out of an intervention and may result in an overly positive assessment of development projects and programs to appease not only domestic pressures but also to assure the recipient government of progress. Despite these limitations and challenges, we choose to use resultsbased evaluation under the umbrella of aid effectiveness to analyze Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. It provides for a more nuanced analysis of aid effectiveness rather than, say, the Paris Declaration would allow. It goes beyond simple before and after analysis and allows for a deeper look at the processes of aid implementation while incorporating key aid effectiveness concepts such as ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results, and mutual accountability. The success of a project or program is also very dependent on the understanding of the context, so our analysis will include contextual factors that have played a role in the outputs and outcomes. For example, the prevalent levels of governmental corruption in Afghanistan, which resulted in a significant amount of foreign aid going into the pockets of corrupt officials, clearly minimized donors’ efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, our empirical analysis in Part I evaluates Canada’s mission in Afghanistan using the concepts laid out in the results chain in figure 4.1 based on the Government of Canada’s definitions, and focuses on outputs, outcomes, and impacts when determining the project’s or program’s effectiveness. conclusion

The debates surrounding aid and aid effectiveness are far from new but remain incredibly important to this day. From the G N P -centred approaches in the 1950s and 1960s to the more population-centric and do-no-harm approaches of today, the theories, objectives, policies, and strategies of foreign aid have changed significantly. However, skepticism about the effectiveness of aid is at an all-time high, and there has been a steady decline in official aid flows despite the large number of fragile and conflict-affected states that still need help to pull them out of their cycles of violence, economic dependence, and humanitarian crises. To help shore up official aid flows for those most in need, critical reflection is needed on how to effectively use aid in an increasingly complex world. This has resulted in a number of high-level forums discussing the various aspects of aid, culminating

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in the Paris Declaration, the result of decades of debate on the target and purpose of aid. It acknowledges the unique partnership between donors and recipient countries, and emphasizes ownership and harmonization to maximize results. However, the Declaration also suffers from a number of limitations, particularly its inability to capture the complexity of developing countries’ contexts and its limited attempt to establish indicators to measure aid effectiveness. The Paris Declaration is just part of the larger debate that surrounds measuring aid effectiveness because there are wider issues of attribution, poor data, and lack of consensus on how to measure effectiveness. Despite the Declaration only coming into force in the middle of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, CIDA still followed its principles throughout the mission. So it is under the umbrella of the Paris Declaration that we establish the analytical framework based on the results-based evaluation approach. The following chapters analyze four priority sectors of Canadian development programming in Afghanistan: security (chapters 5 and 6), women and gender (chapter 7), health (chapter 8), and education (chapter 9). We chose these four sectors inductively from the data that we have gathered. We realize that these issue areas we have identified are not equivalent to those noted in other evaluations (e.g., DF A T D 2015), which had access to a different set of (classified and unclassified) data material. Since Canada’s strategy regarding the use of aid was never fully articulated, it resulted in priorities and objectives changing periodically to better reflect changing conditions in Afghanistan as well as within Canada. We have broken down Canada’s mission into the following strategic programming phases: reconstruction phase (2001 to 2005), statebuilding phase (2005 to 2009), and transition phase (2010 to 2014). The first phase is characterized by the significant governance gap created by the ousting of the Taliban in November 2001. The Bonn Conference was held in December 2001 to address this governance gap and it established a five-year plan for rebuilding Afghanistan’s political institutions. The statebuilding phase saw the continued engagement in building a functioning state in Afghanistan. More important, Canada started specific development activities in Kandahar Province and took over the lead of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (K P R T ). It was also during this phase that the Manley Report was released (in 2008), greatly influencing the next phase. The transition phase saw Canada announce that it would

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refocus its engagement on four priorities at the federal level (education and health, security, regional diplomacy, and humanitarian assistance) and move away from Kandahar-specific programming. During this phase, Canada also terminated its combat mission and handed over the lead of the K P R T to the US. With the previous information in mind, the following analytical chapters will be structured around these strategic programming phases. Each chapter will begin with an introduction that will provide some historical context on each of the priority sectors we have identified, including information on Canada’s strategic assessment of the sector. The next sections will then be broken down into those three phases and will discuss Canada’s objectives in that specific priority sector and what initiatives were created to help reach those goals during those phases (outputs and outcomes). Where appropriate, it will also be broken down into national-level and Kandahar-specific initiatives. This will be followed by a discussion section that uses the results-based evaluation method to analyze Canada’s outputs and outcomes in the various sectors in aid effectiveness. The conclusion briefly recaps the findings and identifies sector-specific lessons learned.

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pa rt t w o

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5 The Military Side of Peace and Security Programming

introduction

Providing security in Afghanistan is a complex and interdependent issue that ranges from having the police provide basic security services for the Afghan population, to the Afghan National Army being capable of defending the country against external threats. Because these local security services in Afghanistan did not exist, the international community employed a dual approach: first, by providing those services to Afghans, and in a later step, training indigenous local forces to provide them. During the first (2001 to 2005) and most of the second phase (2005 to 2009) of the international community’s security engagement in Afghanistan, a significant amount of its energy was spent on replacing the Taliban regime and suppressing the insurgency using military force. Rebuilding Afghanistan’s own national security forces came in a second step, starting after the London Conference in 2006. The first of the two security chapters therefore focuses almost exclusively on the military aspects of the security governance puzzle in Afghanistan. However, analysts agreed almost unanimously that what Afghanistan needed the most was “Security, Security, and Security,” to quote Lakhdar Brahimi, the U N ’s special representative for Afghanistan and Iraq (Brahimi 2004).1 At the same time, the military campaign, through the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), also deployed PRTs, which worked at the security-development nexus by providing security and development at the same time. On the civilian side, security sector reform (S S R ) was the focus. But despite its importance and urgency, it is a long process that requires a coherent and overarching structure to guide it through its

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many stages (Sedra 2010; R A N D 2007), especially since nearly all of the police infrastructure had been destroyed, first by the mujahedeen and later the Taliban regime. Hampson and Mendeloff (2007) identify three main strategies to successful peace- and statebuilding: security, fast-track democratization, and slow democratization. Security is exclusively concerned with ensuring basic political stability. That includes providing basic police services, as well as disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating (D D R ) warlords and their private security forces. In this chapter we start off analyzing Canada’s military contributions to the international community’s peace- and statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Chapter 6 focuses on Canada’s civilian security reform contributions, particularly those in the areas of S S R and D D R . It is important to remind ourselves that the importance of these two chapters is not in discussing every single aspect of Canada’s contributions to Afghanistan’s extensive military and S S R and D D R reforms or to retell the historical events as they unfolded with regard to those reforms. Rather, in line with chapter 4, our objective with these two chapters is to concentrate on and examine Canada’s inputs, outputs, and outcomes. Naturally, we need to base that examination on historical facts and details, but it does not require a comprehensive historiography.2 m i l i ta r y

(security)

governance

Despite its turmoil, Afghanistan would not have returned to the forefront of geopolitics if it had not been for the events on 9/11. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 until the US-led O E F ousted them for providing refuge to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden (Rubin 1999; Yung & Canada PIRS 2007). In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration blamed terrorists harboured by Afghanistan for the horrific events in New York and Washington, DC, and demanded all Al-Qaeda affiliates be handed over and their training camps there closed. When the Taliban rejected Bush’s ultimatum, the US launched a military invasion of Afghanistan through O E F (table 5.1)3 on 7 October 2001 with the aim of destroying Al-Qaeda and removing the Taliban from Afghanistan (Yung & Canada P I RS 2007).4 The Americans received (military) support from a number of their NATO allies for this 8,000-person-strong counterterrorism operation, including Canada. O E F always remained a US mission, even

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The Military Side of Peace and Security Programming 99

after N A T O , through I S A F , took control of most of the military operations in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Taliban leadership was able to flee into Pakistan to regroup (Yung & Canada P I R S 2007). The US-led military campaign only focused on Afghanistan and supported the Northern Alliance, a rebel organization, with a strategic bombing campaign to advance against the Taliban regime and eventually to gain control of the capital, Kabul. The Northern Alliance was made up of non-­ Pashtun forces led by the ousted ethnic Tajik president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who held power with de facto defence minister Massoud as his primary military backer and their Jamiat-i-Islami forces, as well as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose base of support was primarily among the Sunni Muslim Uzbeks. The non-Pashtun militias had their headquarters in the northern part of the country, in the city of Mazar-i Sharif. Meanwhile, Taliban fighters went underground to carry out a violent and deadly insurgency led by the new Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansour (Yung & Canada P I R S 2007; Rasmussen 2015) that cost thousands of Afghan as well as international peacebuilders’ lives. Saudi Arabia also had ties to the Taliban because they funded a significant portion of Pakistan’s policies in Afghanistan and had interests in the construction of the oil pipeline running through Afghanistan (1999; Sullivan 2007). Saudi Arabia’s support for the Taliban was in line with its policy of keeping its rival Iran at a distance (Rubin 1999). OEF quickly ousted the Taliban regime, devastating it. This success, and the ensuing governance gap left by the retreat of Taliban forces, led to the international community’s realization that a military victory alone would not establish a lasting peace in Afghanistan. It needed to be complemented by substantial diplomatic efforts to help rebuild political institutions to ensure a functioning and effective Afghan state (Fields and Ahmen 2011; Rubin and Hamidzada 2007; Edwards 2010; Wiejer 2013). Thus, on 5 December 2001, representatives from different ethnic and exile groups in Afghanistan and members of the international community met in Bonn, Germany to discuss how to rebuild Afghanistan and establish permanent governing institutions there (see figure 5.1). The result of the meeting was the Bonn Agreement, which launched a five-year plan whose aim was to run parliamentary and presidential elections during that time window and thus stabilize Afghanistan politically. To this end, the Agreement envisioned, first, the

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Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg

Croatia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia France

Albania Belgium Bulgaria Canada

Country/Year 2001

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

100

100

100

100

256

100

8

700

700

256

100

100

8

12 (Op Archer)

2009

100

12 (Op Archer)

2010

35 (Op 35 (Op Heracles) Epidote) Epidote) 39 (Op Epidote)

35

220 821 (Op

1

120

850* (Op 850 (Op **20 (Op 750 (Op 1250 (Op 35 (Op 30 (Op Apollo) Apollo) Archer) Archer) Archer) Archer) Archer)

2002

Table 5.1 Military contributions to Operation Enduring Freedom (O E F ) in Afghanistan

2011 2012 2013 2014

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70 87 418 40

8,500 9,315 815

70 87

475

7,500 8,332 832

19,500 21,860 2,360

400

400 40

87

625

11,300 11,854 554

112

87

6

9,650 9,785 135

94

6

11,100 11,156 56

50

6

** info pulled from http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/od-bdo/di-ri eng.asp?IntlOpId=168&CdnOpId=207

* info pulled from http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/evaluation/2011/gpsf_fpsm11.aspx?lang=eng

Operation ATTENTION (2011–14)

Operation AR CHER (OEF Kandahar) (2005–10)

Operation ALTA IR (OEF maritime mission) (2004–08)

Operation ATHENA (ISA F) (2003–11)

Operation AC CIUS (UNA MA) (2002–05)

400

400

18,000 20,001 2,001

418 40

87

418 40

87

18,000 19,301 1,301

Operation APOLLO (OEF maritime mission) (2002)

Canadian Operations in Afghanistan

Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Turkey UK USA Total Total (non-US)

31,129 7,000 7,000 7,000 7,000 31,266 7,000 7,000 7,000 7,000 137 0 0 0 0

37

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Canada as Statebuilder?

Adoption of UN Resolution 1378 November 2001

Soviet withdrawal 1989

Adoption of UN Resolution 1383 6 December 2001

9/11 11 September 2001

Contextualizing the Bonn Agreement

1996 Taliban takes Kabul and the majority of Afghanistan

7 October 2001 Operation Enduring Freedom begins in Afghanistan

5 December 2001 Bonn Conference

20 December 2001 Adoption of UN Resolution 1386

Figure 5.1  Context of the Bonn Agreement, 1989–2001

establishment of an interim authority, which would be followed by an emergency Loya Jirga, a traditional assembly of leaders in Afghanistan, to select a new interim head of state and cabinet, and, finally, federal elections in 2004. Under the Interim Administration, a constitutional drafting committee was established to draft a constitution for the country that would pave the way for Afghanistan to become a state with executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government (Fields and Ahmen 2011). Hamid Karzai became the head of the six-month interim government on 22 December 2001 (Saikal 2002). The emergency Loya Jirga was held in Kabul from 11 to 19 June 2002 to elect Karzai as interim president and thus interim head of state for the transitional government (Saikal 2002) for a term of two years.5 However, rebuilding this war-torn state was not an easy task, primarily because the country needed extensive external assistance in all policy domains, including security. Indeed, many analysts argue that international peace- and statebuilders failed to achieve their desired results in a sustainable way. Cramer and Goodhand (2002), for example, observed that to develop Afghanistan sustainably its government would need to retain a monopoly on violence; provide development so its citizens could have wealth and welfare; and create reliable and trustworthy forms of representation and legitimacy. The

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The Military Side of Peace and Security Programming 103

longer the international intervention continued the less likely it made the first requirement, and warlords could keep their illegal businesses going (e.g., narcotics and weapons trade). The Bonn Agreement also called for an International Security Assistance Force (I SA F ) to help assist the new government with providing basic security for the Afghans until their government could establish and maintain its own security forces (Simonsen 2004). Initially, ISAF was a UN force, established by Resolution 1386 of the U N Security Council on 22 December 2001.6 Its main purpose was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (A N S F ) and assist Afghanistan in rebuilding key government institutions. At first, ISAF’s focus was securing the capital of Kabul and the surrounding areas from the Taliban to allow the Afghan Transitional Administration led by Hamid Karzai to be established. ISAF was supported by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), created by the Tokyo Conference in 2002 to implement the foundations for sustainable peace and development. The United States shouldered the largest share of O E F , with over 60 per cent of the forces deployed, and the Europeans and Canadians made up well over 90 per cent of the ISAF mission in the initial phase of the intervention (Zyla 2011; 2013). It was only in 2009 that the O E F and I S A F command was unified under US General Petraeus. Thus, it is fair to note that the Europeans and Canadians were primarily responsible for the peacekeeping/peacebuilding work, whereas the US was occupied with fighting the Taliban insurgency. Naturally, this caused tensions within the alliance because some countries showed a reluctance to move from activities based on stabilization and security to offensive operations against the Taliban (Auerswald and Saideman 2014). canadian contributions to security g o v e r n a n c e   i n a f g h a n i s ta n

Outputs between 2001 and 2005 Following an American request to contribute to OEF, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien addressed Canadians in a nationally televised broadcast confirming that Canada was prepared to contribute land, sea, and air forces to the American-led O E F under the Canadian Operation Apollo.7 Serving as part of O E F 8 in January 2002, Canada deployed

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850 troops to Kandahar and 1,700 to Kabul for three main reasons. First, it wanted to support the US after 9/11 and protect Canada. On 28 January 2002, Defence Minister Art Eggleton noted in the House of Commons that In September, the United States and indeed our continent came under attack. It came under attack by forces who intentionally targeted innocent men, women and children. These criminals showed us that our country and our continent are vulnerable to their acts of terror … We had no option but to respond, to respond immediately and to respond decisively by taking ­significant steps to ensure the safety and security of our citizens, by helping restore stability in the international community and suppress the threat of global terrorism, and by standing with the United States and with our other allies in defence of our freedoms and our way of life.9 Second, Canada responded as a NA T O ally, an organization that had just invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history. Third, Canada wanted to support UN Resolution 136310 which called for sanctions against Afghanistan for being a threat to international peace and security (Report of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence June 2008; Boucher 2009). On 15 November 2001 Eggleton announced that Canada did not anticipate a long-term commitment to Afghanistan and that the ground troops would only be deployed there for a maximum of six months: “If we had to rotate [troops] for years, then that would become a problem. But we are not planning on that being a requirement,” Eggleton said. “It is not an offensive mission, not a front-line mission. This is a stabilization mission to assist in opening corridors for humanitarian assistance.”11 Thus, it is hardly surprising that Canada’s first deployment returned home in July 2002.12 Minister Eggleton proudly noted that “[t]his is the first time that the Americans have asked a coalition ally to join them on the ground with their operations in Afghanistan. This is the first time they have done that for any country, and they asked Canada first” (quoted in Leblanc and Mahoney 2002, A1). This mission had several advantages for Canada, according to Canadian government officials. First, it permitted Canada to be actively involved in the US war against terror in a much more prominent way than a potentially peripheral role in the UN-led and -coordinated I S AF mission would

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The Military Side of Peace and Security Programming 105

have allowed. Second, being perceived in Washington as a serious partner in the fight against terrorism was expected to produce an environment of goodwill, ensuring that the Canada-US border would not become an obstacle for trade.13 Third, Canada’s rather prominent role in Afghanistan might mute some of the criticisms by US policy makers and their representatives about Canada’s defence capability. And finally, a more significant Canadian involvement, particularly in a combat role, would potentially raise Canada’s international profile among its allies. On 11 August 2003, NA T O took command of I S AF , which then consisted of 8,500 troops from more than thirty countries (about 90 per cent from NA T O members). As table 5.2 shows, the secondlargest single contingent, 1,900 troops, came from Canada. Ottawa punched above its military weight and sent more forces than major powers like Germany, France, and Italy because all Canadian governments since 2001 had considered the threat of global terrorism dangerous (Zyla and Sokolsky 2010). Prime Minister Paul Martin made a deliberate choice to redeploy Canadian troops from Kabul to Kandahar in 2004 with 1,000 additional troops under Operation A T H E N A to commence combat operations against the Taliban there, and to assume command of one of N A T O ’s P R T s in the southern province of Kandahar (Holland 2010).14 P RT s applied the Whole-of-Government approach15 and were designed to foster security, development, and assistance for the local population. As part of ISAF, the PRT’s mission was to help the Afghan government extend its authority beyond the capital “in order to facilitate the development of a stable and secure environment” without being bound by operational restrictions,16 and to deliver security and development throughout the country while providing humanitarian assistance to the local population. The number of P R T s that N AT O deployed were subsequently augmented throughout the country. Canadian troops made their way to Afghanistan and operated there without operational restrictions. At the same time, Canada deployed a peace support contingent to I S A F in Kabul to provide security services while the nascent Afghan government developed its constitution and held its first elections in 2004. In March of that year, Ottawa committed $250 million in aid to Afghanistan, and $5 million to support the 2004 Afghan presidential election. What is noteworthy is that the Martin government rarely discussed Canada’s role in Afghanistan in public speeches or official

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153 125 32 50 250 147 0 19

130 9

0 n/a**

67 315 1,909 491 1,576 565 22 161

2004

610 350 n/a** 50 165 30 n/a** 133

67 300 2,300 650 1,900 500 0 1,400

USA UK Germany Italy Canada France Poland Turkey

Netherlands Spain Romania Denmark Belgium Norway Bulgaria Czech Republic Hungary Lithuania

2003

Country/ Year

130 6

153 125 32 185 250 147 34 56

67 315 1,909 990 1,576 565 22 315

2005

Table 5.2 I SA F Troop Deployments, 2003–14

187 120

1,200 572 550 106 301 433 37 17

89 4,300 2,800 1,860 2,300 742 3 825

2006

211 158

1,754 655 624 457 320 472 270 196

15,150 6,539 3,031 2,239 2,363 1,020 808 1,093

2007

229 217

1,747 776 653 723 388 486 440 361

19,406 8,326 3,400 2,427 2,536 2,225 1,111 776

2008

326 207

1,826 811 903 700 456 504 524 443

27,830 8,587 3,664 2,477 2,826 2,891 1,769 733

2009

404 230

917 1,432 1,431 746 541 435 524 483

77,490 9,500 4,401 3,370 2,867 3,770 2,441 1,773

2010

434 216

190 1,513 1,848 750 519 416 604 532

90,000 9,500 4,930 3,871 2,115 3,962 2,544 1,814

2011

430 237

407 1,520 1,773 654 439 376 580 491

2,481 1,401

8,957 7,879 7,846 4,420 3,630 3,446 3,013 2,732

90,000 320,166 9,500 57,182 4,187 32,530 3,959 22,335 811 20,869 2,653 18,894 2,226 10,947 1,340 10,230

2012

Total 2003– 2012

0.5 0.3

1.6 1.4 1.4 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.5

58.5 10.4 5.9 4.1 3.8 3.5 2.0 1.9

% of total

103.7 49.5

-76.8 132.2 184.2 43.1 37.2 -20.5 114.8 149.9

494.1 45.3 38.1 76.8 -65.7 160.0 175.5 22.6

17 18

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

% of change 2007– 10 Rank

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6,209 6,142

238.8

447,.6

n/a** 127 18 8 n/a** 7 2 9 0

n/a** 30 n/a** 20 n/a** n/a** n/a** 0 0

8,505 8,438

17

n/a**

272.0

7,073 7,006

n/a** 127 18 8 n/a** 7 10 9 0

17

669.9

17,418 17,329

n/a** 157 572 166 n/a** 7 28 9 20

17

1,461.0

37,985 22,835

n/a** 155 53 158 n/a** 114 60 9.6 8.3

65

1,802.3

46,860 27,455

n/a** 136 70 106 n/a** 124 79 9 8.9

100 289 65 73 149 262 148 171 9 4

274 309 149 79 126 266 160 149 10 4

304 281 70 81 138 255 153 129 10 4

318 1,198 1,155 1, 037 940 939 857 777 84 57

1,297

2,096.8 4,078.6 4,547.0 4,393.5

n/a*

58,711 114,199 127,317 123,019 547,296 30,881 36,709 37,317 33,019 227,131

319 139 73 61 156 136 149 8.9 8

184

** Those countries joined the alliance at a later stage and thus cannot be included in alliance calculations at this time.

* The average cannot be calculated due to various rounds of enlargement in the 1990s.

Total Total (non-US) Average

Slovak Republic Croatia Greece Slovenia Portugal Albania Estonia Latvia Luxembourg Iceland

n/a*

100.0 41.5

0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.0 0.0

0,2

2,144.4 1,650.3

n/a -54.7 51.1 -13.1 n/a 33.9 116.0 6.2 -51.7

393,0

n/a

28 27

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

19

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Canada as Statebuilder?

communications, in spite of the fact that Canada spent more than US$2.6 billion just on the civilian side, and more than 40,000 CAF members served in Canada’s military mission there (Sopko 2017). This was surprising since it was the Martin government that had deployed troops to Kandahar in May 2005 and deliberately embedded it in Canada’s liberal internationalist foreign policy and peacekeeping tradition (Sjolander 2009). Instead, Canada’s role was brought up more in general discussions of its international commitments and the need to stabilize fragile and failing states.17 Specifically, the government emphasized how the deployment fit with the policy revisions outlined in its October 2005 International Policy Statement (I P S ), the foreign policy White Paper. In that context, the Martin government presented Afghanistan as a model for the government’s new integrated 3d (defence, development, and diplomacy) approach to international interventions. As Defence Minister David Pratt remarked in one of his speeches, “[I]n fact, from the standpoint of future Canadian international engagements, Afghanistan is serving as a model for the government’s 3D approach to international affairs.”18 Shortly after launching the I P S, a Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (S T A R T ) was created within the then Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). START’s chief mission was to ensure long-term government planning, as well as coordinated and multi-agency responses to fragile states.19 Due to N A T O and American forces being actively engaged with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban from 2002 to 2005, with forces of up to 10,000 troops, the Taliban and their fighters were believed to have been weakened considerably by 2005. In reality, however, in 2005 it was later found that they had spent that year “regrouping and learning new terror tactics and communications strategies” (Yung & Canada PI R S 2007) in Pakistan. Outputs between 2005 and 2009 On 8 December 2005, N A T O decided to expand I S A F ’s role and presence in Afghanistan to the south of the country. On 31 July 2006, I S A F assumed command of that region from the US-led coalition forces. The area covered six more provinces (Daykundi, Helmand, Kandahar, Nimruz, Uruzgan, and Zabul). P R T s in the north, west, and south were now responsible for some three-quarters of Afghanistan’s territory. This required additional forces, and as a result

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ISA F forces increased significantly, from about 10,000 to approximately 20,000 troops. The provisions of the Bonn Conference in 2001 were initially envisioned to be implemented by 2005 at the latest. That target was more or less achieved as scheduled when the new National Assembly was inaugurated in 2005 (Fields and Ahmen 2011). However, underdevelopment, corruption, insecurity, and political instability all continued to be serious issues facing the country and posed a threat to its overall stability and security, making a withdrawal unlikely. Moreover, indigenous Afghan forces were not trained and equipped to fight the Taliban on their own. They continued to rely on the assistance of I S AF , and N A TO more generally, for their security needs. Unfortunately, by 2006, the US admitted that the Taliban was instigating a reinsurgency, in sharp contrast to earlier reporting, which had claimed the Taliban were on the brink of defeat (Johnson and Mason 2007). In fact, from 2005 to 2011, ISAF had become increasingly involved in combating an intensive and deadly insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan, President Karzai’s home province, Kandahar. As a result, the Martin government once again renewed Canada’s military commitment to I S A F in Kandahar in 2005, at times with up to 2,500 forces, and took command of the P R T in Kandahar. This decision was not uncontested politically. Rick Casson, for example, former member of Parliament from Lethbridge, warned that “[T]he operation in Afghanistan will be the most intense operation in which this country has been involved and probably the most dangerous since Korea. This is not a peacekeeping mission. The general in charge has indicated that we will be taking the fight to the Taliban, that we are there to perform operations and that the possibility of Canadians being hurt is great.”20 However, the newly elected government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which took power in February 2006, fully embraced Canada’s military engagements in Afghanistan (Harper 2006). Harper’s main argument was that Canada was involved in Afghanistan to better Afghans’ quality of life and to improve their economy, institutions, and society, not to fight the war on terror (which had been the Chrétien government’s position) or to stabilize a failed state (the Martin government). With the signing of the Afghanistan Compact21 at the London Conference on Afghanistan in early 2006, which established the framework for international cooperation for the next five years with pledges

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of $10.5 billion in new aid, the international donor community shifted its emphasis, focusing more on reconstruction, supporting Afghanistan’s indigenous political institutions, and delivering state functions. It also marked the formal end of the Bonn Process of 2001. The international community’s overall success in Afghanistan would now largely depend on its progress in security, governance, and development, not exclusively by killing potential terrorists.22 Chaired by the Afghan government and the UN, the Compact set out a series of critical goals and timelines for Afghanistan in those areas from 2006 to 2011. In the domain of security, the Afghan National Army (A N A ) should have 70,000 forces, and the Afghan National and Border Police combined should have a force of up to 62,000 by 2010. At the Kabul Conference in 2010, donors also agreed that a minimum of 80 per cent of their development funds should be spent on Afghan priorities set out in the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (A N D S ), and to channel at least 50 per cent of those funds through the official budget of the Afghan government, rather than bypassing it and funding local N G Os directly. This new focus started to trickle down to the NATO member states, including Canada, which, as part of the Compact, committed itself to contributing to the rehabilitation of Afghanistan until 1 February 2011. To align the Canadian contribution to ISAF with the objectives set out in the Afghanistan Compact, the program developed for Phase II of Operation A T H E N A was something new for the C A F . For the first time, the C A F would conduct an overseas operation as a component of a deployed WoG effort (Rostek and Gizewski 2015). On the military side, commanders created a new military task force – dubbed Joint Task Force Afghanistan – to deliver security for the people of Kandahar Province, and capability development for the Afghan National Army, and later, for the Afghan National Police. To work toward objectives in the areas of governance, rule of law, human rights, and economic development, the new Canadian WoG mission also included diplomats, development workers, law enforcement and corrections officers, and other civilians with valuable expertise to share with the Afghan government. All this was designed and set up to strengthen the civilian component of the P R T and to put greater emphasis on reconstruction, diplomacy, governance, and development in Kandahar. In that sense, CIDA’s Afghanistan Program shifted from supporting particular programs through international organizations like the U N or the World Bank to a more hybrid

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approach, giving grants and financial contributions to a variety of local partners (O E C D 2007, 7). In Ottawa, Canada’s WoG effort was governed by a special cabinet committee on Afghanistan to ensure that all participating departments and agencies aligned their activities on the same objectives.23 In addition to strengthening the civilian elements of the Canadian mission, the position of the Representative of Canada (R oCK) in Kandahar24 was created in 2008 to provide focused leadership and coordination between Canadian civilian and military actors. The RoC K and the Chief of the Defence Staff jointly drafted a comprehensive 400-page document offering strategic analysis and guidance for the military, diplomacy, and development,25 the first time such an overarching strategic WoG document had been developed. At this time, Canada also assumed leadership of the Kandahar P RT , with approximately 350 military, police, foreign affairs, correctional officers, and development staff to assist Afghans with governance, security, and development. While this reorientation process was under way, a clear distinction of responsibilities and tasks evolved. D F AI T was the lead department on governance issues (Phillips 2008), CIDA led on development and humanitarian matters, and the CAF was responsible for providing security, as well as the logistics that enabled the work of their civilian counterparts. All this was paired with a financial pledge made on 17 May 2006 of an additional $310 million of Canadian aid and development in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2011. Meanwhile, Canadian Forces members deployed in Operation ATHENA in Kabul began to transition to Kandahar Province.26 On 17 May 2006 the House of Commons voted to extend Canada’s military presence in Kandahar until 2009. The prime minister himself explained Canada’s rationale for maintaining its deployment in Afghanistan as being in Canada’s interest: We need to extend our mission so we can work to finish the job the previous government started. We need to improve the security situation in southern Afghanistan to bring it in line with the north and the west of the country. We need to ensure that children in southern Afghanistan will be able to go to school without fear of attack. We need to ensure that the people there can get the things we take for granted, things like clean water, roads without mines and reliable sources of energy. Stability in southern Afghanistan will also help the Afghan national

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government focus on improving the country’s emerging ­democratic infrastructure.27 From 1 to 20 September 2006 Canada led ISAF’s Operation Medusa, attacking Taliban strongholds in the Panjwayi and Zharey districts of Kandahar Province. After encountering significant fatalities and operational failures (Saideman 2015) and a consensus among scholars and analysts that Afghanistan was in danger of collapsing due to the violent insurgency, brutal terrorist attacks, narcotics trade, warlordism, and a corrupt regime (Johnson and Mason 2007), the young Harper Conservative government needed a new idea of how to move forward. Public opinion was also questioning the rate of Canadian fatalities as well as the amount of resources Canadians were spending there (see table 5.3). Canadians and some of their elected officials started to become increasingly divided about the utility and sacrifices of Canada’s engagements in Afghanistan (Canada 2010a, 2). As Canadians were drawn increasingly into a counterinsurgency in Kandahar, Canada’s fatalities rose from 2 in 2003 to 138 in 2009, up to a total of 158, with more than 1,900 wounded in military action. In 2010 alone, ISAF reported a 70 per cent increase in insurgent attacks (Canada 2010b, 3), which left the impression among Canadians that their government was “muddling through” the operations rather than clearly identifying the problems and addressing them effectively against objectively verifiable and established benchmarks. There was also significant debate over the financial resources consumed by the Afghan mission. Between 2001 and 2011 the government reported that $2.1 billion had already been spent on development and foreign aid, in addition to a then-estimated cost of $9 billion more (2001 to 2011) on the military campaign (Canada 2010; Perry 2008). A contributing factor to this debate was that since 2003 the United States had increasingly neglected the Afghan operation to be able to focus more on its intervention in Iraq (Johnson and Mason 2007). On the defensive, the Harper Conservative government employed an interesting political move. It sought external advice and set up a task force in October 2007 to make recommendations on the future of Canada’s role within Afghanistan, headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley. The report, better known as the Manley Report, called for significantly reducing Canada’s combat role in Kandahar, and instead

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Table 5.3 Canadian casualties by year, 2002–11

Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 2 1 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0

0 0 0 0 3 1 3 8 1 1

4 0 0 0 4 9 1 2 1 0

0 0 0 0 1 2 1 0 4 1

0 0 0 0 0 4 2 2 4 1

Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 0 0 0 0 3 6 3 5 1 0

0 0 0 0 8 4 5 2 1 0

0 0 0 0 10 1 4 4 0 0

0 2 0 0 5 0 0 2 0 1

0 0 0 1 2 2 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 1 9 5 1 0

4 2 1 1 36 30 32 32 16 4

Source: Calculations by authors based on data from www.icasualties.com.

spending more time and effort on training the Afghan National Security Forces, and on Afghanistan’s overall reconstruction and development efforts. The report also pressed the government for a greater insistence on diplomacy, reconstruction, and development in Canada’s mission, as well as better communicating the rationale behind the mission. It strongly recommended increasing the civilian presence (including C I D A officials) and shifting development programming so that at least 50 per cent of that envelope would be spent on the province of Kandahar. The assumption was that if development programs delivered on their promises and bettered the lives of Afghans, they would be less inclined to support the insurgency.28 Further, the report said that the government’s communications approach, which was largely planned, controlled, and disseminated by D N D , did not take other departments’ views sufficiently into account, and that the roles of other departments, such as DFAIT and C I D A , were misunderstood and underappreciated. The report concluded that the messages of the three Canadian governments in power between September 2001 and March 2008 had not clearly explained Canada’s role in Afghanistan (see e.g., Zyla 2013), and that the solution to strategic clarity in Canada’s Afghan mission was to be found in implementing a WoG approach, to be managed directly from the Privy Council Office. In February 2008, the House of Commons voted to extend Canada’s combat mission in Kandahar until 2011. In June the government set

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four (Canadian) output goals on Kandahar. The first one was to maintain a more secure environment and establish law and order by building the capacity of the Afghan National Army and Police and supporting complementary efforts in the areas of justice and corrections. The second was to provide jobs, education, and essential services, like water. The third was to provide humanitarian assistance to people in need, including refugees; and the fourth was to enhance the management and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Also at this time the government announced Canada’s three so-called signature projects, as well as that its combat missions would cease in 2011. Outputs between 2010 and 2014 The year 2010 marked the beginning of a full transition to Afghanonly leadership, which included taking on primary responsibility for the country’s security, development, and reconstruction. In November 2010, again, the Canadian government announced that Canada would remain engaged in rebuilding Afghanistan and its institutions until 2011. This engagement was based on four priorities: education and health, security, regional diplomacy, and humanitarian assistance (see Zyla 2013). At the same time, the government announced the termination of its combat operations, and was instead focusing on training Afghanistan’s indigenous security forces. This new Afghanistan policy was announced in the speech from the throne. The government stated that it would be “transforming Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to focus on reconstruction and development, and to prepare for the end of the military mission there in 2011.”29 A few days later, at a meeting in Canada of countries with troops in Southern Afghanistan, the minister of national defence, Peter MacKay, was asked how Ottawa would respond to a request from then president-elect Obama for “additional help” in Afghanistan. He responded that the US would have to look to other countries rather than those “already carrying a disproportionate share of the load.” “The reality is,” he stressed, “there are other NA T O doors that president-elect Obama should be knocking on first.”30 Early in March 2011, the Afghan government announced that its own forces would start assuming responsibility for security in seven areas in Afghanistan. In July of that year they followed through with that promise and assumed responsibility for security in the provinces of Bamyan and Panjshir, Herat City, Kabul Province, Lashkar Gah

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(Helmand), Mazar-e-Sharif (Balkh), and Mehtar Lam (Laghman). This marked a significant step in transferring ownership of security back to the Afghan National Security Forces by the end of 2014 (transition period); at least that was the plan. At the same time, NATO forces commenced the Training Mission-Afghanistan with the objective of delivering training and professional development support to the A N S F . Canada participated in that mission through Operation ATTENTION. In June 2011, the contingent of Canadian government officials at the K P R T started leaving because, according to the Canadian government, the targets on the four priorities noted above as well as the three signature projects had almost been achieved. This was followed in July by the termination of Canada’s combat mission in Kandahar Province. The forces were replaced with logistics experts to prepare Canadian equipment for shipment back to Canada. However, Canada did not entirely leave Afghanistan. It remained committed to Afghanistan through the training mission, which had its headquarters in Kabul. Along with the reshifting of Canadian security priorities, four new priorities arrived: investing in the future of Afghan children and youth through development programming in education and health; advancing security, the rule of law, and human rights (entailing the provision of up to 950 Canadian forces as trainers of the A NSF , as well as up to forty-five Canadian civilian police to help train the Afghan National Security Forces); promoting regional diplomacy; and finally, delivering humanitarian assistance. By the end of 2011, the last rotation of troops from Kandahar Province had returned home. At that point, Canada’s development programming in Afghanistan also returned to focusing solely on national-level development. In May 2012 Prime Minister Harper announced that Canada would contribute $110 million per year over three years (2015 to 2017) toward sustaining the A N S F in its effort to extend security governance throughout the country. Two months later, this announcement was upgraded with a $227 million contribution from 2014 to 2017 for Canadian development projects in Afghanistan. With the lowering of the Canadian flag on 12 March 2014, Canada ended its military training and civilian policing mission in Afghanistan. o u t c o m e s a n d l o n g - t e r m i m pa c t s

It was evident that the C A F had used the Afghanistan mission to increase their standing and reputation with allies, as well as to buy

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new military technology and equipment (cf. Saideman 2015; Stein and Lang 2007; Graham 2015). It also helped the Forces to overcome the prevalent and sticky stereotype of being a laggard31 because of deep cuts in defence spending and force levels. To be sure, as Nossal and Boucher (2017) remind us, all federal departments that participated in the Afghan mission used precisely the same tactic and played politics with it to get more resources for their respective institutions from the federal treasury. However, at the international level it was highly unusual in the aftermath of the publication of the Manley Report for one of the smaller NATO countries like Canada to demand from its allies that they send more soldiers and equipment to Afghanistan or else Canada would leave (Sokolsky and Zyla 2010). Nevertheless, Canadian contributions in Afghanistan since 2001 have brought Canada recognition among its allies, which was recognized by the N A T O leadership.32 Moreover, as the Manley Report rightly noted, successive Liberal and Conservative governments in Ottawa did not do a good job of explaining Canada’s justifications for being in Afghanistan and committing significant amounts of resources (financial as well as human) for the international community’s peace- and statebuilding mission there. Indeed, those justifications changed all the time (see e.g., Zyla 2013; Boucher and Nossal 2017). Based on a dataset of ninety-five public speeches on Afghanistan made by Canadian government ­ministers and senior bureaucrats and forty-nine publicly issued ­government reports on Afghanistan, Zyla (2013) concluded that the government seemed to be mainly concerned about Afghan women and children, seeing them as vulnerable minorities that required Canadian’s intervention (military and otherwise). Government officials expressed strong normative predispositions to providing humanitarian assistance, fostering development, and promoting deeply held beliefs in individual freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in Afghanistan, without taking into account what Afghans actually needed.33 At the same time, the Canadian government and its departments largely failed to recognize the regional dimension of the conflict and that part of Afghanistan’s grievances had to do with its geography and its immediate neighbourhood.34 For example, 90 per cent of Afghan exports go directly to or pass through Pakistan (Schofield 2010); it is also well known that Pakistan supported Taliban training, equipment, and leadership (Schofield 2011). Ottawa did not recognize that both

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Pakistan and China posed the principal challenge to a stable and developed Afghanistan. Why not? First, China has become a significant player in Afghanistan’s economy, especially with its natural resource industry. Second, strategically China and Pakistan are not only heavyweights in the region; their interests often also collide with US interests (Rubin and Siddique 2006; Chaudhry 2008; UN 2009). What Canada needed at the beginning of its Afghanistan campaign was to recognize that Pakistan was clearly part of the peacebuilding equation, as well as a clear strategic plan of how to address that challenge. In short, one might thus state that had Afghanistan indeed been as high a priority for international statebuilders as they claimed it was, it would have been reasonable to expect a greater focus on and engagement with Pakistan and its key allies, especially China (Schofield 2013) and Saudi Arabia at diplomatic, economic, and military levels. Instead, Canada stubbornly followed the American-led counterinsurgency (C O I N ) strategy of engaging in a major campaign in Afghanistan with a puzzling absence of an accompanying regional diplomatic strategy or even an understanding of the regional complexity of the conflict. International peacebuilders had some success with minimizing the Taliban insurgency. However, they never managed to fully defeat them. Developments at the time of writing clearly underline that the Taliban are reported as having retaken control of up to 50 per cent of the country. There are numerous reasons for this, as other studies have shown, including the imposition of national caveats whereby national governments have placed restrictions on where their troops can deploy and operate (Saideman 2015), which governments implemented to minimize the risk of taking casualties to make the task of retaining domestic support for troop deployments easier. These restrictions may have been necessary to N A T O allies but they have also undoubtedly greatly hindered overall operational effectiveness and decision-making. Another major issue that affected both outcomes and long-term impacts was the short rotations. Between 2006 and 2011, ten different Canadian rotations (termed “task forces”) went through Kandahar. Most soldiers were only deployed six to seven months, which included a three-week leave. The actual process of deployment could take up to five weeks, which often created a lag between rotations (Breede 2014). The fixed tour lengths and the entitled leave not only reduced the total time spent in theatre but also reduced effectiveness. For example, at any one time, a rifle section of eight soldiers would have

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one who was getting ready to go home, one who was home, and one who had just returned to the theatre of operations (Ibid. 485). As a result, a significant number of soldiers were unavailable at any given time. This created a snowball effect in which the issues one rotation faced would be passed down and amplified for the next rotation. How could the CAF build meaningful relationships not only with allies but also Afghans and NGOs when a unit’s operational time in theatre was no more than four months? This led to a notably strategic approach to operations that lacked continuity and institutional m ­ emory, forgoing the momentum needed to carry out such a complex mission. Moreover, as noted above, it was apparent that after 9/11 the international community had become more and more drawn into the US-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. As we will also see in the next chapter, this was not unique to the military but expanded to the extensive SSR and DDR reforms there. Due to a lack of proper prior information and research, donor states underestimated the magnitude of the peace- and statebuilding tasks at hand. They also had neither an entry nor an exit strategy (Suhrke 2010).

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6 Non-Military Security Sector Reforms

introduction

Afghanistan has a long history of exposure to a range of human security risks and vulnerabilities (O E C D 2007), including a shortage of food, high exposure to natural hazards,1 and internal displacement,2 as well as socio-economic factors such as increasing urbanization. According to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in risks, vulnerability, and humanitarian crisis,3 Afghanistan consistently ranked exceptionally low globally, most often just after the Congo and Sudan. As a result, due to the long civil war that took more than 1 million Afghan lives (O E C D 2007, 1), a lot of Afghans fled the country to Pakistan, India, or Iran. Since 2001 more than 5.7 million Afghan expats have returned to their home country and 2.7 million Afghans continue to live either in Iran or Pakistan as refugees (U N 2013, 3; U N H C R 2013). Meanwhile, the country suffered from too large a concentration of the population in major cities and away from rural areas where more than 80 per cent of the population had lived in 2001 (O E C D 2007, 1). Through C I D A , Canada supported the U N H C R ’s refugee return and reintegration program between 2004 and 2005 with $5 million to help expats safely return to their home country. Meanwhile, mines and explosive remnants that were buried during the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and subsequent periods of civil war from 1989 through 2001 remained a significant threat to the livelihood of returning Afghans, as demonstrated by figure 6.1. below, which shows the areas contaminated by landmines and cluster munition (in square kilometres).4

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1800 Square kilometres

1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Year

Figure 6.1  Areas contaminated by landmine (sq. km), 2001–12, Landmine and Cluster Monitor Source: World Bank, Landmine Contamination, Casualties and Clearance (L C 3 D ) data, 8 August 2013.

The international community recognized all these risks, threats, and vulnerabilities at the 2001 Bonn Conference, and decided to implement wide-ranging security sector reforms (S S R) as well as reforms concentrating on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (D D R ). The SSR and DDR reform programs were at the core of the international community’s broader post-conflict peacebuilding agenda,5 and are clearly linked and interconnected6 in terms of providing security for the state and its citizens. Before discussing the respective programs’ outputs, outcomes, and impacts, it is important to first review the definitions of S S R and D D R as well as their interrelationship. To start with, the UN secretary-general defines SSR as the “enhancement of effective and accountable security for the state and its peoples” (United Nations Report of the Secretary-General 2008, para. 17.5). The U N ’s own Operational Guide to the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (I D D R S ) (2014, section 1.20) is slightly more specific and concrete. It defines S S R as a “dynamic concept involving the design and implementation of strategy for the management of security functions in a democratically accountable, efficient and effective manner to initiate and support reform of the national security infrastructure.” This includes the entire security apparatus, including federal departments (or ministries), “civil authorities, judicial systems, the armed forces, paramilitary forces, police,

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intelligence services, private–military companies (PMCs), correctional services and civil society ‘watch-dogs’” (Ibid.). What is important to note from this definition is that effective S S R reform must be linked to a broader reform process of democratic governance and the rule of law, and be guided by an overarching and coherent strategy.7 DDR , on the other hand, is defined as a “process that contributes to security and stability in a post-conflict recovery context by removing weapons from the hands of combatants, taking the combatants out of military structures and helping them to integrate socially and economically into society by finding civilian livelihoods” (I D D R S 2014, section 1.20). D DR thus tends to adopt a narrower approach of short-term goals by focusing on ex-combatants and their dependents whereas S S R objectives, according to the definition above, require more long-term perspectives. It has been widely recognized that D D R programs and activities have played a significant role in international peacekeeping and postconflict reconstruction processes (Muggah 2005), especially in preventing a resurgence of armed conflict. They have thus been used as an instrument of policy makers in comprehensive peacebuilding operations (Stockholm Initiative on Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration 2006), particularly for conflict prevention and postconflict reconstruction (UN Secretary-General 2001). To be sure, DDR programs alone should not be expected to prevent conflicts or restore order in conflict-affected states; rather, they need to be accompanied by a set of wide-ranging economic and political reforms in a wellconceptualized international development program (U N D P 2005). Another requirement for successful DDR and SSR programs is political will to implement the reforms at the donor state- and donor recipientlevel, as well as engaging both public and private security actors. It is evident that both programs are often implemented when a state loses control over its power to use force legitimately and effectively. They should thus be considered closely linked in post-conflict statebuilding processes, whose primary goal is enhancing the ability of the state to deliver security and reinforce the rule of law. Consequently, the security sector broadly includes the military, “classical” law enforcement (e.g., police services), and intelligence services, as well as governance institutions such as the respective ministries, legislative bodies, and civil society actors, especially the latter. Civil society groups provide important oversight functions for government institutions and actions.

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It is important to remember one other note for this chapter. We were only able to assess a portion of all the (civilian) security projects that Canada helped to fund for the time period 2001 to 2014, and we only considered information that was available to the public. Based on this, the Canadian government alone, spent $266,253,169.25 on civilian security programs in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. This is roughly 86.25 per cent of the $308,717,114 that Canada spent in total on women’s and gender issues in Afghanistan over this time period, based on the government’s own calculations (D F AT D 2013, 70 in Part II).8 At the same time, it is also only a fraction of the $19 billion that Canada’s entire Afghanistan portfolio cost Canadian taxpayers (the sum of all of its development programming of all sectors and issue areas in Afghanistan), and the $1.66 billion that CI D A alone spent specifically on development and reconstruction (out of $1.97 billion in total). We first discuss the history of security challenges in Afghanistan. The next section will discuss the D DR program in Afghanistan, followed by a discussion of the SSR reform program, specifically that of the Afghan National Police Force (A N P ), and subsequently the Afghan National Army (A NA ). Each of those sections is subdivided into the different time periods identified in the introduction: the reconstruction phase between 2001 to 2005; the statebuilding phase, 2005 to 2009; and the transition phase, 2010 to 2015, as well as a discussion of the explanatory factors. It is important to note here that DDR and SSR are not mutually exclusive; they are deeply interlinked. Separating the two is largely a heuristic exercise to better map out the extent of the two programs. The discussion of DDR thus inevitably includes some discussion of SSR and vice versa. The conclusion will then tie the results of each subsection together. history of the security challenges i n   a f g h a n i s ta n

Afghanistan has historically been subject to many foreign invasions, ranging from the ancient Macedonians under Alexander the Great, the Mongols under Genghis Khan, the British in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to, during the height of the Cold War in 1979, the Soviets, who wanted to create the “Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.” Ten years later, they were forced to withdraw, in part because the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and others

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had secretly supported the mujahedeen guerrilla force to fight them (Weinbaum 2006; Sullivan 2007). With the Soviets’ withdrawal, Afghanistan was practically left to its own devices and received very little support from other countries to rebuild its war-devastated country. In addition, internal political instability and infighting further destabilized the country, making it almost ungovernable. Despite their withdrawal in 1989, the Soviets continued to support the Afghan communist regime led by President Najibullah (Rubin 1999; Sullivan 2007). That government saw its demise in 1992, leading to a failed attempt by the mujahedeen factions to form a single government to be led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (Ibid.). This unsuccessful attempt led to a civil war and political disintegration in which rival mujahedeen commanders became warlords and claimed control over different regions of the country (Ibid.). However, the subsequent failure of mujahedeen leadership left unmet expectations and gave rise to the Taliban movement (Ibid.). This radical Islamist group, supported by Pakistan, took power in Kabul, and subsequently 95 per cent of the country in 1996, with the aim of establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, after Afghanistan had been in a state of civil conflict for over twenty years (Rubin 1999; Sullivan 2007). The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement, owes its creation partly to the rural-based madrasas, especially in the neighbouring Pakistan region (North-West Frontier Province, the Federally Administered Tribal Area, and the networks within the refugee camps that developed during the Soviet occupation) which consisted mainly of fellow Pashtun tribal populations (Rubin 1999; Johnson and Mason 2007). During the jihad against the Soviets and the civil war that followed, the madrasas served as a recruitment source for, first, the mujahedeen forces, and, subsequently, the Taliban. More important, with the millions of Afghans entering the refugee camps on the Pakistani border, these madrasas were the only alternative educational institutions available to displaced school-aged Pashtun boys (Rubin 1999; Johnson and Mason 2007). The teachings in these particular madrasas were rooted in Deobandism, which is common in Pashtun tribal areas. Deobandism is a conservative movement that renounces independent reasoning and social hierarchies (Yung & Canada P I RS 2007), and believes that a Muslim’s main responsibility and honour is to their religion, rather than the state. It disagrees with any form of social hierarchy, promotes a very conservative and restrictive view

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of the role of women in society, and does not consider Shias to be Muslims (Rubin 1999; Johnson and Mason 2007). Pakistan saw the jihad against the Soviets as an opportunity to mend its relations with Afghanistan. Its primary objective was to secure its western and northern borders to gain strategic depth in protecting itself from India (Rubin 1999). Furthermore, due to the close relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban, supporting and recognizing the Taliban allowed Pakistan to use Pashtun rule in Afghanistan to its advantage. Indeed, the ruling of the Taliban regime became a strategic tool for Pakistani influence, rather than a security threat (Ibid). The Taliban’s core leaders were all mullahs who belonged to the Deobandi madrasas; they also shared similar tribal backgrounds (Rubin 1999; Johnson and Mason 2007). Ethnically, the Taliban mostly consisted of Pashtuns, and its leaders were almost all Ghilzai Pashtuns from the southeast region of the country (Johnson and Mason 2007). Johnson and Mason provide an even more specific analysis, revealing that the Taliban leadership was largely drawn from the Hotaki tribe. This is significant because the Hotaki is the tribe to which Taliban leader Mullah Omar belonged (Ibid.). A group of mullahs from the Hotaki tribe and Pashtun students from the Deobandi madrasas formed the Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Omar to bring an end to the conflict and to establish an Islamic regime in Afghanistan (Rubin 1999). The Islamic ideological foundations of the Taliban and their tribal roots, coupled with a context of war and mass displacement demonstrated the regional and ideological components of the movement (Rubin 1999). While being aided militarily from Pakistan, the group was able to gain strength to first seize Kandahar in 1994 and then eventually gain control of most of the country by 1998 (Ibid.). Despite these developments, Afghanistan was not considered an international priority. It was largely considered a “discretionary conflict” (Goodhand and Sedra 2006). Humanitarianism was the primary form of Western engagement, and other regional powers, including the Taliban, filled the governance vacuum. Few were willing to jump in to influence the course of the conflict for three reasons. First, international actors had little influence over domestic actors due to the lack of interest from superpowers and the lack of support for U N mediation. Second, conflict resolution became infinitely more complex with the deep involvement of regional actors, resulting in regional

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politico-military formations. Last, the regional war economy there had less space to influence incentives for peace. For these reasons, the Afghanistan conflict was largely pushed aside with the view of containing rather than solving the conflict. That all changed with 9/11, when the Taliban became an international security problem, creating an unprecedented response both politically and militarily. d i s a r m a m e n t , d e m o b i l i z at i o n , a n d r e i n t e g r at i o n ( d d r )

Outputs between 2001 and 2005 Afghanistan’s D DR process began with the creation of Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme (A N B P ) at the Tokyo Conference in January 2002, which took place one month after the Bonn Conference in December 2001, where Canada had pledged $100 million in humanitarian assistance for that year.9 That process was formalized at two Group of Eight (G8) donor meetings in Geneva in April and May 2002. The first of those meetings was held at Canada’s Permanent Mission in Geneva. Inspired by principles of distributive justice and economies of scale, the G8 established a multi-sectoral donor support scheme in which individual donors bore responsibility for particular issue areas. For example, the US became the lead country for implementing military reforms in Afghanistan, the Germans for police reforms, the Japanese for demilitarization, the Italians for judicial reforms, and the British for counter-narcotics. This distribution of responsibilities was decided so that the financial burdens for implementing these wide-ranging and complex DDR reforms in Afghanistan were balanced and spread across the donor community to allow the ambitious reform agenda to be carried out, while still being sustainable for the donors. Besides, there was no international organization adept enough to unilaterally steer and govern those reform tasks. Hence it fell into the hands of the donor states themselves to shoulder the tasks and, to a large extent, the costs. The ANBP began to operate with a pilot phase on 24 October 2003 in the provinces of Kunduz, Gardez, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Kabul (Bhatia and Sedra 2008, 127). A few months later, in July 2004, the DDR process commenced in Bamiyan Province. The total budget for the DDR process in Afghanistan was estimated at US$200 million, of which only US$41 million had been secured by the end of phase

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one, including US $35 million from the Japanese government. In this early phase between 2001 to 2005 the international donor community made the deliberate choice to deploy their resources with a “light” footprint (Sedra 2017, 165). It was thus decided not to install a trusteeship council over the country that would hold the primary responsibility for governing the country, including the security domains, as was done, for example, in Kosovo or East Timor. Optimistically (Rubin et al. 2004, 14), the chief aim of the A N B P was to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate an estimated 100,000 ex-combatants from the Afghan Militia Forces and the former Afghan Army (Bhatia and Sedra 2008). The A N B P program also developed mechanisms for them to join the newly created Afghan National Army (A N A ) or the Afghan National Police (A N P ), and helped to demobilize and reintegrate thousands of ex-combatants, including children who had fought during the civil war as child soldiers. This latter part of the ANBP was funded and carried out by UNICEF, with funds from Canada. The international community considered the entire D D R process one of the cornerstones of its peace- and statebuilding project in Afghanistan, and agreed to focus on four areas in particular: •

• • •

disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating (D D R) militia units that were allied with the Afghan government; disbanding illegal armed groups; collecting heavy weapons; and eliminating anti-personnel mines and ammunition stockpiles.

Undoubtedly, these were significant goals and tasks that donors wanted to see being achieved with their plentiful foreign aid donations. As Mark Sedra (2010) estimates, the wide-ranging D D R program in Afghanistan has been among the best-funded programs worldwide since the DDR concept evolved in the late 1990s. In total, it was estimated in 2004 that to make the entire country of Afghanistan secure it would need US$27.6 billion until 2011 (Afghanistan Compact 2006, 13), which would equal roughly US$4 billion per year. Of that, Canada made about $100 million per year available until fiscal year 2010–11, only a small fraction of the total bill. Canada supported the A NB P and the wide-ranging D D R reforms through CIDA by providing US$15,906,425 over three years between 2003 and 2006 in the provinces of Kunduz, Gardez, Mazar-e-Sharif,

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Kandahar, and the capital, Kabul.10 However, CIDA did not disburse those funds directly to the Afghan government. It partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (U N D P ) as well as the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) to carry out specific D DR programs. First, Canada spent $6.5 million to support the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program at the national level from 2004 to 2005, which was also carried out by U N A M A and U N D P . Second, C I D A (again through U N A M A and U N DP) disbursed an additional $1.2 million for the heavy weapons cantonment (H W C ) between 2004 and 2007 (O E C D 2007). Third, the same amount over the same time period and with the same partners was spent on surveying and destroying ammunition (A S D ) (OECD, 2007). Last, Canada provided US$5.1 million to support the disbandment of illegal armed groups (D I A G ) between 2004 and 2008.11 All these disbursements were just a part of Canada’s more than US$2.212 billion of aid for civilian issues (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015; OECD 2007), and DDR was clearly C I D A ’s most important program in scope, complexity, magnitude, visibility, and challenges. Despite its recognized importance, the Bonn Agreement of December 2001 failed to make demilitarization a priority in the international community’s statebuilding mission in Afghanistan and thus in the ensuing political process in the country. In paragraph V, article 1, the Bonn agreement notes vaguely that “[u]pon the official transfer of power, all mujahidin, Afghan armed forces and armed groups in the country shall come under the command and control of the Interim Authority, and be reorganized according to the requirements of the new Afghan security and armed forces.” What was left out of this promise was an explicit commitment to disarmament, particularly that former Northern Alliance commanders and their militia troops give up their weapons and supplies, and hand them over to the newly created Afghan security forces. In short, the Bonn Agreement only superficially addressed the security sector and left the question of who retained authority over the militia forces in the dark. By 2005, 63,380 combatants had been demobilized, 57,629 weapons had been returned, and 100,000 former soldiers removed from the Afghan state payroll (A N B P 2006, 4). A year later, the A N B P published a client evaluation survey of 5,000 program beneficiaries who had received at least six to nine months of reintegration assistance (U N DP, A NB P , DDR , 2004). The results of that survey were positive

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overall, with 93 per cent of the respondents satisfied, and 90 per cent still employed at the time the survey was conducted. The Canadian government noted, to the surprise of many, that the AN BP was completed in July 2005, although only 50,000 soldiers had been integrated back into civilian life (Ibid.) An estimated 40,000 soldiers were still loyal to Mohammed Fahim, commander of the Northern Alliance. Another significant aspect of D D R was demining the country. In 2002, Afghanistan signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or simply the Mine Ban Treaty. With that signature, Afghanistan agreed to clear and destroy any anti-personnel mines on its soil. A nationwide mine action program was set up with a component to educate the Afghan population about the dangers of the mines. According to the U N Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan (M A P A ), due to the success of its program the number of casualties was reduced from 2,116 per year in 2001 to 397 in 2012. Between 2004 and 2007 Canada contributed $15 million dollars to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS), roughly 30 per cent of the total humanitarian mine action fund, and thus ranked second among the seventeen donors (O E C D 2007, 27). It also supported the U N D P ’s anti-personnel mine and ammunition stockpile destruction program with $4 million between 2004 and 2007 (O E C D 2007). To better coordinate the Afghanistan mine action, the Afghan Department of Mine Clearance (DMC) was created to assume greater responsibility for MA P A , and subsequently manage it. This included removing all mines, destroying mine stockpiles, offering mine risk education to Afghans, assisting landmine survivors, and managing the program, which involved setting priorities, planning, quality management, collecting data, managing information, advocacy, public relations, and mobilizing resources for the program. In total, from 2004 to 2010 Canada spent just under $100 million to support the nationwide U N -led Mine Action Programme Afghanistan (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015). Outputs between 2005 and 2009 As one of the Afghan National Priority Programs (A N P P )13 and in an effort to strengthen local governance, the Afghan government

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Table 6.1 Biggest donors to Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund

Donor country Germany Japan Denmark Netherlands Canada United States EC/EU United Kingdom Sweden Finland Norway

Total receipt amount (in USD ) 516,087,000 343,000,000 101,860,244 444,315,390 612,724,968 2,108,048,751 512,279,323 1,260,947,308 259,088,660 90,251,746 395,656,636 6,644,260,026

Source: Data available on ARTF website at http://artf.af.

launched the Afghanistan Stabilisation Program (A S P ) in 2004. Its chief aim was to increase Afghans’ standard of living and to extend the reach of the government outside of Kabul into the districts and provinces by building physical government infrastructure (e.g., roads, government buildings etc. that were destroyed by Afghanistan’s long civil wars), thus enhancing its local capacity. An inter-ministerial task force under the leadership of the Afghan minister of the interior was established to coordinate the work. Canada supported the A S P program, which was financed through the A R T F 14 from 2004 to 2007 with $12 million of the approximately $40 million (see table 6.1) contributed in total to the A S P by international donors under British leadership. Other major donors included the UK, the US, and Japan. However, the $12 million donation never quite made it out the door because the World Bank had identified significant management problems in the summer of 2005. This resulted (at CIDA’s request) in temporarily parking the funds in the Trust Fund (the ARTF) and later disbursing them for other projects, primarily the National Solidarity Program (NSP) and the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA), which were also funded through the ARTF. With $30 million disbursed from 2004 to 2007, Canada was the second highest contributor of all donors (O E C D 2007)15 to the N S P and was closely aligned with Afghanistan’s development program. Indeed, the N S P

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became a flagship program for strengthening community development, local governance, and local government participation, having created more than 17,000 Community Development Councils (C D S ) in 274 districts and 34 provinces, which empowered Afghans locally. Although strengthening the rule of law, in its most technical and narrow sense, can probably be better subsumed under the category of improving the overall governance structure of Afghanistan, we decided that the aspect of reforming Afghanistan’s justice system is best discussed under the security section in this chapter, because no improvement in the security governance infrastructure of a country can be effective or sustainable unless judges and corrections services are in place and functioning properly. The London donor conference for Afghanistan (31 January to 1 February 2006) established the Afghanistan Compact,16 the successor to the Bonn Agreement. In contrast to the Bonn Agreement, the Compact contained a very specific provision on the disbandment of illegal armed groups, noting that, “With the support of the international community, the Afghan Government will consolidate peace by disbanding all illegal armed groups. The Afghan Government and the international community will create a secure environment by strengthening Afghan institutions to meet the security needs of the country in a fiscally sustainable manner” (Afghanistan Compact 2006, 3). However, although these provisions were clearly progressive compared with the Bonn Agreement, they continued to disregard the issue of small arms. One clear breaking point for all security reforms was the year 2007, after the Taliban insurgency had not only gained momentum but had also become more violent. To address this violence, the focus of international donors centred on fighting the insurgency, and not so much on implementing the various aspects of broad SSR and DDR reforms. Also, during this time period, between 2008 and 2011, Canada spent $42 million on humanitarian assistance. Unfortunately, CI D A did not keep good records to show specifically how these funds were spent. It is known that they were disbursed for immediate food aid, DDR , and land mine removal. An additional $12 million was spent on the province of Kandahar, including the removal of mines around the Dahla Dam, which in 2008 had become one of Canada’s three signature projects. In sum, throughout its time in Afghanistan, Canada spent around $100 million to remove landmines in Afghanistan, with a clear peak

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Years



Non-Military Security Sector Reforms 131 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 0

20

40 60 Millions of dollars

80

100

120

Figure 6.2  International financial assistance for mine action in Afghanistan, 2001–11 Source: World Bank, Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor Series, 2019.

of disbursements in 2008 and 2009 after the publication of the Manley Report. This is consistent with the disbursements of other donors, as shown in figure 6.2 (measured in current US$). The table measures international funding in the form of cash disbursements for mine action raised from donor governments and regional and international organizations, as well as private citizens and private companies or other institutions outside the country. To be sure, Canada’s priorities, at least with regard to mine action, were closely aligned with those of the Afghan government in spite of the fact that mine action was largely absent from the Afghanistan Development Strategy. Outputs between 2010 and 2014 Between 2008 and 2012, the Government of Canada, through CIDA, spent slightly more than $58 million on MAPA (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015). That support was renewed in 2015 (until 2020) with an additional $20 million. Moreover, between March 2010 and March 2011, C I D A supported U N M AS with $2 million to remove landmines and explosive remnants of the Arghandab Irrigation Rehabilitation Project (also known as the Dahla Dam Project), which was completed in March 2012. Ten community-based demining teams and two mechanical demining units were deployed to implement the project, which resulted in the employment of 190 people.

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outcomes

The short- as well as long-term outcomes of Canadian-funded projects are mixed at best and show significant deficits. First, methodologically it is difficult to assess the outputs of D D R reforms – whether they were short term or long term, because there are no agreed on criteria for measuring success or failure (Rossi and Guitozzi 2006). In light of this, it is hardly surprising that the number of weapons collected by the Afghan government from former militia members has become the most widely used indicator of success or failure. It has been reported that a total of 63,380 ex-combatants were disarmed, 62,376 demobilized, and 53,145 reintegrated.17 For light weapons, 38,099 were reported to have been handed over to the Afghan Ministry of Defence, and 12,248 heavy weapons were collected. A total of 56,163 weapons were destroyed, and 106,510 weapons in total were collected. Although it is nearly impossible to determine the exact Canadian share of these outcomes, it can be noted that for the duration of the H WC program C I DA supported through the U N (2004 to 2007), 2,000 heavy weapons were collected before Afghanistan’s first presidential election in September 2004,18 and 7,360 operational and repairable heavy weapons were locked up in guarded compounds. However, the problem with these outcome numbers is that they show a clear bias toward disarmament and demobilization rather than reintegration (Thruelsen 2006). For example, between 2004 and 2005, Canada spent approximately $1,000 per person of the 62,000 ex-combatants nationwide that the D D R program helped to disarm or demobilize. More than 53,000 ex-combatants were provided with reintegration assistance and the 5,010 ex-combatants surveyed had a 90 per cent employment rate. Second, instead of relying solely on quantitative data, it is imperative to analyze the data qualitatively because up to 80 per cent of the people who entered the A N B P were non-combatants. Third, resources that were meant to be disbursed to reintegrate and stabilize former militiamen were given to civilians instead. Last, the very structure of the DDR program was deeply flawed given the many associated difficulties that the Implementing Partners (IPs) encountered that resulted in efforts being duplicated. The I P s’ targeted assistance meant that ex-combatants were treated as a homogenous group, and the preferred sectoral approach did not consider their personal choice or the environment of the local market.

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Canada spent US$5.1 million between 2004 and 2008 to support the disarmament and disbandment of illegal armed groups (D I AG ); 77,000 operational weapons were handed over to the Afghan Ministry of Defence, 43,000 of which were collected by the D I A G project. Moreover, 296,346 pieces of ammunition, or 30,000 metric tonnes, have either been collected and/or destroyed, and 502 groups have been officially disarmed and disbanded.19 The total number of ammunition caches surveyed countrywide were counted at 1,648. Moreover, the DIAG and DDR programs together were able to destroy 496,717 antipersonnel landmines, and 16,125 anti-tank mines.20 However, the entire SSR program in Afghanistan, including its DDR component, lacked the required resources, leadership, and security support right from the beginning with the signing of the Bonn Agreement to achieve sustainable SSR reforms there (Thruelsen 2006). In contrast and compared with SSR programs in other conflict-affected environments – for example, in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Balkans in the early 1990s – Afghanistan received less aid and support, at least in the early years. By 2005, the Balkans had received around ten times more funding for police reform per capita than Afghanistan (Eckhard 2016, 146). Third, Rossi and Giustozzi (2006) observe how militia commanders used the demobilization and reintegration program as a tool of patronage and personal gain. Any time physical cash was given out to excombatants as part of the reintegration program, especially in rural communities, the money would usually find its way into the pockets of their commanders (see also Sopko 2017). This is, of course, problematic for the success of the entire SSR program, because, as Giustozzi (2007) notes, maintaining patron-client relations delegitimizes the state, which not only contradicts the liberal statebuilding program as a whole, it also undermines the state’s legitimacy and makes it ineffective (see also Thruelsen 2006). Fourth, as Hodes and Sedra (2007) remind us, the AN BP did not have any mechanism to ensure that soldiers were handing over all of their weapons to the Afghan government, as opposed to just some of them, while retaining other stockpiles (see also Spear 2003). For example, it is surprising that about 40 per cent of the weapons turned in by former militiamen and illegal armed groups did not work. Therefore, it seems, illegal armed groups were able to maintain the appearance that they were engaged in cooperative S S R actions while saving their best weapons for use or sale on the black market (2007).

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Fifth, the DDR reform process has clearly focused on disarmament and demobilization at the expense of reintegrating former militiamen back into Afghan society (Rossi and Guistozzi 2006). Moreover, ­following the critique of transitional economic reintegration, the Implementing Partners attempted to restrict the livestock option to soldiers because they were concerned that livestock could easily be sold. Therefore, that option could not be classified as a “security option” that was capable of distracting ex-combatants from rejoining militia groups. These restrictions negated the fact that more than 80 per cent of Afghanistan’s livelihood is based on agriculture and farming (OECD 2007, 1) and remained the overwhelming preference of ex-combatants despite I P s’ discouragements (Rossi and Guistozzi 2006). In addition, although reintegration packages are important, very few resources were put into proper counselling for ex-soldiers to help them come to terms with their trauma and successfully integrate them back into civilian life. Little information was ever provided on ex-combatants. This led to many complaints that counselling had become a “simple data registration activity” for caseworkers (Ibid.). Thus, the reintegration procedure in Afghanistan rarely considered the long-term requirements for a secure and well-off population. The results achieved by the United Nations Mine Action Service (U N MA S) with the support of the Government of Canada and other international donors, from 2008 to the end of March 2014, include: (1) removing landmines and other explosive remnants of war across Afghanistan over 885 square kilometres, including the destruction of 226,340 anti-personnel mines, 6,768 anti-tank mines, and over 7 million other explosive remnants of war; (2) declaring 1,696 communities nationwide free of all known mines and other explosive remnants of war; and (3) providing mine risk education to over 6 million women, girls, men, and boys throughout Afghanistan. In addition, Afghanistan’s Parliament passed a national disability law that addresses issues affecting mine survivors. These results have contributed to reducing the number of landmine victims by 60 per cent since 2006 and improved Afghans’ living conditions (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015). The nationwide Afghanistan mine action program has clearly been a success for international donors. Although more than 2.7 per cent of Afghans (roughly 675,000 people)21 were severely disabled by the mines, Canada was among the top five donors to the mine action program, spending $99,900,000 between 2004 and 2012. It did so

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indirectly by channelling those funds through UNMAS and the MAPA. The DIAG and DDR programs together were able to destroy 496,717 anti-personnel landmines, and 16,125 anti-tank mines.22 Specific results reported from 2004 to 2012, according to the evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Programme (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015), include: •

•

•

•

a 70 per cent reduction of the land area contaminated by mines by the end of 2010; 3,421 km2 cleared of mines between January 2002 and March 2006 (720 km2 yet to clear), with high-impact priorities identified through the Landmine Impact Survey (using Rapid Rural Appraisal techniques); 87,262 anti-tank mines and anti-personnel mines destroyed between January 2002 and March 2006; a 55 per cent decline in the monthly average number of victims since 2001 (i.e., from 140 to 63/month in 2006).

However, at the end of 2006, little progress had been reported toward the target of handing over the tasks for land mine removal to the Afghan government by 2009 (O E C D , 2007). This was due to the absence of enabling legislation, few signs of political will to take over the mine program by the Afghan government, and resistance from the local and international Implementing Partners (N G O s). Canada spent $2 million to support the removal of landmines and explosive remnants of the Dahla Dam Project. The results by the end of the project in March 2011 include the following (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015): •

•

•

19 hazard areas (minefields and battlefields) covering 591,679 square metres were cleared; 418 anti-personnel mines, 2 anti-tank mines, and 207 other explosive remnants of war were destroyed; 582 people in 10 communities benefited directly from the land clearance.

The mine risk education program was also a success, increasing more than 6 million Afghans’ including children, awareness of the risks of mines, especially how to identify and avoid them, (O E CD 2007, 28). By the time Canadians left Afghanistan, MAPA had cleared more than

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21,000 mines over an area of 1,834 square kilometres, and thus significantly reduced the chances of Afghans being killed or mutilated. Moreover, more than 8.3 million people went through the M RE program between January 2002 and March 2006 (O E C D 2007, 27), which was a significant success. With Canada’s $4.3 million donation between 2005 and 2007 to the International Development Law Organization (I D L O ), an international N GO based in Rome, ninety judges (sixteen of whom were women) were trained in civil, commercial, and criminal law, and procedure. Seventy-five more judges were trained in other areas of law. A one-year “training for trainers” course for twenty judges was well underway, and seventy-five public prosecutors (twelve of whom were women) were trained in one of three areas: financial crime, gender justice, or juvenile justice. A year-long training course for fifty public defenders was also underway (OECD 2007, 35). With Canada’s multimillion dollar investments in the Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA ) ($3.8 million between 2002 and 2003; $4 million between 2003 and 2004; and $2 million between 2004 and 2005), a number of notable achievements could be reported at the end of phase IV of the fund.23 To start with, it helped to roll out an electronic payroll system (EPS) that on the one hand contributed significantly to workers’ confidence that they would actually get paid for their work, and on the other hand let the government know that the workers actually existed. In that sense, the E P S offered a form of control on the government’s recurrent costs. By August 2008, 60,830 or 78 per cent of those recorded on the personnel database of the ANP were registered in the EPS (OECD 2007). The system was implemented in all 115 payroll stations across 47 reporting units nationally in the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs. However, by November 2008 six units were still not using E P S to report payroll data (Ibid.). By establishing the E P S , LOTFA allowed 33,137 police staff (or 42 per cent of the HR-recorded staff) to receive their salaries by electronic funds transfer in August 2008. These achievements had a major bearing on reducing errors in the fiscal management that the ministry is known for, and the AN P in particular. During the summer of 2005, the World Bank identified management problems with the A SP , high levels of government interference, slow progress on delivering development programs, and other managerial issues that were later confirmed in a UK Department for International Development (DF I D) Interim Assessment and Audit. Specifically, on

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several occasions the Office of the Afghan president interfered with the selection of the provinces and areas for ASP projects to commence and to measure their impact. For example, to properly assess the quality of the programs it was supposed to deliver, President Karzai interfered by randomly selecting three or four districts from each province to be reviewed. Moreover, from the very beginning, the ministerial task force was not able to recruit an effective management team, which led to the A S P not achieving the outlined goals. The president’s interference also had the significant side effect of contributing to a growing lack of trust in the management of the ASP, which reduced its funders’ – international donors – support for the AS P .24 Governance improved with a change of leadership in 2005, and in 2007 the ASP was subsumed by the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (I DL G). l o n g - t e r m i m pa c t s a n d i m p l i c at i o n s

Perhaps one of the most significant deficiencies with the lead-nation scheme introduced at the Bonn Conference, where donors took the primary responsibility in specific issue areas, was that no mechanism was put in place for the lead donors to build synergies across the issue areas, to meaningfully exchange best practices among themselves, or even to achieve coherence in their statebuilding efforts across sectors. What was lacking was a holistic and integrated DDR/SSR approach or strategy. Some donors might have anticipated that the Afghan government itself would have coordinated such a strategy, but it should have been clear from the outset that the Afghan government had neither the capacity nor the expertise to execute such a complex task. The lead-nation model also not only siloed the national approaches of the respective donor states, it also made their engagements territorial because each of them was only responsible for a clear area of operation. It is therefore hardly surprising that donors defended their area of responsibility against external interferences. This resulted in the DDR /SSR advancing unevenly across the areas of responsibility, not to mention the Afghan military reform efforts, which vastly outperformed those on the D DR /SSR agenda. To the credit of the international donors, they recognized the deficiencies of the lead-nation scheme and decided to abolish it in early 2007 at the London donor conference. Instead, the Afghan government was encouraged to take more ownership and leadership for D D R/S S R reforms.

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Nonetheless, the biggest downfall of the D D R/S S R program was that it ignored the role of informal militia groups, which posed a huge threat to the security of Afghanistan. Later on, the A N B P initiated the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups program, but Hodes and Sedra (2007) concluded that although the DDR process was successful in officially demobilizing the army, militia patronage networks remained, and thus the sustainability of the reintegration process was questionable to say the least. security sector reforms

Afghan National Police (ANP ) In post-conflict environments new institutions are known to be vulnerable until armed groups and ex-combatants are demobilized and integrated back into society and all weapons are collected (Hodes and Sedra 2007). Thus, in a peace- and statebuilding operation like the one in Afghanistan the SSR process is of utmost importance. Some of the key elements in SSR include demilitarization but also a clear separation of responsibilities for the police and military forces. Typically, in the Weberian state system the police are tasked with addressing internal threats whereas the military concentrates on addressing external threats (Barnett 2006). In conflict-affected states, however, the distinction between police and military duties is often blurred to address significant public security issues; one often even observes the existence of paramilitary forces that exercise both military and policing powers. In that case there is a trade-off between shortterm security gains and long-term prospects for S S R. Afghanistan is no different in this regard. Significant numbers of international police officers in Afghanistan were needed to help address high levels of crime that arise when “repressive regimes are dismantled, and the indigenous capacity cannot keep up to the criminal and extremist threats” (RAND 2007, 47). More specifically, classical law enforcement, patrolling and ensuring public security more generally, are the physical roles that these international police officers were to assume while training and mentoring the new ANP forces. One of their most important functions was teaching ANP recruits how to operate tactically in particular situations. Of course, from an international donor’s perspective, engaging in an SSR reform process is by no means trivial. Quite the opposite.

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It is intensive, enduring, and long-lasting. It is time- and resourceintensive because, for example, it requires international police forces to take charge of the recruitment processes of new A N P officers, implement reforms, and ensure that officers are adequately and regularly paid, which in turn helps to attract qualified candidates. During the implementation process of S S R reforms, the main focus of the trainers and mentors should be on local and fiscal sustainability of the forces as key for the A NP ’s long-term development. The reforming of the ANP was framed within the liberal peacebuilding paradigm and executed based on Western police models without considering many of the historical and cultural contexts of the Afghan police forces that existed before the international community arrived in late 2001. Moreover, international donors were committed to constructing a centralized police force rather than combining it, for example, with hybrid models as a way of addressing the apparent security challenges facing Afghanistan. Outputs between 2001 and 2005 The international community’s decision as to who would be responsible for which parts of the SSR reform program commenced with the SSR reforms in Afghanistan with a rather light footprint (Eckhard 2016, 123) right from the beginning up until roughly 2006.25 Germany was chosen as the lead nation for reforming the Afghan National Police (ANP ) forces.26 To the surprise of some, the US was initially very reluctant to take part in the very complex and comprehensive statebuilding project.27 In Bonn, the Afghan government agreed to a maximum of 62,000 international police officers to advise the AN P (Inspectors General 2006). As the lead nation, Germany invested significant resources into reforming the ANP, and showed some success in doing so, even though it did not always agree with the Afghan government.28 For example, the Germans streamlined the ranks of the forces in favour of a homogeneous, effective leadership. Management positions were filled according to professional credentials rather than nepotism. About forty German police and legal experts were deployed at the beginning of the program, primarily to Kabul, and in the northern provinces, where the German Armed Forces had deployed, and later, commanded a P R T . In addition, a mechanism was implemented ensuring that police officers were regularly paid. This made the AN P forces more

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professional and reliable, at least in the first few years. Berlin also financed a police academy in Kabul, where about 5,000 police officers from middle- and upper-level ranks were trained. Germany’s main objective from the start was to work with and reform existing police structures and staff rather than recreating everything from scratch.29 In this regard, it was the opposite of the American approach, to build everything new. In 2007, however, after about five years of intensive work, Berlin admitted that the tasks for reforming the A N P and establishing an effective police force in Afghanistan committed to the rule of law were too overwhelming for one state alone to shoulder. One of the main deficiencies of Germany’s engagement was training sufficient frontline officers to patrol the streets and cities every day. Outputs between 2005 and 2009 In 2007 the initial target for the number of international police forces was increased to 82,000. According to some analysts this was still a very low figure and gave Afghans one of the lowest per capita police force ratios (SI GA R 2011). In light of this, it was only logical that Berlin ask its partners, especially those in the EU, to support Germany’s police reform efforts, both financially and personally, by sending additional police. The EU responded to this request on 30 May 2007 with the decision to “Europeanize” Germany’s AN P reform program and to transfer the responsibility for reforming the ANP to the newly created E U Mission, E U P O L Afghanistan.30 The side effect of this new strategic move was to incorporate the majority of non-US police officers in Afghanistan under the new E U umbrella, including those from Canada. The initial 195 E U police officers, deployed in June 2007, were supposed to train and advise members of the AN P and the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs on police training, structure, operations, and sustainability, especially in the dangerous southern and eastern provinces. The main purpose of the E U P O L mission in Afghanistan was to professionalize and train the AN P , especially in community policing, crime management, leadership, retention, and intelligence-led policing. These reform processes also had an institutional dimension, to advance the Ministry of the Interior’s institutional capacity to better plan, manage, lead, and account for its police forces. This included supporting the development of key policies and strategies, including Afghanistan’s National Police Strategy. E U P O L also

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helped to create the Office of the Inspector General to offer oversight and monitoring for the A NP , as well as establishing the Police Staff College and the Crime Management College. The E U allocated close to €44 million from its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) budget to E UP OL Afghanistan until the end of March 2008. Those funds were used primarily for setting up offices, telecommunications infrastructure, and armoured vehicles. What was different from earlier police missions was that E U P O L ’s mission mandate was driven by the belief that civilian policing could only be effective and successful if it was adequately paired with justice institutions. In the case of Afghanistan, this required significant judicial reforms and investments in the judicial infrastructure. The Canadian dimension to EUPOL, unknown to many, was fortyeight civilian and forty military police trainers and mentors who were deployed to support A NP reforms across Afghanistan, especially in the southern province of Kandahar where Canadian forces were deployed. The Canadian police forces, deployed side-by-side with their Afghan counterparts on foot patrol, were based at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (K P R T ), where they delivered the Kandahar Model Police Project (House of Lords 2011). When the security situation started to dramatically deteriorate in 2006, the international community decided to rapidly increase their security presence in Afghanistan by significantly expanding the size and thus the operational effectiveness of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). At least that was the hope. More important than a re-emergent Taliban insurgency, however, was the ANP’s change of focus and priority. Because of the weakening security situation, according to the Americans, the ANP was to become a counterterrorism police force that would focus on learning paramilitary tactics and strategies to counter the Taliban insurgency. Indeed, the American counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) demanded that military and police forces show a strong presence and engagement with the local population to gain their trust.31 Specifically, after the military had cleared an area of operation, the ANP were expected to hold that area to enable economic development and to develop government capacity to provide public goods to Afghans (Long and Radin 2012). It is important to note that the US employment of COIN coincided with the turmoil in Iraq, where the Americans also faced heavy resistance from local insurgents. In January 2006, under the umbrella of the Afghanistan Compact, international donors agreed to establish a “fully-fledged, professional,

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functioning and ethnically balanced National Afghan Police and Afghan Border Police with a total of up to 62,000 staff by 2010.”32 However, as a US government report assessing the human resource progress of the ANP concluded, this force ceiling remained largely an illusion. The A N P continued to be significantly understaffed and generally ineffective in fighting the violent insurgency. In light of this, as well as successfully capturing insurgents, the US government appealed to the international community for more police forces. American trainers also introduced a new ten-day program for recruits of the Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP). The ANAP was created in 2006 at the request of Afghan president Karzai, to act as the special forces of the police, with a total force ceiling of up to 12,000. It was supposed to be separate from the ANP and only had one objective: to fight the Taliban insurgents in the country’s most fragile provinces (especially in the southern provinces such as Kandahar). Later in 2009, the US Combined Security Transition CommandAfghanistan (C S T C - A ), which was a bilateral mission between the US and the Afghan governments, was absorbed into the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A), which became the largest police training operation there. The Americans thus clearly responded to some of the criticism they had earned for their bilateral police mission, namely “hijacking” the ANP as a counterterrorism force.33 As a result, they multilateralized their police engagement in Afghanistan by bringing it under the NATO umbrella. NATO’s mission mandate was much broader than that of the Americans. It brought the training and development of the Afghan National Army (AN A) as well as the Afghan National Police (A N P ) under the umbrella of the N A T O Training Mission-Afghanistan (N T M - A ). Roughly US$9.5 billion was earmarked for NTM-A’s annual budget, of which close to US$3.5 billion was spent on the ANP development alone. NTM-A’s training curriculum, in contrast to the E UP O L mission, was primarily designed and run by (ex-)military officers (including military police). It was augmented with input from civilian police advisors for the six-week training programs designed to provide ANP officers basic training for frontline policing and patrolling activities. At the same time, A N P recruits were also taught the basics of the rule of law, human rights, and the Afghan constitution. The latter aspect was supported by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) through its community policing program; UNA M A also mentored officials of the Ministry of Interior Affairs on questions of human resources.

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Between 2009 and 2012, the US alone spent roughly $37.5 billion on the A N S F .34 Though this is an impressive amount, the Afghan government and its institutions were largely unable to absorb that kind of investment and to disburse it effectively and sustainably (SIGAR 2012, 175). Moreover, these massive aid disbursements were made over a very short time and largely had the opposite effect intended: rather than bettering the life of the Afghans and improving their security and living situations, they led to increased corruption in the Afghan government. Outputs between 2010 and 2014 In June 2011, the international community agreed to increase the A N P force ceiling to 157,000 police officers once again in response to a deteriorating security situation and a growing Taliban insurgency (SIGAR 2011). To put these numbers in context, Canada’s own federal police, the RCMP, only had slightly over 21,000 members in its ranks. Combining the RCMP with local police officers, 68,777 officers were serving in police uniform across Canada in 2015, a rate of police strength of 192 officers per 100,000 population. According to some reports, the A NP had reached a size of 146,000 members, or roughly 93 per cent of its authorized force strength, by the end of 2015 (SIGAR 2018). These numbers, however, are almost impossible to verify because of an absence of independent international auditors and the employment of what SIGAR has called “ghost” police officers – those who only report for duty on paper (Sopko 2016). outcomes

The outcomes for police reform in the first time period from 2001 to 2005 were quite meagre and costly, to say the least. Just considering the figures for the US alone, by the end of 2011 it had spent over $11 billion on police reform. For the same time period, Germany had disbursed $307 million and the E U $423 million (Tarnoff 2010; U.S. Department of Defense 2015). Either way, the effects of these investments did not materialize on the ground as expected and noted in various police reform strategies. The ANP remained an incapable, ineffective, and corrupt police force that was unable to carry out the most basic community police functions or even paramilitary activities. Above all, it was unable to help

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fight the Taliban insurgency, as the Americans had hoped. In its defence, the ANP was only lightly armed and equipped by international donors, as well as poorly trained. This made it an easy target for the Taliban, especially since the latter were able to continuously adapt their strategies and tactics. When the insurgency turned more violent in 2006, the international community, including the US, reacted by investing more funds into the A N P and adjusting their primary objective to become first and foremost training a force to fight the Taliban. For instance, between 2005 and 2015, the US alone spent over $18 billion on police reform (S I G A R 2015). This underlined a significant donor disparity and produced tensions among the countries involved, especially between the Germans and the Americans. In the first years before the German police mission was absorbed into the EUPOL mission, German officers criticized the US for an overbearing and unilateral role in running their police mission, and that it was badly coordinated with other allies (especially Germany). Second, the Germans also considered the American approach a militarization of the Afghan police forces that did not actually help to train police recruits in frontline policing. In turn, the Americans constantly complained about the Germans, and later the E U, for not pulling their weight when it came to investing in the A N P . The Americans had a point to an extent; the German police reform program displayed some deficiencies and shortfalls. Although the Germans could be applauded for having reconstituted the middle and higher ranks of the Afghan police force, it was largely technical assistance, and largely overlooked the ordinary ranks that patrolled the streets and interacted regularly with the local Afghan population. It also did nothing to alter the culture in the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs. A third difference in the approaches to reforming the Afghan police services was that in the US the planning for the training, strategy, tactics, equipment, et cetera was coordinated and carried out by US military officers in the Pentagon, as well as DynCorp, a private security firm, rather than civilians, as was the case for the Europeans. This reveals a very different focus and priority among the different donors. It was evident that the transatlantic partners were not pulling on the same rope to achieve the best possible results. Fourth, the American priority right from the start was on rebuilding the ANP rather than reforming its existing structures and building on its historical experiences and practices, which was the German and

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later the European approach. Moreover, the Americans clearly favoured a centralized process for security sector reforms. In so doing, they not only oversaw but also neglected to incorporate the complex local system of tribal structures and authority into their governance equation. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that to a very significant extent the A NP forces became dependent on international donors (also known as rentier security forces) and were unable to adequately address questions of ethnic equality in Afghan security institutions, for example, by filling leadership positions based on the ethnic composition of the country so that each ethnicity is more or less equally represented in offices of authority and leadership. At the E U level, the lack of police trainers and its inability to produce enough capable Afghan police officers through the various training programs is clearly the responsibility of the E U member states rather than the E U as a supranational organization, because the EU does not possess police forces that it could call upon. It has to rely on the E U member states to make them available for E U missions. However, even if the EU had been able to reach the force ceiling, its police trainers’ effectiveness was limited. Lacking armoured vehicles, for example, they were prevented from accessing areas outside of Kabul. Although the unilateral US program greatly accelerated the pace of ANP training, the quality of police that this training program produced was questionable. Above all, the Americans’ fast-track efforts did not deliver frontline street patrol officers or ones who would obey the rule of law. On the contrary, the “quick fix” measures implemented by the US in light of the deteriorating security situation in 2006 threatened to completely undermine the international community’s efforts to reform the Afghan security sector, because of the ANP’s fixation on fighting insurgents. Moreover, the US training was not adequate given that more than 200 police officers alone were killed between the end of March and the beginning of June 2007, according to the Afghan Ministry of Interior.35 The ripple effect was that fewer and fewer Afghans were willing to serve in the ANP because their fear of having to serve as cannon fodder for the US in the fight against terror was simply too great. The A N P training was also considered to be too short. For example, the US-trained police officers were released to frontline services after only three to nine weeks of training. The CSTC-A reported in June 2006 that only 30,395 police officers were ready to be deployed to the field (U.S. Department of State & Department of

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Defense, 2006). By 2015, after having revised the assessment system for the ANSF, only a handful of ANP units were determined to be fully independent or “sustaining” (SIGAR 2015, 102). It was evident from the outset of the Bonn Conference that reforming the ANP would require significant international resources, including human resources in the form of international police officers. In spite of various pledges for international trainers, the international donor community never quite managed to fully staff their missions. To take just one example, in 2009 the police mission was only able to deploy 117 officers out of the maximum 400 that had been authorized (Gross 2009). The numbers for other years are similar. In addition, until 2005 the ANP lacked a comprehensive mentoring program, which did not change in the following years. For instance, as of January 2011, the N T M - A had fielded only 321 of the required 558 A N P mentor teams.36 On the side of American contractors, the US government consistently underperformed in its efforts to attract suitable ANP trainers and mentors, a failing partially due to a lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity. An external security consulting company, DynCorp, was paid more than $1.6 billion “to provide the MoD with personnel to supply dedicated in-depth mentoring, training, subject matter expertise and programmatic support to CS T C-A staff and the Afghan M oD focused missions, functional areas and tasks listed in the Performance Based Statement of Work (P B S O W ). The purpose of the support was to assist the M oD and associated Afghan National Army forces in assuming full responsibility for their own security needs” (SI GA R 2018, 2). On the other side of that coin are obvious problems with the appropriate selection of the A NP members. This was the responsibility of the federal Afghan government, which was responsible for all 34 provinces and close to 400 districts. Although the government had the power to appoint officers, it had abused that power, appointing former warlords and militiamen to the A NP to ensure their impunity. This was a particularly widespread practice between 2001 and 2005, which undoubtedly undermined the professionalism of the AN P as well as its respect and trust among the Afghan population. Recruitment, retention, a weak infrastructure (OECD 2007), and widespread corruption remained some of donors’ most persistent problems with the A N P . The latter point is something that donors never quite solved; corruption, especially vis-à-vis the drug trade, is a very lucrative side business for police officers. John Sopko, US Special

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Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), even warned that “I would submit to you that nothing is a greater threat to the United States’ efforts to rebuild Afghanistan and other countries like it” (S I G A R 2016). According to some estimates, close to 80 per cent of the police force was involved in the drug trade in one way or another. The large majority of ANP officers, more than 86 per cent, were also illiterate and were known to have drug addictions (see also SIGAR 2014).37 As an example, in 2009 alone, it was estimated that 21 per cent of the ANP force had a record of substance abuse (Sedra 2017, 182). It is therefore hardly surprising that Afghanistan’s ranking on the World Bank’s corruption index improved only slightly from 2001 to 2014. Figure 6.3 reflects the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as the “capture” of the state by elites and private interests. The percentile rank indicates the country’s rank among all countries covered by the aggregate indicator (with 0 corresponding to lowest rank, and 100 to highest rank). The data suggests that Afghanistan’s percentile rank went down from 5.08 per cent in 2000 to 0.95 per cent in 2001, and then up again to 5.29 per cent in 2014. Moreover, there were significant doubts as to whether the ANP forces respected the rule of law. For example, the US Department of State’s 2014 Annual Human Rights report for Afghanistan clearly showed that ANP officers routinely used excessive amounts of force, including the torture of civilians, as well as extrajudicial killings. In 2010 alone, close to 200 ANP officers were accused of having committed a murder and slightly over 4,600 were involved in other criminal activities, which led to 3,026 cases being sent to the attorney general in Kabul (Harooni 2011). Against this backdrop, it was evident that police officers were actually perpetrating crimes as opposed to fighting them, thereby fuelling the steadily growing crime rate in the country (Rubin 2007, 67). All this might not be that surprising given that the monthly salary of an ANP officer was around $100 per month, which was not sufficient to cover a family’s living expenses. Indeed, it made A N P officers susceptible to taking bribes or setting up security checkpoints to increase their salaries.38 Others defected to the Taliban, who paid a higher monthly salary to start with, taking their weapons and equipment with them (this was particularly problematic between 2010 and 2012 and in 2016) (see Pugliese 2015). In other words, ANP officers themselves became part of the security challenge for Afghanistan (Wilder 2007; International Crisis Group 2011; Sopko 2017).

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120.00

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Figure 6.3  Control of corruption: Percentile rank of Afghanistan, Canada, and the US, 1998–2017 Source: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators, 2019.

Another problematic dimension of ANP staff was that the majority of ANP units were not only mostly monoethnic; they also obeyed the orders of and were loyal to their regional commanders rather than the federal government and its Ministry of the Interior. Clearly, it was not their loyalty to the state but their loyalty to their ethnicity, religion, kinship, or political faction that determined who the AN P identified as their leaders. Given that the police, at least in its Weberian conception, represent one of the principal interfaces between the state and society, this was a problematic development, and most likely contributed to an erosion of the Afghan state’s legitimacy. In spite of the international community’s efforts to rebuild the Afghan National Police force, in many parts of the country, police infrastructure was lacking. Police stations were and continue to be in a desolate condition. Even at the end of the ANP training mission that coincided with the termination of the N A T O combat mission, the Afghan police forces continued to lack adequate weapons, ammunition, buildings, and equipment (e.g., radios etc.), which became more evident when the international police officers left. In sum and against this backdrop, it is perhaps not too far-fetched to posit that overall internationally sponsored police reform in Afghanistan was not successful; it can perhaps even be considered a failed investment. On the one hand, the international community was

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not able to find a meaningful and successful way of (re-)building a police force in a non-Western world. On the other hand, the Afghans themselves were not able to determine what kind of police force they wanted for themselves, especially given that a significant proportion of the population viewed the police with fear and resentment, and that they often had to bribe police or pay them illegally (Rubin 2007) to get service. To be sure, these are two sides of the same coin, which underline the mismatch of donors’ strategies, aspirations, and outlooks. l o n g - t e r m i m pa c t s

The first thing to take away from the international community’s experience with SSR reforms in Afghanistan seems to be that it is impossible to implement the reforms in countries that have experienced an active violent conflict, including an insurgency. Success clearly seems to require a minimum of security and stability in the country for SSR reforms to take root and to be effective. Figure 6.4 below measures the perceptions and likelihood of political instability and/or politically motivated violence, including terrorism, comparing Afghanistan with Canada and the US. The percentile rank indicates the country’s rank among all countries covered by the aggregate indicator (with 0 corresponding to lowest rank, and 100 to highest rank). Figure 6.4 indicates that Afghanistan’s ranking at the very bottom of the world shows it not only has an extraordinarily high risk of experiencing political instability and terrorist-related incidents; it is also nowhere close to Western countries, exemplified here by Canada and the United States. Moreover, it seems that Western intervention and S S R /D D R investments did not bear much fruit; Afghanistan’s percentile rank increased only minimally during that time, from 0.53 per cent in 2000 to 2.86 per cent in 2014. It is also evident from the Afghanistan case that successful S S R reforms require strong political will and wide-ranging governance reforms at the federal government level, as well as a minimum respect for the principles of the rule of law. If the majority of the country’s police force has committed some form of crime or is even involved in the drug trade, that not only undermines their effectiveness and trust among the local population; it also goes to the very heart of state legitimacy. At the same time, it is obvious that the international community missed an important window of opportunity to invest its donor

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100 90

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2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

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2013

2014

Year Afghanistan

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Figure 6.4  Political stability and absence of violence/terrorism: Percentile rank of Afghanistan, Canada, and the US, 2000–14 Source: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators, 2019; and Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay, and Massimo Mastruzzi (2010). “The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Methodology and Analytical Issues.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5430. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=1682130.

resources to advance the rule of law, especially in reforming the justice system. The data from the World Bank in figure 6.5 captures perceptions of the extent to which citizens have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence. The percentile rank indicates the country’s rank among all countries covered by the aggregate indicator, with 0 corresponding to the lowest rank, and 100 to the highest rank. Percentile ranks have been adjusted to correct for changes over time in the composition of the countries covered by the World Governance Indicators (WGI ). What is obvious is that at just below 2 per cent in 2002 and slightly over 4.3 per cent in 2014, Afghanistan indeed made progress toward improving the rule of law. But it remains at the bottom of world rankings when compared with Canada and the US, whose scores were higher than 94 per cent and 92 per cent respectively for those same years. Indeed, reforming the rule of law was not given priority in Afghanistan. The best police force remains ineffective as long as the criminals they catch cannot be prosecuted efficiently. One hastens to

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120

Percentile rank

100 80 60 40 20 0 1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year Afghanistan Canada United States

Figure 6.5  Rule of law: Percentile rank of Afghanistan, Canada, and the US, 1998–2014 Source: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators, 10/04/2018.

add that this is not unique to a fragile state like Afghanistan; even in a fully functioning Western liberal democracy this is often problematic. The results of this miscalculation were clearly evident in the discussion above – ineffective and corrupt police officers who were poorly governed and whose behaviour undermined the legitimacy of the state they were supposed to serve. Second, international donors primarily considered the S S R reform process a technicality that simply required specific and guided technical assistance for the local Afghan police forces. Two things were missing from that equation: the first is oversight and acknowledging that police officers do not operate in a vacuum; they are embedded in a specific (administrative) and social cultural setting. In that sense, the reform processes neglected to consider the history and context of the socio-cultural milieus in the various Afghan provinces (Sedra 2017, 164). Second, related to this, we need to establish that the overwhelming majority of the international community’s S S R aid and technical assistance was spent on frontline police officers (for their training, equipment etc.). Meanwhile, investments in reforming the Ministry of Interior Affairs, which was responsible for governing the A N P at the political level, or the Ministry of Defence, were largely put on a back burner, attracted little attention and were not prioritized. Moreover,

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donors assessed their assistance using only classical numerical indicators that measure outputs (e.g., the number of A N P officers recruited, A N P officers trained, equipped with number of weapons etc.). However, exclusively focusing on outputs is not useful for determining the impact that S S R reforms might have (or not have) in bettering the lives of Afghans. Finally, third, is the bitter taste of financial mismanagement of aid and assistance for SSR reforms, again two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, the international community had no proper oversight mechanisms in place to account for where its taxes were spent and for what particular projects or initiatives. Nor were their projects properly documented or publicly reported. For example, through a forensic accounting investigation of two US inspector generals it became public in 2004 that US$1.5 billion in US aid allocated for SSR reforms in Afghanistan between December 2012 and December 2013 was unaccounted for. To this day, nobody knows where the money went. On the other hand, the Afghan security institutions themselves, whether they are in the Ministry of Interior Affairs or the Ministry of Defence, were either incompetent to effectively carry out such oversight and accounting functions (largely due to ineffective staff) or were unable to do so due to a lack of trained staff being available to assess the complex issues and questions of donor aid (U.S. Inspector General 2014, 6). a f g h a n n at i o n a l a r m y

(ana)

Outputs between 2001 and 2005 The second “puzzle” of the extensive S S R reforms in Afghanistan was reforming the Afghan National Army (A N A ), which, along with the A N P , was considered an important pillar for providing security, the rule of law, and respect for human rights throughout the country (Petersberg Declaration 2002). Shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan attempted to form a sustainable national army on five separate occasions, dating back to 2002. Initially, the A N A was torn between two opposite roles: to either act as an auxiliary force for an occupying power, or to become the national armed forces able to serve as the monopoly force for the government of Afghanistan and to serve its internal and external political goals (Giustozzi 2007).

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Under the new statebuilding plan that was agreed to in Bonn, establishing security was seen as the foundation to establishing an effective state that could function democratically and was free of religious extremism and authoritative controls. Indeed, establishing a well-run and well-functioning ANA was recognized as being essential to effective security governance in the country, as well as a guarantor for the stability of the central government. Rooted in a Weberian understanding of a well-functioning state that maintains the monopoly of the use of force within its borders in exchange for providing public goods for its citizens, establishing an efficient and well-positioned A N A can be seen as the quintessential stability measure in the democratic reform process of Afghanistan. As was the case with the A NP , international donors differed significantly on how to achieve such stability and security and with how many resources. As with the ANP, the Americans favoured a “destroy and rebuild” approach – that is, eliminating any remnants of previous A N A institutional structures from before 2001 and then rebuilding the A N A from scratch with new structures, mandates, and culture (SIGAR 2012, 68). The Europeans favoured a different model, building on existing institutional structures and then reforming them. Either way, international statebuilders pushed through their S S R reform agenda with a large-scale expansion of the AN A in a rapidly deteriorating security environment, which saw the AN A force ceiling rise four times, from an initial 70,000 forces to 134,000, and finally to 195,000 in June 2011 (Sedra 2017, 164; International Crisis Group 2010, 6). As was the case with the A NP and the D D R program, the reform process of the A NA started with the Bonn Agreement in 2001, after which President Karzai issued a decree formally establishing the Afghan National Army (A N A ). What was envisioned was a 70,000-men-strong force under the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, with the majority of former AM F (Afghan Military Forces) and mujahedeen fighters to be demobilized and reintegrated into civilian life. The size of the force was not uncontested, with many rounds of negotiations between I S A F , the U S A , the Ministry of Defence, and leading security donors recommending a force of no more than 50,000. The Afghan government itself initially suggested an A N A force ceiling of 200,000 troops. The U N ’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, had similar goals: to reach a force strength of 220,000 soldiers by 2015 (Brahimi 2003). The

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first training course, originally slated to last ten weeks39 (C S C T - A 2006), started on 14 May 2002 at the country’s former military academy near Kabul, while Task Force Phoenix, set up by international donors, oversaw the progress of the training. In November 2004, it was increased to twelve weeks due to concerns over the quality of the newly trained recruits. In 2004 the Afghan Ministry of Defence issued the country’s first military strategy. It also outlined the military ethos and principles, expecting the forces to be loyal to the government (Ministry of Defence of Afghanistan 2004). At the same time, the US military established its own oversight body of the A NA and the ensuing reform process. The US Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan (OMC-A)40 monitored the A N A ’s force structure, chain of command, logistics, and physical infrastructure and equipment. The office, then renamed CSTC-A, was integrated into the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (N TM-A ) in 2009 to improve the economies of scale and to multilateralize the US efforts. At the end of 2014, it was integrated into NATO’s Resolute Support mission. Naturally, with the worsening of the security environment, as well as the slow progress in recruiting ANA officers, aid disbursements for the A N A increased significantly. For example, the US alone invested more than US$37 billion on a bilateral basis to reform the A N A (SIG A R 2015, 75). Outputs between 2005 and 2009 August 2006 was an important landmark for the AN A. Assisted by international coalition forces, it was the first time that the AN A had carried out a battalion-sized combat operation, and bore the primary responsibility for the logistics of that operation. Slowly but surely that responsibility was extended to multiple provinces, with a number of different A NA companies in charge. One of the main challenges for the AN A in the early days of the training mission was the widespread corruption among the recruits and the ANA force more generally. The extent and magnitude of the corruption threatened Afghanistan’s entire security and statebuilding mission but Western donors did not understand this at all (Sopko 2016). To address this issue and fight the corruption in the force, the office of the A NA inspector general was created in June 2006. At the same time the military justice system was improved, processing its first court martial in June 2006.

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With NA T O ’s takeover of the A NA training organization in 2009, its tasks largely involved assisting the Afghan government with the operational employment and training of the AN A units. An essential part of I S A F ’s contribution to the rebuilding program was the Operational Mentor Liaison Team (O M L T ) program. The United States was the lead nation for the A N A program, and thus bore the primary responsibility in all areas from personnel and recruitment to basic and collective training, funding, equipping, and sustainability. In short, C S T C - A and Task Force Phoenix maintained the primary responsibility for A N A development until the Afghan government itself was able to shoulder this task (Goodson 2015). Outputs between 2010 and 2014 Although the security situation continued to be dire, the international community attempted to address this problem by channelling more forces for training through the ANA (as well as ANP) so it would be ready to fight the Taliban insurgency. In 2010 the training period for new ANA recruits was once again adjusted, not upwards as before but downwards by 50 per cent (six weeks in total) to allow more recruits to go through the training in a shorter time. This had significant implications for the effectiveness of the ANA on the ground and over the long term. Moreover, the training program concentrated disproportionately on the role of the ANA in combat rather than on non-combat issues, for example, medical, maintenance, and logistics issues, that are vital to ensure the sustainability of the ANA forces in the long term (U.S. Government Accountability Office 2005, 17–18). The side effect of this oversight was the ANA forces’ structural and continuing dependence on coalition forces. At the end of 2015 even the US government finally realized that the ANA force was continuing to encounter significant challenges, especially in the areas of “leadership, combat enablers, logistics and sustainment, and ministerial capacity” (US Department of Defense 2015, 25). Certainly, those challenges worsened for the AN A with the withdrawal of coalition forces’ mentors and advisors from Afghanistan in 2014, thus ending the active combat period (Sopko 2016). Indeed, A N A units “regressed when deprived of US or Coalition assistance” (Ibid.), exposing weaknesses in logistics, military planning, procurement, maintenance of equipment and infrastructure, as well as administration (Ibid.). N A T O ’s follow-on mission, Operation Resolute Support, only deployed coalition forces advisors at the senior

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leadership level, especially in the Ministry of Defence (Giustozzi and Ali 2016, 15). In particular, the absence of tactical mentors who would train and assist ANA officers while being deployed in the fight against the Taliban, combined with an almost immediate halt of coalition air support for the A NA missions, significantly hurt the AN A’s efficacy. To be sure, OMLTs were an important mentoring link on the ground, and helped to build trust and confidence among ANA troops while in combat. OMLTs typically operated in a small group of between twelve to nineteen troops either at the corps, brigade, battalion, and company levels for up to six months (Cordesman 2006; G AO 2011). outcomes

The reform process of the ANA was not entirely successful or sustainable, in spite of some successes since the official creation of the AN A on 1 December 2002. For example, it was quite successful, with a rate of 67 per cent, at re-enlisting non-commissioned officers and 49 per cent of officers serving with another, follow-on contract with the A N A , or building A NA infrastructure. The other side of that coin is that about 20 per cent of ANA troops would not re-enlist once their standard three-year service contract expired (Patel 2007, 38), a significant number, even for Western militaries. Sedra (2010) went even further and assigned a failing grade to the A N A for not achieving the goals that were set for it by the Afghan government. According to some statistics, roughly 40 per cent of a typical battalion on a regular day was absent from duty without leave (AWOL). Numbers by NATO as well as the US Department of Defence confirm that rate, listing an A W O L ratio of 35 per cent (U.S. Department of Defense 2015). Meanwhile, S I G A R has repeatedly reported on what he calls “ghost soldiers” – around 30,000 A N A soldiers who are listed as serving on paper, but who never showed up for duty (Sopko 2017; SI GA R 2016; Craig 2016).41 It was therefore hardly surprising that more than 5,000 Afghan security personnel – the ANA and ANP together in 2016 – were killed in action (Sopko 2017).42 Although ANA forces were clearly motivated and willing to fight against the insurgency, to a large extent the units were poorly organized and poorly led (Thompson 2010). The ANA also consistently failed to meet its force ceiling of soldiers who should be in service, and had very limited offensive capabilities (Sopko 2017). Related to this is the poor success in attracting new recruits to serve the ANA (see RAND 2007). Moreover, the ANA offered false promises

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to international donors to boost recruiting by raising salaries or increasing the overall condition of the security services. This was a poorly planned solution because the services were not fiscally sustainable (Sopko 2017) and the Afghan government to this day remains unable to pay them because of a fiscal gap of $6 to 8 billion per year. Despite many of the recruitment challenges, one success worth noting was the development of volunteer centres run by ANA staff to recruit future service members. More important, perhaps, is the lack of ethnic balance across the force (Manuel 2002), a consistent source of contention inside the A N A . Afghanistan is composed of four main ethnic groups: 42 per cent of Afghans are Pashtun, 27 per cent Tajik, 9 per cent Hazara, and 9 per cent Uzbeks. However, the statistics on ethnic composition clearly show an unbalance, which has not changed much since 2001. For example, in 2002, 40 per cent of Tajiks served in the A N A , a significantly higher percentage than the Tajik share of the general population. At the same time, only 37 per cent of A N A forces were Pashtuns, well below their share nationally. The shares for the remaining groups are even worse. Over the fourteen-year reform process, this ethnic imbalance was never overcome. Meanwhile, Tajiks were overrepresented at the officer level, assuming more than 40 per cent of those positions (G A O 2011, 121). The point is that the resulting ethnic grievances that existed during the civil war before 2001 were not solved with the arrival of international statebuilders in the early 2000s. Thus, it was largely wishful thinking on the part of international donors that the A N A would be able to overcome those ethnic grievances. But the fact is, international donors failed to address those grievances. One of their most persistent oversights was their temptation “to focus on creating or building, while neglecting sustainment needs” (Sopko 2016). The issue of sustainment touches not only on the recruiting problems discussed above, but also the area of equipment, especially weapons, vehicles, communications, and protective gear (Ibid., 28–30). One might suggest that this is more than surprising given that reports have shown that Washington alone has provided 160 different types of aircraft; 100,000 military vehicles; about 500,000 weapons, and 200,000 pieces of communication equipment (Ibid.). Equipment continues to be a problematic area for the development of the A N A in the post-invasion period. Some units have obsolete equipment whereas commandos are well equipped. The US Government Accountability Office (G A O ) reports

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that Afghan combat units have about 40 per cent of the major necessary items, which makes them outgunned by their well-funded Taliban adversaries. The ANA was also not sustainable financially. The World Bank, for example, had calculated in 2005 that the ANA had cost the equivalent of 293 per cent of Afghanistan’s domestic revenue and 13 per cent of its G D P for the fiscal year 2004–05 (World Bank 2005, 42–3). Afghanistan’s G D P is around $11 billion per year, thus spending $4 billion of that on the A NA cannot be sustainable in the long term, especially since developing the A N A requires constantly upgrading infrastructure and equipment, which is necessary to thwart the highlevel security risks and the rise of insurgencies. Evaluations by international donors also noted that donors should insist on changing the police culture (RAN D 2007) and clearing the forces of corruption. In the case of the A N A , this challenge to the culture was fundamental in its demise. The low morale among AN A troops – from the lack of discipline, low salary, ethnic-minority conflict, and the lack of training among the leadership – caused widespread corruption.43 A focus on culture and creating a supportive environment within the ranks is therefore essential. e x p l a n at o r y fa c t o r s

The S S R and D D R reform processes are an extensive undertaking that require a well-developed and coherent strategy tying international donors and their efforts together effectively. Ideally, it also requires an international organization (e.g., the U N ) to coordinate and oversee donor states’ activities while at the same time offering coherent policies and programs to conflict-affected states like Afghanistan. However, in the case of Afghanistan and its S S R /D D R programming, as Mark Sedra (2006) reminds us, such an overarching and coherent strategic framework guiding the entire S S R process was mostly non-existent. Moreover, no overarching body was in place (e.g., the U N , N A T O etc.) to coordinate the bilateral and multilateral partners and their donor efforts. The consequence of these absences has been at least threefold: first, it has further contributed to the fragility of Afghanistan’s demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration process as well as its reforms in the security sector domain. Second, it has resulted in stove-piped or contradictory approaches to provide support for Afghanistan’s D D R and S S R

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reform processes. And finally, the lack of a strategy complicated the effort to synergize other D D R /S S R reform processes (e.g., the reduction of the small weapons program). Indeed, as noted above, international donors disagreed on the “right” strategy for both the ANP as well as the ANA. The Americans considered both primarily as a tool for their counterinsurgency campaign – instrumentalizing them as a sort of paramilitary force by providing them with basic military weapons, vehicles, and training to fight the Taliban insurgency – whereas the Europeans wanted them for frontline policing. It was therefore hardly surprising that both disagreed on the “proper” training of the AN P and AN A as well as their proper functions within the SSR matrix. Moreover, the transatlantic partners disagreed on how to reform both institutions: the US wanted to eliminate the remnants of the A N A and A N P that were there when they arrived and rebuild both of them afterwards. In contrast, the Europeans had a different vision, namely to reform the institutions and S S R structures that were already in the country and to strengthen them through targeted reform programs. It was evident that the actual capacity of both the AN A as well as the A N P was at times overwhelmed with the tasks the institutions were supposed to carry out. Clearly, the start of the AN A and AN P reform process was rough, and without much guidance at the institutional level (e.g., Afghan Ministry of the Interior). However, the Afghan government, as well as international donors, never quite managed to address four pertinent issues that significantly affected both the A N A and the A N P : corruption, retention, narcotics, and disarmament. It took donors until 2009 to fully realize how persistent the web of corrupt Afghan officials, criminals, drug traffickers, and insurgents really was. In 2010, fully nine years into the intervention, Afghan national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta noted that “corruption is not just a problem for the system of governance in Afghanistan; it is the system of governance.”44 As John Sopko notes unequivocally, “The problem, then and now, was that combating corruption required the cooperation and political will of Afghan elites whose power relied on the very structures that anticorruption efforts sought to dismantle.” By the end of 2014, success in either of those areas was minimal at best,45 and undermined the entire S S R reform process.46 Indeed, it fuelled the existing grievances of the conflict. The US alone had spent more than US$8.5 billion fighting the narcotics

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trade in Afghanistan, with little to show for it (Sopko 2017). The flip side of that coin was that international donors, including Canada, were very slow in sending their promised trainers, whether to support the A N A or the A N P (Carp 2009). Other factors include the slow recruitment of security officers for both institutions, as well as disingenuous promises on the part of the Afghan government to increase the salaries and benefits of the security officers. Often the Taliban simply paid more than the Afghan government. Thus, it is hardly surprising that it was hard to retain A N A and AN P officers. The AN A was suffering from a wide variety of internal problems that has ­rendered its potential and ability to be a national army moot. The poor training of A NA and A NP officers has also been noted as a clear challenge. It was often confusing and convoluted, in part due to the contradictory objectives that the Americans and Europeans had in mind. The R A N D think tank, for example, underlines the importance of detailed and clear training pre-deployment, as well as continuous training throughout in the respective forces. Moreover, the training has to be relevant to indigenous forces once international forces leave, combined with the technology and the application thereof, as well as leadership training for senior officers. An objective vetting process is crucial at all force levels. As Hodes and Sedra (2007) argue, the Afghan D D R process clearly failed to abolish patronage networks, and the sustainability of reintegration was overly ambiguous, if not unreachable. Similarly, Sedra (2006) critiques Afghanistan’s approach to S S R because it has not had the expected transformative effect due to insecurity, insufficient resources, inadequate institutional and human capacity, and lack of an overarching strategic framework to guide reforms. As Spear (2003) argues, disarmament reform processes need to be context-specific, taking into account the state’s culture and the nature of the conflict. Despite the international community’s focus on disarmament, demobilization needed to be given greater priority right from the beginning of the SSR reform process in 2001. At the same time, completely disarming a society is not viable because demobilization can cause insecurity at the individual level of society, which is caused by the integration of ex-combatants back into society. Despite this, effectively reintegrating ex-combatants through land redistribution and employment initiatives is necessary to ensure sustainable peace in the long term (Thruelsen 2006).

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A persistent concern throughout the fourteen-year reform process was the ethnic composition of the A N A , which did not reflect the ethnic composition of the Afghan population. Creating an ethnically adjusted armed force was one of the key objectives of the preparation program. However, as an ethnic conflict was clearly part of the root of the Afghan civil war for decades, both the AN A and the AN P were unable to solve and overcome these ethnic tensions. Furthermore, the A N B P strongly encouraged the small business option of the reintegration package because it supported the development trajectory model prescribed by the U N D P and donors, namely the idea that development is the product of business and economics. However, only 30 to 40 per cent of ex-combatants’ small businesses survived in Afghanistan’s harsh economic climate (Rossi and Giustozzi 2006). A clear lesson learned then is that security and nation-building strategies designed without the local context in mind will be ineffective in the long term. For all these reasons the international community’s security assistance to Afghanistan was disappointing (Giustozzi and Ali 2016), no matter which indicator or measure one employed, and left the country in a deep political, economic, and security crisis. Others have attributed this failure in S S R reform to the securitization of the liberal peacebuilding project that had formed the basis for the international community’s engagement there (Chandler 2007, 2012). conclusion

We have seen from the discussion above that there was an inherent tension in the Afghan SSR/DDR reform program between successfully implementing SSR reforms for short-term security gains on the one hand and achieving long-term security sector reform objectives on the other hand. With regard to the D D R program, the Afghan New Beginnings Programme (A N B P ) that commenced with the Bonn Conference in 2001 clearly prioritized short-term security over the long-term goal of reforming the ANA or the ANP. International donors (including Canada) clearly assumed that providing security would lead to development. Moreover, the Afghan D D R reform process focused on successfully implementing and programming demobilization and disarmament initiatives, to the detriment of reintegrating ex-combatants and warlords back into Afghan society or successfully establishing an architecture of democratic security governance. Western

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donors, again including Canada, even partnered with often abusive warlords and their militias to actively pursue Al-Qaeda and the Taliban; sometimes they also “supported the installation of these warlords and their militias at high levels of the Afghan government” (Sopko 2016). But distinguishing between the police and the military services is the most important component for establishing democratic policing services. As Humphreys and Weinstein (2007), for example, note when analyzing the micro conditions that made reintegrating 1,000 ex-combatants possible in the aftermath of the civil war in Sierra Leone, a combatant’s past involvement in other militarized conflicts or military groups had a negative effect on their reintegration, along with how high a rank they had and how abusive the unit was in which they served. However, one of the hardest tasks of any multidimensional peace- and statebuilding operations has been the dissolution of military institutions and reintegrating ex-combatants. The SSR/DDR reform process at the level of the Afghan government was characterized by the local government’s very poor ability to offer security capacity or even to absorb a minimum of the security training that they were offered. It was evident that lower-level administrative services were weak and deficient, and the central government obviously lacked the political will to make difficult decisions (O E C D 2007, v). This was partly due to the widespread issue of corruption of government officials which clearly undermined the ability and effectiveness of the Afghan government to offer security services to its people.47 Moreover, as S I G A R noted in a lessons learned study in 2016, the international donor community did little to solve the issue of corruption. On the contrary, it contributed significantly to the problem and even accelerated it when the Afghan government and its institutions were unable to absorb the vast amounts of aid that donors sent to Afghanistan. The money flowed too fast, and there was very limited to no oversight as to where the money was spent and for what (S I G A R 2016c). At the implementation level, for the D D R program, the practice of reintegrating ex-combatants back into society and offering them an economic incentive, proved to be one of the key breaking points for the long-term success of those programs. Only if militias are disarmed, and successfully transferred back into a societal structure are they able to respect the authority of the state and thus contribute to its legitimacy and acceptance. On the latter aspect, the Afghan experience shows that security sector reforms, broadly speaking, go hand-in-hand

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with justice sector reforms, because security institutions are only successful if the criminals they catch are effectively prosecuted by the justice system. Only national ownership48 of S S R and D D R reforms can effectively increase the legitimacy of the indigenous state. In cases where violent conflict is ongoing (as was the case in Afghanistan for much of the time since around 2005) transitional justice programs may be a solution that allows special courts and truth commissions to be set up. The Afghan experience discussed above clearly underlines the need for coherent and coordinated donor approaches. Dividing responsibilities among NA T O members so that one state was responsible for police reforms, another for justice reforms et cetera had only limited success. An international organization independent of national and bilateral power politics and the continuous assessment of reform programs’ effectiveness and impacts are perhaps the best solutions to overcome this donor coordination problem. Overall, it was a bitter experience for the international donors involved with SSR and DDR reform programs. They realized too late that these programs are resource- and time-intensive, and thus require long-term rather than short-term perspectives. In addition, the recipient state must be capable of absorbing and accounting for the aid that it has received. That was clearly not the case in Afghanistan. Pooling donations for SSR and DDR reforms at the UN and World Bank level was clearly a clever idea because it encouraged integrated programming while preventing stove-piping and it promised to deliver more effective and efficient aid.49 Those organizations not only had experience with fragile states; they also had the necessary infrastructure in place and on-site to operate efficiently. Canada routed approximately 80 per cent of its funds through those international organizations. A clear lesson learned from the SS R and D D R reform process in Afghanistan is that both should be considered one reform process. However, it is difficult to make a clear and concise distinction between the two in fragile and conflict-affected states. Moreover, the usefulness of the distinction is questionable, because both share similar objectives, namely to consolidate the state’s monopoly of force so that state security forces are able to enforce the rule of law, and do that effectively. SSR and DDR programs should therefore be planned, resourced, and implemented jointly.

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7 The Fight for Women’s Rights

introduction

Women in Afghanistan have among the poorest living conditions in the world, and they have deteriorated considerably after three decades of protracted civil war (Farhoumand-Sims 2007). When international donors arrived in the early 2000s, Afghan women were found to experience a number of political, social, and cultural barriers, including reduced access to health care and maternal health services; lack of female health service providers; and physical violence, with a lack of enforcement laws (D F A T D 2013, 147; Stokes, Seritan, and Miller 2016, 818). These challenges disadvantaged women’s development and their ability to advance meaningfully in Afghan society. Women also experienced significant inequality vis-à-vis men, who are noted to be three times better off economically than women (measured in purchasing power per capita GDP ; DF AT D 2013, 145). Women also experience regular violations of their basic human rights. These are all indicators of women’s subordinate status in Afghan society, as well as a reflection of their structural disempowerment at the societal and political levels. It was therefore hardly surprising that a significant number of Western donors’ development aid projects were aimed at addressing a number of these needs and challenges. Along with other international partners, Canada has contributed to funding projects aimed at improving women’s access to and quality of education as well as literacy; improving their employment opportunities; supporting maternal, newborn, and child health; fighting sexual violence against women; increasing participation in all forms of political life and representation

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therein; and ending child and forced marriages (Morgan 2008; G AC 2014; Tsalikis 2016). Prime Minister Harper explained Canada’s justification in a speech to the Economic Club of New York on 20 September 2006, noting that “In Afghanistan and many other places, we go out in the world to do many other things: to promote men’s liberty, women’s rights and children’s education, to build roads and provide irrigation, to fight disease and protect the environment. We are striving to work with our democratic allies to advance our common interests and values.” However, women’s issues did not feature prominently at the beginning of Western development and programming, and Canada was no exception. It only started to concentrate its development efforts more on women issues starting in 2006 when women became a cross-cutting theme of specific Canadian projects. Since then, Canada’s efforts have grown steadily, overlapping significantly with other areas, including education, health, security, economic growth, and governance.1 As Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, reminded attendees of a conference in Kabul on “Islamic Police Women Contributing to a Secure Future” on 1 October 2007, “Afghan women are counted amongst the most vulnerable segments of Afghan society, being particularly susceptible to impacts of instability, abuse, violence, and poverty. In some regions of Afghanistan, they continue to face enormous social obstacles that exclude them from mainstream Afghan society, deny them opportunity, and deny them their basic human rights. They have a range of unique needs that we need to recognize and address.” Cabinet ministers reported that women in Afghanistan faced barriers to education, health care, and other necessary services, and that those conditions were expected to change with Canada’s help. A discourse analysis of speeches and reports from 2001 to 20122 – ninety-five speeches on Afghanistan by members of the Canadian government (e.g., the prime minister, cabinet ministers, deputy ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and senior bureaucrats) as well as forty-nine publicly issued government reports (e.g., the government’s quarterly reports to the House of Commons) – clearly show that women’s issues were an integral part of the government’s justification of its Afghanistan interventions. To address Afghan’s development and humanitarian needs it focused mostly on two groups in Afghan society: women and children (Zyla 2013). Indeed, the word “children” occurs 605 times in the speeches and 271 times in the reports; the

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term “humanitarian assistance” occurs 96 times in reports and 20 times in speeches. Clearly, the government’s concern, at least on the surface, was for women and children as well as other vulnerable minorities requiring Canada’s assistance. Government officials were strongly predisposed to providing humanitarian assistance, fostering development, and promoting deeply held beliefs in individual freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in Afghanistan as reasons for aiding Afghanistan. By repeatedly invoking these concepts, they created normative expectations that Canadians should help to improve the development of Afghan society. Thus, throughout its engagement in Afghanistan, the Canadian government felt an obligation to help improve women’s rights in Afghanistan, their access to health and education, and representation in government. Afghanistan had among the highest maternal mortality rates in the world,3 and the literacy rate of Afghan women, at 12.5 per cent, was one of the lowest in the world (compared with 39.3 per cent for Afghan men).4 Having framed these issues normatively as humanitarian assistance and maternal health issues, the Canadian government asked the House of Commons to justify the spending for aid programs that were aimed at addressing these development issues. Why was the gender aspect of Canadian development programs so important? Because roughly half of the Afghan population is female, and thus their rights need to be respected to maintain a legitimate, effective, and representative government. This aspect is also referred to in the fragile-states literature, especially with regard to questions of representation and legitimacy, as discussed in chapter 3. Legitimacy in the context of statebuilding is often coupled with the concept of effectiveness; both are argued to be essential elements for creating state stability (OE C D 2008). To recall, Jack Goldstone defines effectiveness as the state’s ability to meet the basic needs of society; legitimacy refers to citizens’ perception of the state’s actions as good and just (2008, 285). A state that is considered to be failing or failed is one that lacks both legitimacy and effectiveness. A lack of legitimacy can easily undermine effectiveness and vice versa. A state must reflect the population that it is seeking to represent, and women represent roughly half of the Afghan population. Should these institutions not be representative of a population’s diversity, some groups in a society may feel that their interests are not being met, which in turn undermines the legitimacy and, in the end, the stability of the state.

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h i s t o r i c a l c o n t e x t o f t h e s tat u s o f w o m e n i n   a f g h a n i s ta n

Early efforts to advance women’s rights in Afghanistan were introduced in the 1920s by King Amanullah in an attempt to modernize the country socially and economically, for example, by reforming the constitution, which made general references to gender equality and declaring education mandatory for all Afghans (Farhoumand-Sims 2007). In the 1950s and 1960s, Afghan women enjoyed many freedoms and rights as the country became more progressive and liberal, while also attempting to maintain respect and balance with conservative ideas and groups (Farhoumand-Sims 2007). Under the rule of both King Zahir Shah (reigned from 1933 to 1973) and Mohammed Daud Khan (prime minister from 1953 to 1963 and president from 1973 to 1978), the Afghan government’s social and economic development plans laid out progressive policies and initiatives, including improvements in the rights and status of Afghan women, and their employment opportunities (Government of Afghanistan 1967, 1976). However, most of these initiatives were concentrated in Kabul Province and urban areas. Following the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, the rights and status of women quickly began to deteriorate (Morgan 2008). The following decades were marked by civil wars, bloody coups, invasions, and occupations, ultimately undoing all the progress that had been made during the 1950s and 1960s. To this day, ongoing conflict and political instability have hindered Afghanistan’s ability to develop and progress, thereby exacerbating the plight of Afghan women. The differences between the realities of rural and urban women are significant. Rural women often face many more restrictions and rights abuses than men, including lower literacy rates, fewer economic opportunities, and limited access to health and legal services – although, as we will see below, some progress has been made (Farhoumand-Sims 2007; Morgan 2008; Tsalikis 2016). Challenges continue to persist as harmful practices such as forced and child marriages are still prevalent, although these practices are now widely condemned and criminalized (Tsalikis 2016). Cultural and systemic barriers, such as early marriages and a lack of female teachers, are the main obstacles for girls. Only 21 per cent of girls complete primary education (Strand 2015). Moreover, historical and

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cultural attitudes toward violence against women explain the low prosecution of violence against women (Stokes, Seritan, and Miller 2016, 818). The family structure, number of children, the attitude of the police, and the lack of access to health care professionals also negatively affect women’s rights and standing in Afghan society. From the beginning of Canada’s peacebuilding mission in 2001, its political leaders regularly asserted that gender equality was always a priority in Canada’s Afghanistan program. The strategic focus on gender equality increased gradually (D F AT D 2015). Many development projects with a focus on women and girls were in the education sector, but also covered the areas of human rights, health, political participation, vocational training, and agricultural development. Supporting women’s rights and leadership by engaging men, boys, and religious leaders along with women and girls is another essential factor for ensuring the sustainability of related aid programming and has been recommended and emphasized by both academics and policy makers (Bahri 2014; D F A T D 2015). At the same time, the international community’s efforts to advance women and gender equality in Afghanistan have been widely criticized, mainly for doing little to actually advance the status of women, for doing it unsustainably, and for allowing Afghan men to hold even more defensive and conservative positions, perhaps further preventing them from empowering women (Bahri 2014). fiscal outputs by the government of canada

For the projects that we were able to assess based on publicly available information, the Canadian government alone spent more than $189,656,833 on ways to improve the lives of women and tackling gender issues from 2001 to 2014.5 This represents roughly 17.4 per cent of the $1,089,431,839.25 worth of development projects that we were able to assess for this monograph.6 It is apparent from assessing the projects below that during the first time period, between 2001 and 2005, Canada paid very little attention to gender issues. Instead, it focused its development programming on broad sectors like education and health and generally enhancing the future of children and youth. The attention on women increased slightly from 2006 onwards by addressing women’s rights and gender equality, concluding with a fully fledged gender strategy7 from 2011 to 2014 (D F AT D 2013, 172) to improve gender equality in Afghanistan (focusing on women

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and girls), and to reduce people’s vulnerability by providing development assistance in the following issue areas: • • •

•

increase access to and the quality of education; improve the health of Afghan women, newborns, and children; protect and promote human rights, especially those of women and girls; and build the capacity of Afghan organizations to manage humanitarian assistance responses more effectively. Outputs between 2001 and 2005

On a global scale, it was in October 2000 when the U N Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, reaffirming the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, humanitarian responses, and post-conflict reconstruction. It also stressed the importance of women’s full and equal participation and involvement in all efforts to maintain and promote peace and security (UN 2000). It also urged donors to increase the participation of women and to incorporate gender perspectives in all U N peace and security efforts, and to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence in situations of armed conflict, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse (U N 2000). It was thus hardly surprising that Resolution 13258 and its goals were reflected in the international donor community’s peace- and statebuilding objectives in Afghanistan. Afghanistan itself became a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (C E D A W ) as well as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, making its government legally obliged to address issues of discrimination again women. Western donors, through various funding channels (in the case of Canada, mainly through C I D A ), funded a number of development projects with a particular focus on women’s issues and rights. To start with, there was C A R E Canada’s Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance program which had been operating in Kabul since 1997 in multiple phases (e.g., from 2004 to 2007 and 2008 to 2010). CARE’s self-reporting notes that they reached thousands of widows and directly supported hundreds in building self-sufficiency and generating incomes (O E C D 2007; G A C 2017a). The first $9 million of C I D A

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funding that was spent on this issue in Afghanistan was allocated to CARE to run the project from 2004 to 2007. The funds were designed to provide food assistance for up to 9,500 widows and their children (a total of 50,000 individuals) for eighteen months. The primary goal was to reduce malnutrition among children, and thus indirectly the prevalence of disease. A side goal was to improve the general health of women, as well as their hygiene and sanitation, knowledge about their own health, and health practices (Stokes, Seritan, and Miller 2016). Moreover, Skaine found that between 30 per cent and 90 per cent of women, depending on their location, could not access Afghan healthcare services (2008, 111). Another major project supported by Canadian development aid (CIDA) was Support to the Development of Free Media in Afghanistan (2003 to 2006). This $2.1 million project was run by the Institute for Media Policy and Civil Society, a non-governmental organization based in Vancouver, which aimed to increase women’s technical skills as well as the journalistic skills and to support the development of women’s media through community radio (OECD 2007, 38). A further objective was to contribute to the development of media legislation in Afghanistan, and to integrate Afghan journalists into the regional network of journalists in the larger region of South Asia. The project was expected to improve the capacity of women to broadcast radio programs and support community-based radio stations. The Women’s Rights in Afghanistan Fund (W R F A ), run by the Montreal-based N G O Rights and Democracy (R & D ) was given $1.52 million between 2004 and 2007. Though located at the intersection of improving Afghan human rights and the situation of women, the project was found to have very limited to no organizational development results, and its reporting was weak (Paterson 2006). CIDA was also the leading contributor among five other donors to the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) program. With more than $121 million spent between 2004 and 2012, CIDA shared roughly 47 per cent of the paid contributions from 2003 to 2006. The program was run through the ART F and managed by the World Bank. It was identified in the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (A N D S ) as key to the development of rural financial services and improving rural livelihoods. It thus responded to identified local needs and demands. As the title of the program suggests, its objective was to provide small loans and saving services to Afghans. At the national level, MISFA contributed to the economic

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development of Afghanistan, supporting the small- and mediumenterprise (SME) sector through fifteen commercial bank branches or service outlets in nine different provinces. Microfinance institutions (M F I s) operate under the legal framework of the central bank as deposit-taking financial institutions. As of the end of January 2010, there were 440 SME clients, with an average loan size of US$17,198. Outputs between 2005 and 2009 Canada’s strategy for the period from 2006 to 2008 aimed to support ANDS through statebuilding and stabilization measures, especially in Kandahar. Compared with the strategy in the earlier years, which aimed to support the efforts of the Afghan government more generally and to stabilize the country by extending the Afghan government’s reach to all areas of the country, in this new strategy Canada placed slightly more attention on gender equality. This included a strategic sector focus on enhancing the roles of women and girls in society and increasing women’s participation in decision-making, educating women on human rights, and reducing gender inequality in access to and control over resources (DF A T D 2015). The strategy was justified at the political level in the House of Commons. On 17 May 2006, for example, Josée Verner, the minister responsible for C I D A at the time, reminded Canadians that it was precisely these deep-seated beliefs in human rights and the rule of law that justified and called for Canada’s actions in Afghanistan: “We will continue to promote principles that reflect Canadian values we take pride in, such as respect for human rights, gender equality, freedom of speech and democracy.” On a different occasion Verner noted that “[the] promotion of liberty, democracy, the primacy of law, human rights and the rights of children, and equality between women and men are the principles that guide all of the Canadian government’s development activities. These principles reflect the values of Canadian society.” In 2007, Canada announced that it would launch its Action Plan for the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security through a whole-of-government approach that addresses the four key areas covered by Resolution 1325 (MacDonald 2008). This approach also included Canada’s commitment to reducing and ending impunity for all forms of violence against women and girls. The CI D A-funded projects that focused on women covered a variety of themes, including

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vocational training, agricultural development, education, reproductive health, and human rights. Three goals in particular were on Canada’s agenda from 2008 to 2011: to advance women’s equal participation as decision makers (especially in Afghan politics), ensure women’s access to and respect for their human rights, and to reduce gender inequalities in access and control over resources and benefits. More specifically, C I D A spent close to $4.4 million on the $5 million Through the Garden Gate project that ran from 2006 to 2013, which tried to better integrate women into the economy by creating networks among Afghan women (in rural northern communities) to grow vegetables as a way to feed their families, and sell the produce at local markets. The project was contracted to the Mennonite Development Associates of Canada (MDAC),9 and operated in Parwan Province just north of the city of Kabul with its multiethnic and mostly rural population of 631,600 people.10 M D A C tried to develop the skills of women farmers in nine villages with the aim of removing obstacles that women face in earning an income, and to teach them how to support themselves and their families by growing carrots, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and grapes to feed their families and then sell any excess to boost their incomes at local markets. The program also taught participants about the benefits of composting organic material and how to use it as fertilizer to increase crop yields, as well as how to store their produce. More than 2,300 women farmers participated in the horticulture and business training.11 Their annual incomes increased from US$100 on average to over US$860 on average, and they harvested more than 500,000 kilograms of vegetables per year.12 Another targeted program was the Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance program (Sept. 2008 to Sept. 2010), which CIDA supported with $1.324 million. The project was carried out by CARE . A similar program, Excel-erating Teacher Training, in Kabul was implemented and carried out by the Vancouver-based N G O Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WA). Its objective was to provide training for emerging in-service teachers, and to help them upgrade their pedagogical skills. The project was supported by CIDA with $650,000 between 2007 and 2011. The teachers were drawn from eighty-one schools in Kabul Province, most of which had more than 2,000 students. This project is discussed in more detail in chapter 9, the education chapter.

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C IDA also supported the Canadian N G O War Child Canada and its Afghan Women’s Community Support program (AW C) with close to $5 million, from November 2008 to March 2013. In teaming up with its local partner, the Afghanistan Women Council, War Child Canada’s goal was to help children in war-affected communities to reclaim their childhood through education, opportunities, and justice. This particular program targeted women in Kabul and Jalalabad. C IDA reported the following outputs as well as outcomes13 in June 2013 (they were not easily distinguishable and thus are reported together in this section (rather than the next on outcomes). To start with, 200 women were able to graduate from the vocational training program and successfully repaid the small loans they received to engage in income-generating activities.14 An additional 200 women were nearing completion of the vocational training program at the time of the evaluation. The women received training in vocational skills, microfinance, basic numeracy, literacy, health and hygiene, parenting, and more generally on women’s rights. They also received psychosocial support and counselling, including peer counselling through village organizations and steering committees. In a survey, 95 per cent of the participants reported that their overall psychosocial well-being had improved significantly and they felt hopeful for their future. In the preschool support program, 671 children were enrolled, receiving basic education and nutritional support and childcare. AWC staff received training through the Afghan Institute of Management and Training (AITM) on subjects such as project management, human rights, and financial management, as well as regular coaching, support, and advice from War Child Canada experts. In addition, the project built the institutional capacity of the A W C so that it could (for the short as well as long term) effectively contribute to the sustainable development of Afghanistan. The second phase of the project (starting in March 2011) extended to more neighbourhoods in Kabul and Jalalabad to be able to reach more women, as well as men, who were found, during the first phase of the project, in need of training on peacebuilding and conflict resolution, women’s rights, gender-based violence, and parenting. Canada supported a number of projects at the national level from 2005 to 2009. The largest of such projects was the $19 million Girls’ Primary Education Programme, one of the more successful and effective projects, which C I D A supported through the Bangladesh Rural

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Advancement Committee (B R A C ). Its aim was to improve access to and quality of education for girls. It was also asked to establish more than 4,000 schools in the country (jointly with the Afghan Ministry of Education). C I D A ’s strategy was logical and promised to be effective, given that BRAC had recognized experience in delivering primary education for girls elsewhere.15 The Ministry of Education was one of the country’s most effective ministries. Thus, CI D A’s decision to choose an experienced partner like B RAC was a sound one. At the end of the project, in December 2012, CI D A found that more than 4,600 community-based schools had been built, allowing a total of 144,329 students (84 per cent of them girls) a basic education. Nationwide, the number of schools had increased to 14,000 by 2013 (D F A T D 2013, 75). Moreover, with those funds, 221 Adolescent Reading Centers (A R C ) had also been created, with a total membership of 6,028 people. Of those ARC members, 2,166 received life-skills training, 1,591 livelihood training, and 1,000 vocational training. In addition, the program provided training for 5,885 Afghan school teachers, particularly in-service training to 857 government school teachers (368 of whom were female); subject-based training (English, math, chemistry, biology, and physics) to 4,744 (1,402 female) teachers, and education development training to 284 teachers. In addition, C I D A gave just short of $5 million to Rights & Democracy (R & D ) (June 2007 to January 2012) for a project called Rights in Practice – Women’s Rights and Family Law Reform. The project was able to develop the expertise of nascent women’s groups, and to create a space of discussion for them, as well as relevant Afghan ministries and local organizations, on critical areas of family law reform. R & D is a Women Living under Muslim Laws networking institution that believes that fostering and understanding laws from a women’s rights perspective is necessary for women to be successful in Afghan society. This project led to the emergence of a general debate on Afghan women’s rights in Islam (based on the experiences of other Muslim countries), and financially supported the establishment of a drafting committee for a new family law, the elimination of the violence against women law, and the revision of the Shiite Personal Status Law, all of which focus on supporting women’s rights. R & D also organized five annual international conferences to help Afghans learn from its experiences of promoting women’s rights in other Muslim countries, educated 180 community trainers from six provinces on women’s

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rights and legislation, and established five legal aid organizations from which more than 1,800 women and girls received support (in Herat, Kunduz, Balkh, Kabul, and Jalalabad). The context for these legal education programs resulted from the adoption of Afghanistan’s new constitution of 2004, which criminalized any violence against women (Jalal 2014), and included equality for both genders before the law. In 2009, the G oA also ratified the Elimination of Violence Against Women legislation (E V A W ) (Abirafeh 2009; Jalal and Silva 2014; Levine 2011), making all kinds of violence against women in Afghanistan illegal. However, one of the problems with implementing these laws and regulations was that they were not well translated into everyday lives (Jalal and Silva 2014). Jalal and Silva recite some findings from the 2011 U N A M A report stating that, based on 2,299 reported cases, “prosecutors in 28 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces opened cases in 26 per cent of an estimated 2,299 incidents, filed indictments in 7 per cent, with primary courts relying on the E VAW law as the basis of their judgments in 4 per cent of an estimated 2,299 incidents” (2014, 30). They also found that violence against women increased regardless of aid projects. On the one hand the increase in reporting could mean women were empowered; on the other hand, it could also mean that violence in all of its forms still existed in Afghanistan. Finally, the Women’s Fund was set up. CIDA supported thirty-nine civil society organizations that delivered sixty-four projects promoting women’s issues across the country and awarded grants to fifteen journalists to foster dialogue on women’s rights in print and radio. These grants were complemented by a broader radio awareness campaign that included roundtables on women’s legal protections with lawyers and religious scholars. This entire campaign was successful in achieving wide public outreach, particularly in remote Afghan districts. However, given that these projects were not officially evaluated, it is difficult to determine how successful they were over the long term. Another project that advanced women’s issues and rights was the Responsive Fund for the Advancement of Women (R F A W ), which cost more than $3.3 million and was carried out by C I D A ’s AsiaProgram Support Unit from August 2007 to October 2012. At the end of the project thirty initiatives were funded that supported the improvement of education for women and girls, vocational training for women, women’s leadership activities, and advocacy for women’s

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rights. Sub-projects supported the awareness of violence against women, women’s rights awareness, the development of shelters, and initiatives to support women’s leadership and participation in the political process. Particular projects included the Empowerment of Women Through Capacity Building, Job Assistance, and Networking; Candle and Soap Making Training; Empowerment of Women in the Medical Professions Through Vocational Training; Cotton Processing; Tailoring and Embroidery Training for Women; and Enabling Sustainable Livelihoods for Afghan War Widows.16 This project achieved many of its initial goals (DF AT D 2013, 160). U N Women, an official UN entity dedicated to gender equality, the empowerment of women, and accelerating their needs worldwide, received just short of $2 million from CIDA from July 2009 to March 2011. It financially supported female candidates for the 2009 elections in phase one of the project (including a campaign hotline, media research, and elections monitoring by women activists), and helped them to establish a network. The chart below (figure 7.1) shows the extent to which Afghan women were underrepresented in Afghanistan’s elected institutions. At the beginning of international development programming for Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002, there were no female M P s sitting in the respective Afghan parliaments. Funding to increase that ratio was thus clearly justified; the ratio changed slightly in the 2005 election when twenty-seven women were elected to office (27.3 per cent). What is noteworthy here is that since the start of the support to increase female representation in Afghanistan, more Afghan women have held seats in parliament than their counterparts in Europe or North America.17 Back to the U N Women’s program, fifty-nine female candidates from six central provinces attended and completed three days of campaign training at the UN Resource Centre for Women in Politics (RCWP), and seventy copies of the Campaign Toolkit were distributed to candidates who were unable to participate in the campaign training course. More than 170 female candidates took advantage of the oneon-one support provided by the R C WP to design and produce campaign materials. The campaign hotline assisted 320 callers between 20 July and 1 September 2009. In phase two of the project, resource centres were built in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, and Kandahar for female candidates in the 2010 parliamentary elections; a total of 150 women actually used

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35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 1 Afghanistan

2 Canada

3 Euro area

4 United States

5 World

Figure 7.1  Female representation in Afghanistan’s political institutions, 2001–17 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators; accessed 2 January 2019.

the resource centres during the pre-election period, and the centres printed 64,000 election posters for sixty-four female candidates running for office as well as 20,000 business cards for twenty female candidates (D F A T D 2013, 79). Similar to phase one, an election hotline was set up for 248 calls received from female voters, staff, and candidates. Election monitoring staff were trained to observe and assess the election processes from a gender perspective, and to store the information in an electronic database. In phase three of the project, UN Women ran two workshops for unsuccessful female candidates in the parliamentary elections, which included developing strategies for alternative employment options. The women’s resource centre was moved to the Afghan parliament, and UN Women supplied additional funds to refurbish and equip the room there. The National Democratic Institute (N D I ), a US “non-profit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government,”18 received just under $550,000 from

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July 2010 to June 2011 for the Women’s Political Participation at the National Level program. The following outcomes were found at the end of the project in the summer of 2011: the project’s campaign schools reached 248 women candidates from thirty-one provinces (or 62 per cent of all female candidates) during the 2010 Wolesi Jirga elections. Of the sixty-nine women elected to parliament, twenty-five women (or 36 per cent) attended the campaign schools. The project also organized a number of events to encourage unsuccessful political candidates to remain engaged in Afghanistan’s political process. The N D I also organized an orientation session for newly elected female parliamentarians, attended by thirty-five women from twentyfour provinces (51 per cent of all women parliamentarians). It was reported that participants’ knowledge of laws, regulations, and the rules of procedure for the Wolesi Jirga improved during the orientation program, even though it remained unclear how that progress was measured. Thirty-three participants of the orientation session were interviewed; twenty-seven of them noted that they felt prepared to fulfill their responsibilities as parliamentarians. It is noteworthy that the N D I had received an additional $5.7 million from 2014 to 2017 to support the meaningful participation of women in Afghan political life. However, this project falls outside the time period under investigation here. Last but not least, the smallest C I D A -supported project, with $350,000, went to U N I C E F ’s project, Maternal Waiting Home in Kandahar Province, from February 2007 to June 2010. Outputs between 2010 and 2014 During this period, Canada once again changed its strategy and decided to end its combat role and withdraw its troops. Meanwhile, its development focus shifted even more to women and young girls, and the Afghanistan Program’s first gender equality strategy was elaborated during this time. A thorough gender analysis commenced, also taking into account the fragility of Afghanistan and its institutions (DF A T D 2015). During the 2011 to 2014 period, the ultimate goal of Canada’s development program in Afghanistan was to meet the basic needs of women and young girls (DFATD 2015), specifically to increase their access to education; expand equitable and gendersensitive health services to mothers (discussed in the health chapter, chapter 8), babies and children; to improve health services to prevent,

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manage, and treat the leading causes of death; increase participation of women and their concerns in politics and other decision-making processes at all levels; and improve investigations on human rights violations, especially for women and girls (DFATD 2015, 72). Although this period also saw an increase in gender mainstreamed projects, because gender considerations had not been incorporated previously into project designs, and gender expertise in multilateral delivery channels was limited (including the World Bank and the U N ), gender equality results were limited (D F A T D 2015). The most advanced gender strategies were found in NGO projects, and there were “indications that these N G O s made use of substantial gender expertise” (DFA TD 2014, 54). Four main projects stood out. Most of them had been renewed from earlier projects between 2005 and 2009. We discuss them in descending order based on their total financial value. To start with, BRAC’s Community-Based Girls’ Education project, with a total value of $19.75 million, was renewed for a five-year term (December 2012 to June 2017). The objectives of the project remained nearly the same as they had been during the previous funding period (December 2006 to January 2013), and do not need to be repeated here. The project’s primary output was identifying and recruiting Community-Based Education (C B E ) teachers, particularly female ones, as well as establishing CBE classes for women and girls. This project is detailed further in the education chapter. The second-largest funded project, with a value of $5.7 million, Promoting Women’s Political Participation in Afghanistan, was run by the National Democratic Institute (N D I ) from February 2014 to March 2017. Once again, this was essentially a renewal of an earlier project by the NDI with similar objectives. In 2009, 2010, and 2014, the N DI organized campaign schools for female candidates running for office, with curricula tailored to address the challenges for Afghan women (e.g., how to build key campaign skills). The third largest project, the Afghanistan Knowledge Fund operated until April 2019, with $1.24 million provided by Global Affairs Canada. The money was disbursed for projects in Badakhshan, Balkh, Jawzjan, Nangahar, and Paktya provinces. One of the main outputs was the support for the research and preparation of an assessment of the Afghan National Action Plan for Women (N A P W A ) by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), which emphasized education, health, and women’s rights and participation in Afghan

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society. It focused on evaluating the current level of implementation of this plan, provided recommendations for a way forward, and was widely shared with donors as well as the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. NAPWA was designed with strong support from international donors (including Canada) as a national Afghan strategy to better the situation of women in Afghanistan and, more generally, to mainstream gender issues in the Afghan National Development Strategy (DFATD, 2013, 145). Institutional governance for these issues came from the Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs (M oWa),19 which was established as part of the Bonn Conference in 2001 to secure women’s rights in Afghanistan (Suhrke 2007; Fleschenberg 2010). N AP W A developed specific goals and objectives in several sectors, including security, governance, the rule of law, human rights, leadership, political participation, economy, health, and education (Ibid.). Outcomes With the Support to the Development of Free Media in Afghanistan (2003 to 2006) program run by the Institute for Media Policy and Civil Society, sixty radio programs were planned, but only thirty-four were actually produced, a success rate of 56 per cent. Moreover, more than seventy-five adults, primarily women, were trained in journalism techniques and practices. Approximately 56 per cent of them later worked for an Afghan media outlet after they had completed the program. The institute also managed to launch four radio stations and one newspaper. CIDA’s financial compliance unit visited the project in February 2004 and formally evaluated it in April and May 2005. Its report, released in September of that year, raised concerns about the financial management and records of the NGO (OECD 2007, 39), failing to provide adequate and appropriate capacity building in planning, technical assistance, and training so that these stations could become financially self-sustainable, and legal under Afghanistan law. It also didn’t understand what was required to have a fully sustainable radio station, besides its media product service, and the overhead costs for the project were determined to be high, because community radio programming and associated capacity development were generally cheaper than reported. Finally, the institute did not sufficiently use international best practices in community radio projects. In sum, this particular NGO did not have the relevant experience to work in a post-conflict country like

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Afghanistan, and performed poorly in its development of project designs, their implementation, and financial reporting. The Through the Garden Gate program, carried out by the Mennonite Development Associates of Canada, has improved overall food security for Afghan women and their families.20 In addition, women’s status in their household and their community has improved, and they have participated more freely in decision-making processes. Community Development Councils, which in Afghanistan are generally male-dominated, were included in the project implementation. The project facilitated private sector activities, in particular for female microfinance clients. The M I S F A program has benefited more than 300,000 people, 72 per cent of them women. It reached over 430,000 individuals across twenty-six of thirty-four provinces (from 2004 to 2010, 266,000 active loans were reported, with 72 per cent of borrowers women) with more than $70 million in outstanding loans. More than 1.5 million loans were disbursed, with an average loan slightly more than US$338; the initial target was 800,000 households by 2010. The cumulative repayment rate for the entire program cycle was 93 per cent; for the years 2004 to 2010 the repayment rate was slightly higher, at 98 per cent. The gender dimension of M I S F A was particularly important: women make up approximately 60 per cent of microfinance clients. The MFIs employed over 4,000 staff members, 38 per cent of them of whom were women. In addition, M I S F A provided microfinance training to more than 700 Afghans. Most of the loans helped women launch small businesses; of those loans, 98 per cent were repaid with interest. In that sense, Bev Oda, then the minister responsible for C I D A , was right when she reminded Canadians in  2006 of their government’s success in having “helped over 200,000 Afghans, 75 per cent of them women, to obtain small loans to start up their own micro-businesses or purchase tools or farm animals in order to meet their families’ needs” (CI D A 2006). MISFA was also very successful in establishing independent financial institutions that were essential for improving Afghans’ livelihoods and effective governance (OECD 2007, ix). Although on the one hand C IDA ’s investments were significant, they can be said to have been sustainable and showing a return, although the reach of the M F I s was limited beyond Kabul and other urban areas. The $1.33 million Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance programme (Sept. 2008 to Sept. 2010), managed by C A R E , allowed

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120 widows to generate an income through (improved) farming skills (produce and livestock). Moreover, twenty widows received training in animal farming, and became self-sufficient, generating their income through raising livestock. However, as data from the World Bank shows, the number of women from 2001 to 2014 employed in the agricultural sector as a share of the total labour force actually went down, from 86.25 per cent in 2001 to 72.61 per cent in 2014 (see figure 7.2). This is not necessarily a failure as other development projects may have provided more opportunities for women to work outside the agricultural sector. At the same time, the share of young girls between the ages of 15 and 23 who had joined the labour force and thus were economically active rose from 17.6 per cent in 2001 to 20.91 per cent in 2014.21 That share was 63.17 per cent and 64.56 per cent respectively, in Canada (International Labour Organization, I L O S T A T database). Although the data for other age groups is also available, the above shows that Western development programs targeting the improvement of access of women to the Afghan labour market had success, especially in this age category. Nine savings and credit groups were established, with ten to fifteen participants in each, and fifty-eight widows who were initially dependent on food rations provided through the program found employment; two of them obtained jobs with supervisory privileges. In total, 1,800 widows received food aid during this phase of the project. The main outcome of the Excel-erate Teacher Training Project by C W4WA was that a total of 1,542 teachers were trained, which represents roughly 10 per cent of all teachers in Kabul Province, and approximately 1 per cent of the country’s entire teacher population. A slight majority of those teacher trainees (51 per cent) were female. Although the reports on education initiatives generally describe progress in terms of the number of girls attending schools (Kissane 2012), the low level of participation in secondary schools is commonly pointed out (Cortright and Persinger 2011; Burridge, Payne, and Rahmani 2016). Both Kissane (2012) and Cortright and Persinger (2011) observe that one of the reasons for this is that many Taliban attacks were directed at girls’ schools, and/or female students. As a result, many families feared sending their children to school (Alvi-Aziz 2003; Hunt 2006; Kissane 2012; Deo 2014; Burridge, Payne and Rahmani 2016).

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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 % of total employment

% of female employment

% of male employment

Figure 7.2  Percentage of women employed in agriculture, 2000–14 Source: World Bank, Education Statistics, 2018. https://databank.worldbank.org/ data/source/education-statistics-^-all-indicators/.

The Responsive Fund for the Advancement of Women helped to enhance the economic status of women in their communities and enabled them to become self-sufficient and to enjoy a better quality of life. The fund contributed to reducing household and communitylevel poverty by increasing women’s access to training and financial resources. It thus indirectly reduced social and gender inequalities and empowered disadvantaged communities (D F A T D 2013, 160). The key results achieved include women’s increased access to resources and recognizing basic human needs. It is reasonable to assume that through the N D I ’s Women Participation at the National Level project, its participants benefited from the networking and training opportunity that it provided, learned from others, and collaborated with their male colleagues. Unfortunately, more detailed information on this project was not publicly available to assess its outcomes or impacts. (Preliminary) Long-term Impacts and Implications22 C IDA responded to the need for gender equality in Afghanistan by engaging in advocacy and policy dialogue with the GoA, and Afghan institutions in general, and until 2008 funded the U N D P to provide technical assistance for gender capacity building by focusing mainly

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on affirmative action. In short, C I DA focused on key local priorities noted in the National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan (N A PWA ), for education and health, as well as women’s rights and political participation. The fact that the Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program reiterated the need for a continued focus on gender mainstreaming,23 and improving adaptiveness and responsiveness to local contexts, including socio-cultural values and principles (DFATD 2015), indicates that insufficient progress has been made in this regard.24 The Summative Evaluation also noted that although mainly women-specific approaches have been used to address gender equality, only limited attention was paid to changing men’s behaviour and addressing deep-rooted cultural challenges (Ibid.). In assessing the projects discussed above it appears that their effectiveness varied significantly. The projects were more effective in increasing women’s access to resources and services (education and health) especially in urban areas, and having more women participating in public life, but less so for real improvements in the status and rights of Afghan women (Fleschenberg 2010; Manganaro and Alozie 2015; Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Report 2015). This requires a larger behavioural and cultural change that will take time to occur (DFA TD 2015). Moreover, about two-thirds of all projects that have undergone an official external evaluation did not show any gender results at all (Ibid.). One reason for this was the deteriorating security situation from 2008 onwards that jeopardized Canada’s efforts to improve the status of women (Morgan 2008), in spite of the fact that Canada had increased the number of its gender advisors serving as part of the Afghanistan Task Force (DFATD 2013, 169). A parliamentary report also expressed concern over Canada’s increasing military role at the time (Morgan 2008), and a one-size-fits-all approach for gender programming. Considering Afghanistan’s complex history and culture, and diverse multiethnic society, the realities and needs of Afghan women were not uniform but different and varied, based on ethnicity, religious denomination, income, education, geography, and location, among other factors (C A R E 2010; Jalal and Silva 2014). The division between modernists and traditionalists led to a polarization and insecurity among Afghan women, a division that further placed women’s rights at risk. Last but not least is the significant pushback of Afghan men themselves, as well as the enduring violence of the insurgency, especially after 2005. For example, although the

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numbers of the M I S F A program clearly show that the majority of women took advantage of it, there was also evidence that some of them were sent by their husbands (D F AT D 2013, 162). Nourpanah (2013) highlights that the violence against women in Afghanistan is culturally related – violations of women’s rights and violence against women are justified under cultural norms and traditions (Nourpanah 2013, 357), thus the aid programs should have confronted the cultural and religious traditions that place women in subordinate positions in Afghan society (Manganaro and Alozie, 2015). Furthermore, AbuLughod (2013) reminds us that these cultural predispositions normalize violence against women. The oppression of Muslim women was regularly used to justify the intervention (Farhoumand-Sims 2007; Butler 2009; Persinger 2010), which in turn led observers to blame the culture for the abuses (Abu-Lughod 2013, 91). It is therefore hardly surprising that in assessing the effectiveness of Western development projects in Afghanistan, Suhrke (2007) finds that developing and modernizing Afghanistan had mainly negative effects for Afghans and created tensions in Afghan society. In assessing the long-term impact of Canada’s development projects in a bit more detail, N D I ’s project to increase the participation of women in provincial politics received mixed results (table 7.1). In fact, though Afghan women’s electoral participation increased only slightly, from 37 per cent in the 2004 presidential election to 39 per cent in 2009, the number of female candidates running for president doubled, and female candidates running for office in the parliamentary and provincial elections increased by roughly 50 per cent. There was also “no evidence of a higher electoral success rate among project beneficiaries” (DFATD 2013, 160); the same applied to United Nations Development Fund for Women’s (U N I F E M ) project on Women as Decision Makers. More specifically, considering the data from the World Bank (Gender Statistics) for the years 2001 to 2014, as shown in figure 7.3, it is evident that in spite of all the international efforts, which helped to get 27.3 per cent of women elected as members of the lower and upper houses of parliament, that rate remained almost constant for the entire time period, rising only slightly to 27.7 per cent from 2007 onwards. What this statistic seems to indicate is that international development programs targeting women and aiming to increase the percentage of women being elected to parliament were successful, especially in the earlier years of the intervention. However, it stagnated

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Table 7.1 Electoral participation of Afghan women, 2004–10

Election 2004 presidential 2005 provincial council 2005 parliamentary 2009 presidential 2009 provincial council 2010 parliamentary

Total voters (in millions)

Ex-quota Percentage female of female Total Female voters) candidates candidates candidates

7.3 6.4

37 41

18 3,025

1 247

0 24

6.4

41

2,775

335

19

5.9 5.9

39 39

39 3,196

2 328

0 20

4.2

39

2,577

406

18

Source: “Getting the Grade? Lessons Learnt on Women’s Participation in the 2010 Afghan Parliamentary Elections” (Kabul: IEC Gender Unit, 2010).

about halfway through 2007 and did not reach the point where it was equal to the share of Afghan women among the entire population, which was slightly over 48 per cent for the years 2001 to 2014, on par with the world average (World Bank Human Development Index 2019). In other words, women remained underrepresented in the Afghan parliament (both upper and lower houses) despite targeted Canadian development investments. Moreover, only 10 per cent of women were appointed to ministerial-level or equivalent positions (including deputy prime ministers).25 That number is two (in 2005) to three times (in 2014) higher in Canada. In sum, the numbers seem to contradict the literature that notes that women’s participation in all aspects of the Afghan political life has increased (Fleschenberg 2010), despite the dangers of physical insecurity for women running for office. Moreover, having female politicians does not automatically equal pro-women initiatives or programs due to ethnic and political differences that can cause fierce competition among women (Ibid., 354). However, the data shows a higher percentage of women holding seats in the upper and lower houses compared with Western countries, including Canada. Over the same time period (2001 to 2014) the share of women elected to Parliament in Canada dropped from 20.6 per cent in 2001 to 15.1 per cent in 2014; in the US it increased

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30 25 20 15 10 5 0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Afghanistan

Canada

United States

World

European Union

Figure 7.3  Comparison of percentage of seats held by women in national ­parliaments, 2001–14 Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). www.ipu.org; accessed 20 December 2018.

from 14 per cent in 2001 to 19.03 per cent in 2014. Thus, compared with the rest of the world, Canada, and the US, rank below Afghanistan. MISFA was a successful program and helped to improve the lives of women substantially and sustainably because women have comprised the majority of microfinance borrowers (around 60 per cent of all applicants). There was also a reported increase of access to services for women (DFATD 2013, 161). At the same time, it remains unclear whether all of these funds have indeed benefited women, as some reports noted that men had sent their wives to collect the money for their own gains. Moreover, Afghanistan clearly lacked the absorptive capacity of the M I S F A projects, and the potential market size clearly was overly optimistic (D F A T D 2013, 76). The number of clients of M F I s dropped from 435,442 in 2010 to 86,710 in 2013 and thus missed its initial goal of reaching 1 million clients. At the same time the target was to set up fifteen MFIs, and sixteen had been created by the end of 2013. According to the official evaluation of Canada’s development programming in Afghanistan, CARE’s Kabul Widows’ program increased women’s financial self-reliance, as well as their political, economic, and social participation in Afghan society (D F A T D 2013, 162). It also alleviated the suffering of thousands of widows and their families and promoted the basic human rights of women and girls throughout

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the country. In that sense, the program transformed itself from centring on food aid to empowering women, especially through human rights training. However, data from the World Bank suggests a slightly different picture, that, based on modelling by the International Labour Organization (I L O ), the number of self-employed workers, defined as those working on their own account or with one or a few partners or in cooperative (e.g., “self-employment” jobs), actually dropped 14 percentage points from 80.78 per cent in 2001 to 66.64 per cent in 2014 (figure 7.4). Self-employed workers include three sub-categories of employers, namely own-account workers, members of producers’ cooperatives, and contributing family workers. The percentage of self-employed men and women differs only slightly over this period with a 2 to 5 per cent higher rate for women. While this is clearly an indicator that fewer Afghan workers were self-employed over this time period, and thus at least some of the C I D A -funded development programs seem to have missed their objective, there is no exact data showing how many women successfully made a transition from being self-employed to being employed full-time with an employer. A few other trends are worth pointing out in this data from the World Bank. First, we have already noted above that from 2001 to 2014 the percentage of women as a share of the total labour force working in the agricultural sector went down by roughly 14 per cent. Over the same time period the percentage of individuals (men and women) working in the industry rose from 5.88 per cent in 2001 to 6.49 per cent in 2014; the number of women working in this sector dropped from 6.63 per cent in 2001 to 5.49 per cent in 2014. The biggest increase of workers, however, can be seen in the service sector (figure 7.5). The size of the service sector more than doubled, from 14.95 per cent of the total labour force (16.14 per cent male; 7.1 per cent female) in 2001 to 31.88 per cent in 2014 (33.67 per cent male; 21.91 per cent female) when Canada left Afghanistan. This suggests that the percentage of workers employed in the agricultural sector declined, and significantly increased in the service industry, which was not the primary target of Canadian development programming in the first place. A second issue touches upon women’s empowerment in general, and more specifically developing women’s entrepreneurship beyond generating a basic income. Data from the World Bank underlines this

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The Fight for Women’s Rights 189 90 80

Percentage

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year Afghanistan Canada United States European Union

Figure 7.4  Percentage of self-employed (of total employment), 2001–14 Source: World Bank Development Indicators, 2018. https://databank.worldbank. org/data/source/.

point and reveals that from 2001 to 2014 the percentage of unemployed Afghan women, calculated as a percentage of the female labour force, dropped only slightly, from 14.66 per cent in 2001 to 13.29 per cent in 2014 (figure 7.6). This is thus roughly twice as high as in Canada (2001 to 2014), and more than twice as high compared with the world average. Over the same period Afghanistan’s total unemployment rate (male and female combined) dropped by almost 50 per cent, from 11.58 per cent in 2001 to 6.7 per cent in 2009 and 8.71 per cent in 2014. However, this data from the World Bank needs to be digested with caution. Although on the one hand it is easy to attribute the decline to the effectiveness and impact of Western development programs for men, a large percentage of the Afghan economy is what economists call an “underground economy” – one that operates in the shadows and outside of government structures, employing people illegally and paying them under the table. Naturally, these individuals are not considered part of the regular labour force. Another cautionary note is that the numbers are based on modelling by the International Labour Organization (ILO), because the data collected by the Afghan government was unreliable or not trustworthy. This is a recurring concern in Afghanistan, making public policy planning difficult. What is also noteworthy is that very few of the CI D A-funded projects, including those carried out by U N I C E F , had an explicit or

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90 80

Percentage

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Year

Agriculture

Industry

Services

Figure 7.5  Percentage of labour force by sector, 2000–14 Source: World Bank, Employment Statistics, 2018. https://databank.worldbank.org/ data/source/employment-statistics-^-all-indicators/. 18 16

Percentage

14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year Afghanistan

Canada

United States

European Union

World

Figure 7.6  Percentage of female unemployment (% of female labour force), 2001–14 Source: World Bank, Employment Statistics, 2018. https://databank.worldbank.org/ data/source/employment-statistics-^-all-indicators/.

exclusive Kandahar focus.26 This was rather surprising given that the Manley Report called for more development aid to be channelled to Kandahar Province. At the national level, statistics clearly indicate that Western development programs, including Canada’s, were successful. Although it is nearly impossible to attribute an exact percentage of their success to sustainably developing Afghanistan, a few statistics (see figure 7.7) indicate that Afghan lives and living conditions have improved since the intervention began in 2001. One of the key priorities of Canadian programming (through CIDA) was to help

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The Fight for Women’s Rights 191 7,000,000

Number of pupils

6,000,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000,000 2,000,000 1,000,000 0

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year

Figure 7.7  Number of pupils in primary education, 2001–14 Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, Education 2018. https://­databank.worldbank.org/data/source/.

the Government of Afghanistan improve young children’s (especially girls’) access to primary education. According to the World Bank, enrollment of all children who were officially registered in a given educational program, stage or module, is measured, regardless of age. Again, based on World Bank data, the number of students (male and female combined) enrolled in Afghanistan’s educational system (enrollments in public and private schools) rose dramatically from 773,623 students in 2001 to more than 6.21 million students in 2014. Eight times more students went to school in 2014 than in 2001 (World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2018). This can be counted as a success. The biggest increase was registered in the earlier years between 2001 and 2004; after 2005 the increase was less significant. This trend can be explained by the low numbers of students enrolled in the educational system. A flattening out of that rate was thus a “natural” occurrence. When zooming in on the number of female students at the primaryschool level enjoying access to primary education, the growth line is even higher (figure 7.8). Considering the share of girls getting a primary education allows us to assess the gender composition in school enrollment. For example, in 2001 no young girls were receiving a primary education. By 2014 this number had risen exponentially, up by 3,995 per cent. The World Bank calculates the percentage of female enrollment by dividing the total number of female students at a given level of

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4 500% 4 000%

Percentage

3 500% 3 000% 2 500% 2 000% 1 500% 1 000% 500% 0%

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year

Figure 7.8  Percentage of female pupils in primary education, 2001–14 Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, Education 2018. https://­databank.worldbank.org/data/source.

education to the total enrollment at the same level, multiplied by 100. The data is based on U N E S C O statistics collected from official responses to its annual education survey.27 However, the number of students enrolled in the Afghan school system is not the only significant number. Most important in terms of impact, above all, is how many actually completed their diploma, so we need to consider girls’ gross graduation rate. Primary completion rate is the percentage of students completing the last year of primary school, which UNESCO calculates by taking the total number of completers in the last grade of primary school and dividing it by the total number of children of official graduation age. Data for the years 2001 to 2007 is not available for Afghanistan. However, the graduation rate of young girls in Afghanistan in 2008 was 43.9 per cent, and rose to 47.39 per cent in 2014 (World Bank, Gender Statistics, 22 October 2018), which means that slightly more than 50 per cent of girls were unable to finish their diploma or dropped out of school for some reason (in Canada that rate was around 3 per cent). This means that the aid programs undoubtedly had an impact, but not an extraordinary one or one that was initially expected. However, it is worthwhile separating the data and focusing a bit more on age categories, especially for women with no education. Table 7.2 shows the percentage of the female Afghan population in different age categories with no education. Although the numbers went down or stagnated for all age categories, the percentage of

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Table 7.2 Percentage of female population in various age groups with no education

Age

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

15–19 20–24 25+ 25–29 30–34 35–39 40–44 45–49 50–54 55–59 60–64 65–69 70–74 75+

82.68 69.62 88.68 83.03 84.89 85.39 88.19 89.5 94.8 94.8 98.6 98.6 99.38 99.48

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

2011 2012 2013 2014

59.18 77.56 84.35 69.62 83.03 84.89 85.39 88.19 89.5 94.8 94.8 98.6 98.55 99.4

Source: World Bank, Education Statistics, 2018. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/ education-statistics-^-all-indicators/.

women between the ages of 20 and 24 who did not receive a formal education increased. What this suggests is that international development programming in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014 targeting the improvement of access to education for young students (especially young girls) was successful. But, based on the statistics above, it was only successful, it seems, for a certain age group, namely female students attending primary schools and those receiving a secondary education between the ages of 15 and 19). Their rate of access to education dropped from 82.68 per cent to 59.18 per cent. All other age categories more or less stagnated. In spite of the difficulties in collecting primary data, the percentage of female teachers also rose from none in 2001 to 31 per cent in 2013 (DFATD 2013, 156),28 and many more female student teachers were in the system to be trained. At least on the surface, this can be seen as an improvement. In addition, more than 220,000 students enrolled in Community-Based Education (CBE) programs; 50 per cent of those students were female. Similarly, C I D A -contracted N G O s reported having reached 6,028 students in the school reading centres (through BRAC), 8,000 through the Aga Khan Foundation, and 12,720 through

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UNICEF 29 (DFATD 2013, 76; 156), and more than 4,600 communitybased schools were established, providing basic education to a total of 144,329 students (84 per cent girls). C IDA projects also helped to improve maternal health services in Afghanistan. Even though it is difficult to attribute exact causality to which programs (if any) were successful in Afghanistan due to Canadian aid, data on Afghans’ life expectancy shows a clear improvement (figure 7.9). For example, van Egmond et al. (2004) show that Afghan women’s knowledge of reproductive health is very poor, and it gets poorer with their location –the further away women are from urban areas the worse it gets (World Bank data, Human Development Index 2019). The life expectancy of Afghans in 1990 was 49.8 years. It improved to 62.8 years in 2014. In comparison, Canadian’s life expectancy for the same time period was 55.5 per cent higher, 77.4 years in 1990, and 81.9 in 2014 (30.4 per cent longer). Zooming in on women in particular (thus excluding men in the life-expectancy analysis), the picture gets even worse (figure 7.10). Indeed, the life expectancy of Afghan women was always higher than that of their male counterparts, but only slightly, a difference of a few months. For example, in 1990 women were expected to live 50.9 years on average compared with 49.8 years for men. Several factors contribute to this high mortality rate. We will highlight a short selection here. Afghan women’s childbearing behaviours, inadequate health care, pregnancies at a young age, lack of female health professionals, and deficient knowledge of maternal health issues in general are considered perhaps the most important contributing factors to female health problems in Afghanistan, and thus affect maternal health (Wang 2014). Above all, there remains a significant gender imbalance among Afghan health care professionals (Winthrop 2003). Indeed, “gender segregation is a strict norm, and the country needs female professionals to meet the needs of its girls and women” (Winthrop 2003, 249). Maternal health is thus unachievable without gender equality (Östlin et al. 2011). Second, in rural areas, women’s access to health care services is further hindered by environmental and structural problems (Ibid., 250). Garwood, for example, points out how tribal customs in rural areas forbid women from being visited or taken care of by male health care providers (2006, 846). Third, even economically privileged

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The Fight for Women’s Rights 195 90 80 70

Lifespan

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1990

2000

2008

Afghanistan

2009

Canada

2010 Year

United States

2011

2012

2013

European Union

2014

World

Figure 7.9  Life expectancy at birth, men and women, 1990–2014 Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2018. https://databank.­ worldbank.org/data/source/.

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

1990

2000

2001

2002

Afghanistan

2003

2004

Canada

2005

2006

2007

United States

2008

2009

2010

2011

European Union

2012

2013

2014

World

Figure 7.10  Female life expectancy at birth, 1990–2014 Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, Education 2018. https://­databank.worldbank.org/data/source/.

Afghan women have a deficient knowledge of reproductive health issues, and thus van Egmond et al. conclude that “formal schooling appear[s] … to be the strongest determinant for the use of reproductive-health services” (2004, 279). As a result, it is not surprising that the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan is very high (Cortright and Persinger 2011).

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conclusion

When drawing a conclusion on assessing Canada’s programming on women and gender in Afghanistan it is important to remind ourselves of the scope and objectives of this analysis. To start with, Canadian aid was deeply embedded in the Western aid schema and often channelled through N G O s or international organizations. On the one hand, this allowed Canadian tax dollars to be spent more efficiently and perhaps more effectively on helping Afghans to improve their lives. On the other hand, it was precisely these contracted organizations that were responsible for the reporting on project outputs, outcomes, and even impacts. CIDA was often unable to verify the results that these projects had promised, nor did it keep appropriate data on each of the projects. We were thus only able to assess a fraction of the development programs on women and gender based on publicly available data and information with a total volume of $189 million from 2001 to 2014. This, however, is only a fraction of the $20 billion in total that Canada’s entire Afghanistan portfolio cost Canadian taxpayers, according to former minister of defence Bill Graham (Graham 2015, 50)30 – the sum of all of its development programming of all sectors and issue areas in Afghanistan combined (including the military) expenses – and the $2.3 billion of Canada’s total allocation of development aid to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2013, of which C I D A spent $1.9 billion (D F A T D 2013, 34). What has become apparent from this analysis is that women and gender issues were indeed important for Canadian programming, at least politically. Politicians of all political colours constantly reminded Canadians of the need to support the women and gender programming, which was primarily coordinated by C I D A . At the same time, it was also evident that in spite of the political talk, this priority was not reflected in actual Canadian development programming until 2006, about five years after the intervention had begun. Moreover, we highlighted that Canada’s priorities and objectives for women and gender issues had changed a number of times during that period, making political planning and governance difficult. The general objective of Canadian programming from 2001 to 2004 was to stabilize the country, extend the authority of the government to all provinces, and to improve the well-being of Afghans.31 The new strategy of 2006 was implemented to support Afghanistan’s National Development

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The Fight for Women’s Rights 197

Strategy (A N D S ),32 and focused on statebuilding and stabilization, with a particular focus on Kandahar. The strategy from 2011 to 2014 then shifted the emphasis again, to helping vulnerable Afghans, especially women and young girls, and fostering their education and human rights. Notwithstanding these strategic shifts, Canada’s women and gender programming was able to not only produce the outputs documented above, but more important, the outcomes and impacts. One of the most notable outcomes is that between 2001 and 2014 close to 6 million students were able to attend primary schools (table 7.3). This number is in stark contrast to 2001 when Afghan girls were not allowed to attend schools. Their enrollment skyrocketed by nearly 4,000 per cent. Moreover, of the 158,000 teachers in Afghanistan 29 per cent were women, an increase from 2002 to 2014 of 21,000 teachers. At the same time, however, it needs to be pointed out that since 2007 Canadian aid had not targeted adult literacy or vocational training (DFATD 2013, 76), hence our assessment did not identify the positive impact in this regard. In addition to considering the positive outcomes and impacts, our assessment also revealed that many gaps and challenges remained, especially in improving transparency, accountability, and overall reporting on Canadian aid programs. Above all, women and young girls in Afghanistan continue to face tremendous challenges in spite of all the aid programs (including Canada’s). The indicators measuring their health, education, economic well-being, and human rights remain among the lowest in the world. For example, first we witnessed a large gender gap in women’s economic participation in Afghanistan’s labour market and in considering women a group of “vulnerable” individuals in the aid program. One of the obstacles for women was the fact that in Afghan society men continue to be the primary breadwinners, whereas women concentrate on managing the home and raising the children. This labour split prevents women from participating in the labour market (reflected in their relatively low participation rate in the labour force). Second, conservative gender relations coupled with traditional beliefs about the role of women in Afghan society mean that women must work much harder than men to prove themselves in their parliamentary roles. Although the number of women winning seats in the Afghan parliament increased significantly from none to 27.3 per cent in 2005, most of that success is the result of a new fixed quota

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Table 7.3 Pupils with access to primary education, 2009–14

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Primary education, 4,945,632 5,279,326 5,291,624 5,767,543 5,986,268 6,217,756 all pupils Primary education, 3,857 3,934 4,047 4,071 4,011 3,995 pupils (% female) (1%) (1%) (6%) (6%) (1%) (8%) Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators, Education 2018. https://databank. worldbank.org/data/source.

that reserves seats for women in those elections. For example, in the election of the lower House in 2005, Afghans elected sixty-nine women as M P s, and sixty-eight of those seats were reserved for women to start with. One can therefore reasonably question the impact and sustainability of Canadian aid projects that not only aimed to increase the percentage of women being elected to parliament, but also aimed to build a network among female candidates and elected M P s. This brings us to the next point, which is that precisely those (support) networks that were being funded did not produce the expected results to outperform the patronage networks of men and thus to increase women’s influence in Afghan politics. Moreover, the active participation of women in Afghan public life and the larger goals of statebuilding and conflict resolution were threatened by a deadly insurgency, political volatility, and fragmentation in Afghan society. In short, the participation of women in political and electoral processes was not fully realized. w h at w e r e

(some)

c o n t r i b u t i n g fa c t o r s ?

One of the key variables explaining these rather mediocre outcomes and impacts of Canadian aid programming targeting women and young girls is that those projects were often removed from the reality and the context on the ground. The result was underperforming or even irrelevant and ineffective projects that yielded little long-term sustainable results for Afghan women. Only since 2006 and then more focused since 2008 has there been a recognition of the importance of the participation in and support for women’s rights and leadership by men and religious leaders. This is essential for behavioural changes in men to occur, and to work to ensure sustainable progress. This is something that was largely absent in gender equality programming

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in the earlier years. Although gains were made in increased access to services for women, little sustainable progress was made in gender equality and the status of women in Afghanistan. Moreover, Afghanistan’s deteriorating domestic security situation and an increase of deadly violent attacks carried out by insurgents, often also against Afghans, negatively impacted Afghan women’s ability to enjoy and access the very basic rights and opportunities that were enshrined in international treaties and resolutions (FarhoumandSims 2007). Third, especially in the earlier years of the intervention until approximately 2006 Canada’s aid programming concentrated primarily on nationwide projects. While it is important to have nationwide initiatives, the majority of these projects usually failed to transform the everyday lives of Afghan women and were largely ungovernable due to the high number of donors. In other words, they mostly yielded short-term outputs, but very few outcomes or even impacts. Fourth, it is apparent that international donors (including Canada) did not conceive of women as essential stakeholders of the postconflict reconstruction process. Although roughly 50 per cent of Afghans are female, they were not seen as being part of the conflict and thus of its resolution. This goes back to a lack of understanding of the context of the Canadian Afghan mission we alluded to in the introduction. Women’s issues and experiences with conflict are often seen as secondary issues that can be dealt with after the reconstruction phase had ended rather than being an integral part of the reconstruction process itself. In sum, we can therefore note that Canadian programming was more effective in providing women access to resources and services (education and health in particular), and less effective in bringing about real improvements to their status and rights. One thus leaves the assessment of Canada’s aid programming on women and gender issues wondering if the relatively minimal long-term impact justified the significant investments that the government made, as well as, on the normative level, whether the inclusion of women in Afghanistan’s post-conflict reconstruction processes and institutions was simply a Western-liberal ideal that, as Oliver Roy suggests, was not something that Afghans themselves appeared to see as legitimate.33

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8 Doing Health Development Right

introduction

After the ousting of the Taliban in 2001, the challenge facing the Ministry of Public Health (M oP H ) of the new Afghan Interim Authority could not be overstated. Afghanistan’s health system was devastated after decades of war and had some of the world’s worst health indicators. The maternal mortality ratio was estimated at 1,600 per 100,000 live births, one of the worst ratios ever recorded (Bartlett et al. 2005). Infant and child mortality rates were the fourth highest in the world at 165 and 257 per 1,000 live births. Less than 10 per cent of the population in 2001 had access to health services, defined as living within a one-hour walk of a health facility (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2008). Afghanistan’s health situation is not unique. Countries coming out of conflict are often marked by significantly damaged infrastructure, limited human capital due to a “brain drain,” weak stewardship, and a proliferation of N G O s to help fill service gaps (Roberts, Guy, Sondorp, and Lee-Jones 2008). However, from these grim beginnings, Afghanistan’s improvement in the health sector since 2003 has been exemplary (see table 8.1). Improvements can be found in the increase in functioning health facilities; the increase in female health practitioners (from 22 per cent to 87 per cent); reduced maternal, child, and infant mortality rates; and a decrease in communicable diseases, particularly measles and polio (World Bank 2017). Health programming in Afghanistan has been one of the strongest development sectors, with strong commitment from both international donors and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

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Table 8.1 Progress against selected key health indicators for Afghanistan, 2003–10

Indicator

2003

2006

2008

2010

Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) Under 5 mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) Prenatal care coverage Deliveries by skilled birth attendants Full immunization coverage Access to health services (within 1 or 2 hours, using normal modes of transport)

  165

129

111

 77

  257

194

161

 97

1,600

N/A

N/A

372

16% 32% 62% 68% 14% 19% 24% 34% 15% 27% 37% N/A 90% 85% 9% (distance 66% (goal in hours not (within (within 2 hours) 1 hour) achieved) specified)

Source: Adapted from Rahimza, Mirwais et al. (2013). Afghanistan’s national strategy for improving quality in health care. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 25 (3): 270–6, 271.

o v e r v i e w o f h e a lt h s e r v i c e s i n a f g h a n i s ta n

Previously, during Taliban rule, the majority of health care was delivered by NGOs, with minimal central coordination and access to remote areas (GIRoA 2011). What little health services there were were primarily located in urban areas, leaving many rural and other insecure areas either unserved or underserved. Taliban rule was particularly devastating for women’s health care due to their campaign of systematic oppression against women, issuing edicts that prohibited women from working or leaving the home without permission from a male relative. The Taliban also began enforcing a policy that segregated male and female patients into different hospitals. In 1997, of the twenty-two hospitals in Kabul, the only medical facility that permitted women contained only thirty-five patient beds and had no clean water, electricity, or other essentials needed to provide minimum health care (Dubitsky 1999). Maternal and child health were particularly hard hit. It is estimated that only 10 per cent of women had access to maternal medical services (Ibid., 2). Health care for women reached a state of crisis with few female physicians to treat women, restrictions on mobility, restrictions on male doctors’ ability to diagnose and treat women due to prohibitions on male-female contact, and the Taliban halting programs to train more female care providers (Physicians for Human Rights 1999).

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With the ousting of the Taliban, the G oA , with support from donors, decided to take on more of a stewardship role for health. After the transitional government was established in 2002, the MoP H convened the Consultative Group on Health and Nutrition, which came to an early agreement with international donors to conduct a joint mission on health and nutrition. However, during these early years, health development programming lacked coordination and largely came in the form of humanitarian assistance and emergency aid (C I DA 2014). In 2003, the MoP H developed the Basic Package of Health Services (BP H S), which was mainly contracted to NG Os for delivery. As stated by the MoP H , “[T]he goal in developing the BP H S was to provide a standardized package of basic services that form the core of service delivery in all health care facilities” (MoP H 2005, 1). This initiative had positive impacts on a number of health indicators, including maternal mortality, infant and under-five mortality, increased access to services, and increased immunization coverage. Based on these results the BP H S was revised in 2005 and 2010. Another important initiative, the Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS), was introduced in 2006. EPHS focused on improving hospital facilities and equipment, staff training and development, and enhancing the referrals between different levels of the health system and had a particular focus on reducing maternal and under-five mortality rates (CIDA 2014). Following these initial and largely successful efforts at rebuilding the health sector, the M oP H began to release more comprehensive and competent health strategies, plans, and guidelines (see table 8.2). In 2011, building off previous strategies and successes, the MoP H released its most comprehensive nationwide strategic plan titled Ministry of Public Health Strategic Plan, 2011–2015, an attempt to create a more consolidated effort to improved international donor coordination and more focused project-level initiatives to accelerate improvement in the health sector. This was followed by the National Health Priority Program Health for All Afghans (HAA) (2012) which was developed after a year of extensive consultations at the MoP H with donor and development partners. The H A A was an “Afghanowned implementation plan” for the Public Health Strategic Plan 2011–2015, and was meant to provide “partners in health development an opportunity to coordinate and harmonize efforts and align

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Table 8.2 Sampling of M oP H health sector strategies and plans, 2003–13

Year

Health Sector Policies, Strategies, and Plans

2003 2005 2008 2008 2009 2011 2012 2012 2012 2012 2013

National Reproductive Health Strategy, 2003–05 National Health Policy and Strategy, 2005–09 Health and Nutrition Sector Strategy, 2007–13 National Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Control, 2009–13 National Strategy on Healthcare Financing and Sustainability Ministry of Public Health Strategic Plan, 2011–15 National Priority Program: Health for All Afghans National Health and Nutrition Policy, 2012–20 National Reproductive Health Policy, 2012–16 Health Financing Policy, 2012–20 Accelerated Implementation Plan of the Essential Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Interventions in Afghanistan, 2013–15 Partnership Agreement Protocol for Health Sector Development in Afghanistan

2013

Source: Adapted from CIDA. (2014). Technical Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program: Fiscal Year 2004–2005 to 2012–2013. Volume II Sector Reports, Appendix 6 Health, 4.

their support with the (Afghan National Development Strategy) and national and international strategies” (M oPH Health for All Afghans 2012, 5). It identified the three main components (with many subcomponents) required to address the need to further strengthen and expand current health systems while building M oP H capacity so it could eventually assume full ownership of the sector: 1 Strengthen and expand existing health service delivery: Addresses the need to provide primary, secondary, and tertiary services throughout the country while ensuring a good standard of care through the development of regulations. 2 Increase and improve Human Resources for health and good governance: Improves the capacity of the GIRoa and MoPH to ensure and sustain health service delivery. 3 Improve health financing: Work with external donors to improve aid effectiveness while building and strengthening health financing resources to ensure a sustainable system (Health for All Afghans 2012, 7).

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Although this document was comprehensive, it was of limited use when it came to setting priorities and was unclear as to which steps needed to be taken first. This resulted in a slower improvement rate between 2011 and 2016 as key bottlenecks, such as the quality and regulation of healthcare services and quality control of pharmaceuticals remained largely unresolved (CIDA Technical Report Appendix 6, 2014, 4–5; World Bank 2018, xi). c a n a d i a n h e a lt h p r o g r a m m i n g

Health did not appear as a strategic priority for Canada until 2008. Before that, health sector support was provided through Canada’s humanitarian assistance program. Canadian health efforts in Afghanistan were strongly focused on polio eradication, in particular; it was also identified as a signature project in the Manley Report and accounted for more than half of Canadian expenditures in the health sector between 2006 and 2014. CIDA became one of the largest international donors to health alongside USAID, the World Bank, and the European Union, and made up 11 per cent of Canada’s total disbursements, according to Canada’s official Afghanistan Program evaluation (DFATD 2015, 6).1 Canadian health programming has largely been aligned with the GoA’s listed national priorities since 2008. Initial programming from 2008 to 2011 focused on eradicating communicable diseases (polio and tuberculosis), increasing access to health care for women and children, and capacity building programs. With the release of Health for All Afghans in 2012, Canada’s programming addressed at least one subcomponent of the three components to improve national health (G I R oA 2012). The following list shows the three main components and examples of the programs CI D A helped to deliver: 1 Strengthen and expand existing health service delivery: a. Improving nutrition for mothers, newborns, and children in nine key provinces; b. Improving maternal, newborn, and child health; c. Strengthening health activities for the rural poor. 2 Increase and improve human resources for health and good governance: a. National surveillance system in Afghanistan to help identify issue areas that the GoA needs to address.

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3 Improve health financing: a. Support to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund for Health to help finance expanding the scope, quality, and coverage of B P HS and E P HS (C I D A 2014, 23–7). At the same time, in 2010 Canada led donor countries in launching the Muskoka Initiative for maternal, newborn, and child health, the funding initiative announced at the 36th G 8 summit. This was launched due to the slow progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goal in improving maternal and newborn health. The initiative included a $2.85 billion, five-year commitment from G 8 donors, of which $63 million went to Afghanistan (Bhushan 2014). Funding from the Muskoka Initiative went toward training community health practitioners and increasing access for women and children in underserved communities in rural Afghanistan. Outputs between 2001 and 2005 In the early days of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, health was not a strategic priority, thus it was paid little attention. The work that was done fell largely under the humanitarian assistance and the rural livelihoods and social protection pillar; this was similar for the domain of education. However, the campaign for polio eradication began long before it became a strategic priority. That campaign began in 1988 when the World Health Organization’s (W H O ) Regional Committee for the Eastern Mediterranean Region resolved to eliminate polio from the region by the year 2000 (Simpson et al. 2014). Limited immunization campaigns began in 1994 and were largely administered by N G O s at fixed sites. By 1997, with the support of the W H O and the United Nations Children’s Fund (U N I C E F ), surveillance systems were set up at all thirty-seven major health facilities to detect possible polio cases, a key component of eventually eradicating polio. By 2001 new immunization strategies were in place and house-to-house vaccinations were introduced, reaching approximately 5.8 million children, compared with the 4 million that had been reached with fixed sites in 1999 (Simpson et al. 2014). However, accessing people in insecure areas remained a challenge, and large percentages of children in those areas were not vaccinated. By the end of 2001,

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Afghanistan was one of ten countries where polio was still considered endemic (W H O 2002). Polio eradication first appeared on the agenda of G8 countries at the summit in Kananaskis, Alberta in 2002 and Canada was quick to pledge significant funding to polio eradication activities in Africa. Canada’s commitment was reaffirmed multiple times following that summit and it remains one of the largest donors of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GP E I ) (WHO 2008). It was with this agenda in mind that Canada began to support the polio eradication campaign in Afghanistan beginning in 2006. Outputs between 2005–2009 During this time period, Canada developed a logic framework for access to health that fell under the social and economic development pillar alongside access to education (see table 8.3). And since 2005 was also when Canada took command of the K P R T (Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team), there were programs specifically targeting health in Kandahar Province. As table 8.3 states, there were two major foci during this time, infrastructure and immunizations. The first infrastructure project, Maternal Waiting Home in Kandahar Province, was small, and took place in Kandahar Province. Working in partnership with U N I CE F , the program ran from 2007 to 2010 at a cost of $350,000 and, according to the Government of Canada’s development project website, it aimed to reduce maternal mortality in Afghanistan. It represents CIDA’s contribution to the construction of a residential obstetric care facility (maternal waiting home) in Kandahar Province. The project also included maternal and neonatal health care training for health care workers and the delivery of a safe-motherhood information campaign (Government of Canada 2018).2 The maternal home was successfully built, and staff recruited and trained. However, there was no long-term monitoring of this project, so it is difficult to determine its outcomes and impact. The first major health-related program begun by Canada was Increasing Access to Maternal and Child Health. It ran from 2008 to 2009 and cost $7.8 million. It aimed to reduce maternal and child mortality rates in Southern Afghanistan. It also provided training equipment and supplies to improve the availability and quality of basic and emergency obstetric and neonatal care and maternal health

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Table 8.3 Logic framework for access to health, 2007–11

Priorities/pillars

Social and economic development: Access to health

Specific ­program activities Outputs

Health training to staff, developing primary health ­infrastructure; delivering child and maternal health services and immunization campaigns Trained health workers; child and maternal health services ­provided; primary health infrastructure developed Increased capacity to deliver essential health and education ­services; improved policy and programming that furthers ­women’s socio-political and economic participation Improved (equal) access to health and education services; increased participation of women in political, economic, and social sectors of society A more stable, self-reliant, and democratic Afghanistan that ­contributes to national, regional, and global security

Immediate outcomes (short term) Intermediate outcomes (medium term) Final outcome (long term)

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD). (2015). Synthesis Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program, fiscal years 2004–2005 to 2012–2013, 69.

services, to be provided at district hospitals, and helped with the training and deployment of midwives as well as other outreach services in rural areas by working with the MoPH. The maternal waiting home in Kandahar was eventually subsumed under this program. The overall outputs of these two projects saw patients receiving information on prenatal care, family planning, immunizations, breastfeeding, tuberculosis, malaria, and personal hygiene as well as counselling on improved nutrition for pregnant and lactating mothers. The outreach services reached fifteen of seventeen districts in Kandahar Province and included the provision of vaccinations, deworming tablets, insecticide-treated mosquito nets, oral rehydration therapy, and micronutrients. A total of 264 health workers (177 males and 87 females) from Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces were trained to identify the links between illnesses among children and, where appropriate, to combine treatment of these illnesses. Last, thirty-two health providers were trained in basic emergency obstetric and neonatal care (Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces) and twenty-four in comprehensive emergency obstetric and neonatal care (Uruzgan, Nimroz, Zabul, and Helmand provinces). In 2008, in response to the Manley Report, a new logic framework was developed that saw the access from the health pillar shift

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to the humanitarian assistance pillar with a specific focus on immunizations (see table 8.4). In partnership with the WH O and U N I CE F , as part of the G P E I in Afghanistan, Canada spent $60 million between 2008 and 2011 on polio immunizations. This massive undertaking to eradicate polio became a signature project for Canadian efforts in Afghanistan. Through the Polio Eradication Signature Project more than 7 million children across Afghanistan received polio vaccinations, 400,000 of them in Kandahar Province. Polio vaccination campaigns still occur regularly throughout Afghanistan at a national level, and at a provincial level in areas with a higher rate of incidence of the disease, such as Southern Afghanistan, which includes Kandahar Province. Children younger than five are most at risk of being infected by the disease. Northern Afghanistan is considered polio-free. The polio campaigns were not solely focused on immunizations but were also used as a platform to deliver other essential health services, such as micronutrient supplementation and health promotion. Due to the porous border with Pakistan, this project also included an investment in cross-border polio eradication activities. Due to a cycle of reinfection between the populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan, children crossing the Afghanistan-Pakistan border receive vaccinations at posts along the border to prevent the disease from travelling between the two countries. The Polio Eradication Signature Project as of July 2011 has resulted in about 84 per cent of Afghanistan being polio-free, with 80 to 90 per cent of all cases since 2006 found in the southern region near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And, in December 2009, Afghanistan was the first country to use a new type of vaccine, which uses a single dose to provide protection against two strains of polio. In July 2010, an estimated 364,000 children were vaccinated in Kandahar Province, representing 90 per cent of the target. Unfortunately, Afghanistan remains one of two countries where polio remains endemic (Pakistan is the other), and there are still active, ongoing polio immunization and education campaigns going on today, which we discuss in greater detail in the following sections (Global Polio Eradication Initiative 2019). Two other projects began during this period. The first is Capacity Building and Access to Medicines, which ran from 2008 to 2014, cost $6.3 million, and was delivered by Health Partners International of Canada. This project helped the M oP H to provide Afghans with the priority medicines and medical supplies they needed, emphasizing

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Table 8.4 Logic framework for access to health, 2008–11

Priorities/Pillars

Humanitarian assistance: Access to health

Specific program activities

Conducting immunization campaigns; providing health care training to health workers; developing primary health infrastructure Immunization campaigns conducted; health workers trained; primary health infrastructure supported Increased capacity of public health institutions to deliver essential quality health services to vulnerable populations Improved access to essential quality health services for women and children, among other vulnerable ­populations; reduced vulnerability to poliovirus and other ­diseases among populations A more secure Afghanistan, with a focus on Kandahar, able to deliver key services to Afghans, and better ­provide for its longer-term stability and sustainable development

Outputs Immediate outcomes (short term) Intermediate outcomes (medium term)

Final outcome (long term)

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD). (2015). Synthesis Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program, fiscal years 2004–2005 to 2012–2013, 69.

­ omen and children. The project’s goals were threefold. First, it aimed w to deliver essential medicines and medical supplies to Afghan hospitals. Second, it aimed to improve national coordination of pharmaceutical donations to improve the ability of M oP H ’s Central Medical Store Warehouse to handle and distribute medicines and supplies and improve the ability of the MoPH Quality Control Laboratory to ensure that the medicines made available to the Afghan population are of high quality. Third, it aimed to identify opportunities for the local pharmaceutical manufacturing industry in Afghanistan. The outputs for this project saw training and equipment provided to partner hospitals and three of the main Afghan government institutions responsible for pharmaceuticals. Approximately $5 million worth of medical items were donated to Afghan hospitals, including children’s hospitals, to help treat illnesses common to Afghanistan such as pneumonia, septicemia, measles, dysentery, typhoid, and other types of bacterial infections. And, in line with Canada’s priority focus on women and children, 86 per cent of all donated medicines were for women and children.

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The last project that began during this time was the Emergency Micronutrients Initiative which ran from 2009 to 2010, cost $617,000, and was delivered by the Micronutrient Initiative. Its goal was to reach eleven of the most vulnerable provinces to address high rates of preventable illness and death. It provided powder supplements for women to use at home to address iron deficiency and anemia (which can have a devastating effect on fetuses), zinc supplements to address diarrhea, and vitamin A supplements for children who had not been reached by the polio campaign. The Initiative also provided nutritional supplements for both women and infants to increase their general health. By 2010, vitamin A and zinc supplements had been distributed to 150,000 children between the ages of six months and five years. Likewise, iron and folic acid supplements had been supplied to 150,000 women who were pregnant or nursing. Last, more than 100 health facility staff were trained alongside 900 community health workers. Outputs between 2010–2014 Health programming became much more focused and comprehensive with the introduction of the 2011 logic model (see table 8.5). As a result, there was also a sharp uptick in the number of projects and programs introduced. Between 2010 and 2014, a total of approximately $176 million was spent, compared with the $82 million spent between 2001 to 2009. The first project introduced during this time, in partnership with WHO, was a relatively small investment of $1 million in Afghanistan Health Services that ran for a year, from 2010 to 2011. This project’s initial aims were to improve access to essential emergency preventive and curative health care for the most vulnerable people through the use of the cluster approach. According to the W H O , “a cluster is a group of agencies that gather to work together towards common objectives within a particular sector of emergency response” (W H O 2006). The cluster approach, instituted in 2006 as part of the U N humanitarian reform process, is an important step on the road to more effective humanitarian coordination. Thus, the goals for this project were to expand the humanitarian space and access to conflictaffected areas through increased health cluster coordination; improve the coordination and effectiveness of humanitarian health programming by strengthening the implementation of the cluster approach at national, regional, and provincial levels; and strengthen the capacity

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of health partners to provide rapid response in health crisis and deliver emergency health services in remote insecure areas, with an emphasis on vulnerable groups, such as women and children. However, no monitoring and evaluation report was available for the project, thus no outputs are listed here, let alone possible outcomes. As the previous polio eradication campaigns reached their end in 2010, it became clear that the problem was far from being resolved. In 2011, in partnership with UNICEF and WHO, Canada invested an additional $36 million into polio eradication projects that ran until 2014. As seen in table 8.6, there were four projects in total. Despite being listed as separate projects, all four had the same mandate as the previous Polio Eradication Signature Project, so it was largely a continuation of the vaccination campaign to reach more of the vulnerable population. In 2012, G oA made the eradication of polio a priority and created an inter-ministerial task force that took a W oG approach to increase the effectiveness of the immunization campaigns. Additionally, in 2013, the first outline of the strategies developed by the Afghanistan Polio Eradication Initiative (P E I ) became part of the revised version of the National Emergency Action Plan (N E A P ). This action plan continues to be updated and implemented. Afghanistan reported a total of thirty-seven confirmed polio cases in 2012 compared with eighty cases reported in 2011. Epidemiological data shows that 65 per cent of the cases were contained in the southern region. P E I reporting showed only nine confirmed wild polio cases in 2013. Similar numbers were maintained through 2016 with some fluctuations (U N I CE F 2016). The other project introduced in 2011 was Strengthening Health Activities for the Rural Poor (SH A R P ) which ran into 2014 with a significant investment of $15 million. Run by the World Bank, SHARP helped to improve basic health services for the rural population, with a focus on women and girls. It also provided support to the MoP H to implement the country’s Health and Nutrition Sector Strategy. SHARP helped to foster greater policy dialogue among donor governments and partners, and is part of Canada’s maternal, newborn, and child health commitment. This was a relatively successful project: approximately 85 per cent of the population living in the targeted districts now have access to the basic package of health services. Between 2009 and 2013 the total number of pregnant women receiving at least one prenatal care visit to a health provider increased from 32.3 per cent to 54 per cent and the coverage of deliveries attended

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Routine collection of health ­information, specific to maternal, neonatal, and child health in ­particular, including gender-­ sensitive indicators and reliable data disaggregated by sex, at ­various levels of the health system.

Pre- and in-service training on ­evidence-based, high-impact health interventions, including health ­promotion and disease prevention, provided to male and female. health practitioners.

Planned: H4+ Secretariat, H4+ Action Plan,

Other Program Activities: Chair – Health Donor Coordination Group, Participant – Consultative group on health and nutrition, Technical support to the moP H for strategic framework development

Outputs

Technical support provided to the Ministry of Public Health to strengthen its leadership and ­coordination of the health sector, especially the maternal, newborn, and child health sub-sector.

Operational: W B S H AR P , H PI C C B A M

Activities

Table 8.5 Logic framework for health outputs and outcomes, 2011–14

Immediate Outcomes Enhanced capacity of government to plan, implement, and evaluate maternal, ­neonatal, and child health strategies and programs.

Intermediate Outcomes

Final Outcome

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Local health practitioners and Operational: WB SH AR P , G P E I , U N I C EF ­volunteers, male and female, trained to communicate the MCH, WHO TB ­existence and importance of using available health resources to ­prevent, manage, and treat the major causes of excess maternal, neonatal, and child morbidity and mortality.

Health infrastructure strengthened to provide maternal, neonatal, and child health services at the appropriate level of the health system.

Enhanced awareness among men, women, and children of the existence and importance of using available health resources to prevent, ­manage, and treat the major causes of excess maternal, neonatal, and child ­morbidity and mortality.

Increased capacity of government and health institutions to deliver effective, safe, quality, and standardized health services for mothers, newborns, and children under-five.

Increased equitable and ­gender-sensitive health ­services to mothers, ­newborns, and children under-five.

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Planned: Regional MN C H centre, H4+ Action Plan

Activities

Health practitioners, male and female, trained to provide services encompassing prevention, diagnosis, management, and treatment of leading maternal, neonatal, and childhood diseases (e.g., integrated management of pregnancy and childbirth, neonatal resuscitation, integrated management of ­childhood illnesses).

Messages on behaviours and ­practices and available resources related to health promotion and disease prevention/management/ treatment disseminated at ­community gatherings.

Outputs

Increased and equitable access to effective, safe, and quality health goods and ­services aimed at preventing, managing, and treating the most common and severe diseases affecting mothers, newborns and children under-five, especially those in underserved areas.

Immediate Outcomes

Intermediate Outcomes Basic needs met and reduced ­vulnerability of the people of Afghanistan, with a focus on women and girls.

Final Outcome

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Increased availability of nutrition-related goods and services that minimize risks and optimizes nutrition, health and survival outcomes, for men, women, and children, particularly pregnant and lactating women and children under-two. Increased awareness and knowledge among men, women, and children of moderate/severe acute ­malnutrition and ­micronutrient deficiencies at the community level.

Health practitioners, male and female, trained on nutrition issues and interventions.

Dry or ready-to-use supplementary food rations and key vitamins and minerals (e.g., vitamin A, zinc, folic acid, iodized salt, multiple micronutrient powders) provided to pregnant women and children under five.

Operational: WB S H A RP

Planned: Communitybased nutrition initiative, H4+ Action Plan

Community outreach, including vaccination campaigns and integrated health services, conducted.

Skilled and knowledgeable health practitioners and volunteers, male and female, deployed to underserved areas to address the most common and severe diseases ­affecting mothers, newborns and children under-five.

Enhanced use of essential health commodities and ­supplies needed to prevent, manage, and treat the main causes of death among ­mothers, newborns, and ­children under five, including gender-based inequalities and ­harmful practices.

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Nutritional surveillance system established at the local level.

Awareness and knowledge-building information and education on nutrition, hygiene, water, and ­sanitation provided to men, women, and children under five.

Skilled breastfeeding support ­provided to lactating women.

Outputs

Immediate Outcomes

Enhanced healthy nutritional practices by mothers, ­newborns, and children under five (by addressing gender and socio-cultural determinants, among other factors).

Intermediate Outcomes

Final Outcome

GPEI – Global Polio Eradication Initiative HPIC C BAM – Health Partners International Canada Capacity Building and Access to Medicine MNCH – Maternal, newborn and child health UNIC EF MCH – Maternal Child Health WB SHAR P – World Bank Strengthening Health Activities for the Poor WHO TB – World Health Organization Tuberculosis

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD). (2015). Synthesis Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program, fiscal years 2004–2005 to 2012–2013, 73–4.

Activities



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Table 8.6 Polio projects, 2011–14

Project Title Polio eradication – WHO Polio eradication – UNICEF Polio eradication – WHO Polio eradication – UNICEF

Timeframe

Investment (in CAD )

Dec 2011–Mar 2014 Mar 2011–Mar 2014 Mar 2011 (fewer than 30 days) Mar 2011–Oct 2012

16,149,000 17,000,000   1,851,000   1,000,000

Source: Adapted from CIDA. (2014). Technical Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program: Fiscal Year 2004–2005 to 2012–2013. Volume II Sector Reports, Appendix 6 Health.

by skilled attendants increased from 18.9 per cent to 47.4 per cent. The immunization coverage of children against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus increased from 34.6 per cent to 46.7 per cent. The success rate of treatment against tuberculosis is now at 90 per cent. The percentage of women between fifteen and forty-nine using family planning increased from 15.4 per cent to 19.5 per cent. Beginning in 2012, CIDA also invested in a series of programs that focused on maternal, newborn, and child health in Afghanistan, representing one of Canada’s largest investments during this time, at approximately $56 million (see table 8.7). The first project consisted of four main components: (1) enhancing access to maternal newborn and child health services by improving health facilities; (2) improving the quality of health services provided by strengthening the skills of health care workers (midwives, nurses, and managers) and by strengthening the educational programs at selected professional development institutions; (3) enhancing the participation of communities in decision-making processes within the health sector, including managing and distributing health services, holding the government to account, and raising awareness of better health practices; and (4) improving the health and nutrition practices of women and men, and children under five, in selected areas in Badakhshan. The outputs listed for this project are (1) improved quality of maternal newborn and child health (M N C H ) care through a range of interventions, resulting in a 29 per cent increase in prenatal care attendance; (2) 4,613 health workers trained (including doctors, nurses, midwives, community health workers, and health facility staff); (3) eleven health facilities received a total of 76,704 acute malnourished patients under the age of five, of which 62,361 were

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Partner Agency Aga Khan Foundation Canada

World Vision Canada

Save the Children Canada

Timeframe

Feb 2012–June 2017

Feb 2013–Mar 2016

Feb 2013–Mar 2017

Location

Bamyan, Daikundi, Faryab, Kandahar, Jawzjan, Sari Pul, Takhar, Kunduz, Nangarhar

Badghis, Ghor, and Herat

Bamyan and Badakhshan

 6,600,000

 8,952,207

40,267,266

Investment (in CAD )

Source: Adapted from C IDA. (2014). Technical Report – Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program: Fiscal Year 2004–2005 to 2012–2013. Volume II Sector Reports, Appendix 6 Health.

Improving nutrition for mothers, newborns, and children in Afghanistan

Improving maternal, ­ newborn, and child health in Afghanistan Maternal and under-five nutrition and child health in Afghanistan

Project Title

Table 8.7 Improving maternal, newborn, and child health programs



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out-patient cases and 14,343 were severe acute malnutrition cases; (4) increased satisfaction with MNCH services across a range of dimensions, including the behaviour of health workers as well as the conditions of the health facility; (5) a new provincial hospital constructed in Bamyan Province to deliver high-quality health services aligned with the national Expanded Package of Hospital Services with the mandate of acting as a provincial centre for M N C H services; and (6) 243,142 people (125,702 women and 117,440 men) were reached through health nutrition and hygiene promotional activities. The second project, as part of the Muskoka Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Initiative and aligned with the priorities of the MoP H , sought to identify vulnerable communities suffering from high levels of malnutrition; to establish and maintain public awareness of child and maternal health; train health facility staff to support and monitor pregnant women, mothers, and children under two for nutrition; and to promote the inclusion of public nutrition training in community midwife and nursing education training programs. The outputs of the project as of March 2017 show that acute malnutrition and stunting in the three targeted provinces decreased from 6.5 per cent to 5.8 per cent and 53 per cent to 44 per cent respectively. It provided training to 1,832 community health workers, who have helped over 10,000 pregnant women. In community nutrition sessions, 21,508 children were enrolled, and gained weight over the project timeframe. Sanitary practices also increased, as did access to clean water through the construction of 127 community drinking water sources. The last project sought to increase the nutrition services in the nine provinces identified. These services include providing micronutrient supplements, promoting better feeding practices for infants and young children, monitoring growth, and managing acute malnutrition. The project increased awareness and knowledge of the nutritional needs of mothers, newborns, and children within the community by providing training for family health action groups, community health committees, and religious and community leaders. Outputs for this project include (but were not limited to) 8,941 community health workers (5,575 women), exceeding the target of 8,605, who were trained to promote infant and young child feeding practices; 407 out-patient therapeutic program units, which were established to help provide treatment and nutrition services for children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, resulting in 139,820 affected children under five successfully receiving treatment. Last, 440,454 pregnant and/or

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lactating women received counselling on optimal infant and young child feeding practices through “breastfeeding corners,” quiet womenonly spaces where trained midwives could provide counselling. A number of smaller projects ran during this time as well, such as the Family Health Houses project, costing $5.2 million; the Afghanistan School Feeding Program, costing $3.6 million; and the Nutrition Surveillance System in Afghanistan, costing $6.4 million. All these projects aimed to improve nutrition and access to health services for women and children in Afghanistan, with varying degrees of success. The Family Health Houses project in Daikundi Province had the following outputs: fifty-eight family health houses were constructed and are operational; thirty-six newly graduated midwives received three months internship and were later deployed to Family Health Houses; 149,370 new out-patient consultations were undertaken by the midwives and mobile support teams (112,836 women and 36,534 men); 25,593 children under five were treated for common childhood illnesses such as infections, pneumonia, and diarrhea; and 123,777 people (99,833 women and 23,944 men) benefited from health education sessions. The Afghanistan School Feeding Program saw limited outputs because the program was suspended as a result of funding shortfalls. However, it did manage to provide home rations of fortified cooking oil to 552,690 girls and boys in grades 1 to 6 (47 per cent girls). Cooking oil is a desirable component of the local diet in Afghanistan, has high nutritional value, and is easy to transport and store. Moreover, given the particularly high drop-out rate for girls in grades 7 and 8, fortified cooking oil was also distributed to 107,310 more girls in these grades to encourage them and their parents to continue with their education. Last, the Nutrition Surveillance System in Afghanistan project aimed to establish a unified nutrition surveillance system with sentinel sites3 and regular surveys that would feed into the MoPH’s Health Monitoring Information System (HMIS). Since 2013, the HMIS has successfully designed the nutrition surveillance system with 175 health-facilitybased and 953 community-based sentinel sites established across all thirty-four provinces. More than 500 health workers (health facility staff, doctors, nurses, midwives, and community health workers) were trained to ensure the system was operational and was continuously improving, 2,613 community-based sentinel site staff were trained, and a database was designed to manage incoming data from the sites.

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Outcomes The original intent of the Maternal Waiting Home in Kandahar Province was not only to provide services to help reduce the maternal mortality rate in Kandahar but also to provide a model for potential future maternal waiting homes in other areas of the country (C B C News 2008). It became a haven for some of the women in Kandahar and by 2011 the waiting home had provided prenatal and postnatal care for over 1,400 women (Reliefweb 2011). However, although this home addressed a major health care gap in Kandahar, there is little information to show that this model was scaled up to other parts of the country, suggesting the outcome of this project was limited to Kandahar and surrounding areas. The waiting home was eventually subsumed under the larger project Increasing Access to Maternal and Child Health, which provided increased access for women and children in Southern Afghanistan, mainly in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Zabul, and Helmand provinces. Unfortunately, there is no publicly available report on any longer-term evaluation of this project aside from the immediate outputs reported in 2011. According to Health Partners International of Canada (HPIC), the executing partner for the Capacity Building and Access to Medicines in Afghanistan, the project saw significant success. Before H P I C ’s intervention, over 98 per cent of Afghanistan’s medicine was imported, and hospitals suffered regular acute shortages of pharmaceuticals and could only meet approximately 10 per cent of the demand. Many pharmaceuticals were thus either smuggled in, with questionable quality assurances, or counterfeits were made that often had few to no active ingredients. H P I C ’s efforts have improved public hospital’s ability to monitor medicine usage and better predict their needs. Through extensive training of the National Quality Control Lab’s staff, 78 per cent more medicines were tested to ensure their quality and they have doubled their testing capacity. Warehousing and distribution have also greatly improved, with the Central Medical Stores operating at 69 per cent capacity in 2014 (previously it was operating at 37 per cent). Last, through the creation of training tools (handbooks, stock cards, reporting etc.), medicines were managed better, and pharmacists were more efficient and knowledgeable (HPIC 2014). The Emergency Micronutrients Initiative was a relatively successful endeavour. The project’s leaders teamed up with immunization campaigns throughout Afghanistan to provide vital micronutrients to the

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most vulnerable, including vitamin A, which is critical in reducing child mortality rates from largely preventable diseases. Indeed, due to these efforts and despite its high rates of instability, vitamin A coverage in Afghanistan is at 95 per cent, higher than many neighbouring countries (Nutrition International 2010). These micronutrients continue to be supplied alongside ongoing polio and other immunization campaigns, making it a relatively effective program with largely positive outcomes. Polio eradication was Canada’s most ambitious goal, and it was included in all of the logic frameworks developed since 2005. Afghanistan is one of two countries where polio remains endemic, and campaigns run by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), who work with the WH O and UNI C E F (CI D A’s executing partners for the polio campaigns) are ongoing. The 2018 G P E I annual report shows that the number of cases reported in Afghanistan has stalled at between ten to twenty a year. Afghanistan’s government still shows a strong commitment to eliminating polio; however, to be successful, it is critical to identify children missed by the immunization campaigns and why. GP E I is working on improving program coordination and reaching the most mobile population groups, while tackling the corridors between Pakistan and Afghanistan that see the highest infection rates (G PEI 2018). Eradicating polio in Afghanistan is now within reach. The World Bank’s project Strengthening Health Activities for the Rural Poor (SHARP) represents a significant investment from Canada, and it has managed to achieve a fair amount. It is also unique in that monitoring and evaluation was a key component of the original program design, which means that there is a fair amount of World Bank reporting available on it. The World Bank 2014 Implementation Completion and Results Report on the SHARP program identifies the main outcomes of the program. Its pro-poor and pro-rural focus proved highly effective because the majority of the desired outcomes were achieved and at least one-third of the beneficiaries were from households below the official poverty line. SHARP’s gender empowerment theme also allowed women to have greater access while creating more employment opportunities for them. The project contributed significantly to the development of the data management culture and tracking the performance of health care providers using the Balanced Scorecard system. However, like much capacity building in the government of Afghanistan, there was too much reliance on external

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consultants and technical advisors to fill in the gaps, as opposed to using Afghan staff, negatively affecting the possible long-term impacts. The outcomes of the three programs that were focused on improving maternal, newborn, and child health – Improving Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health in Afghanistan; Maternal and Under-Five Nutrition and Child Health in Afghanistan (MUNCH); and Improving Nutrition for Mothers, Newborns and Children in Afghanistan – were positive overall. The first project, delivered by the Aga Khan Foundation Canada (A K F C ), which focused on Badakhshan and Bamyan provinces, saw a significant reduction in maternal mortality rates (from 550 to 68 per 1,000 live births) in Badakhshan and the construction of a hospital in Bamyan, a highly underserved province where almost 98 per cent of births take place at home with no skilled birth attendant (AKFC 2013). Unfortunately, beyond this basic reporting, little monitoring and evaluation is available for this project that would allow for a deeper assessment of outcomes. The second project was implemented between 2013 and 2016 in Badghis, Ghor, and Herat by World Vision and, according to their 2016 annual report, eighteen severe acute malnutrition centres and four stabilization centres were created to provide nutrition services to children through the M U N C H program. This has significantly increased access and education in the areas of health and nutrition in these three provinces. It has decreased, on average, the mortality rate of children under five from ninety-seven per 1,000 live births in 2010 to fifty-five per 1,000 live births in 2017. After the completion of MU N C H in 2016, the program was scaled down to only focus on Herat to help handle the nutrition and health needs of those especially vulnerable: internally displaced persons and other returnees (World Vision 2017). The third project, Improving Nutrition for Mothers, Newborns and Children in Afghanistan, was implemented by Save the Children Canada and finished in 2017. While the outputs previously listed suggest it has contributed to the outcome of improving the nutritional status of newborns, children under five, and women of reproductive age, neither Save the Children Canada nor Global Affairs Canada have publicly released any further evaluations of the project to confirm this. The three remaining projects, Family Health Houses, Afghanistan School Feeding Program, and Nutrition Surveillance System in Afghanistan were relatively small projects that were only recently

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completed so have minimal information on outcomes. However, the Family Health Houses in Daikundi Province were very well received and greatly improved access and education in the most rural areas. Yet the model was not implemented outside of Daikundi (U N F P A 2015). Due to the suspension of the Afghanistan School Feeding Program there is little reporting on the outcomes of the program. Last, the nutrition surveillance system project was only completed in March 2018. However, the program looks promising to help strengthen the MoPH’s capacity to measure undernutrition, project possible trends, and act as an early warning system (Chinjekure et al. 2018). The MoPH has also been releasing regular updates from the Afghanistan National Nutrition Surveillance System Bulletin based off the information and data gathered at the sentinel sites located in every province through the screening of children for malnutrition cases.4 The sentinel sites also provide space for education on malnutrition and other health practices. This data will undoubtedly help the MoPH decision-making process by providing timely and meaningful information. p r e l i m i n a r y l o n g - t e r m i m pa c t s a n d i m p l i c at i o n s

According to the logic frameworks developed over time, Canadian health programming can largely be categorized into four broad areas: access to health services (training and infrastructure), eradication of polio and immunization campaigns, increased use of health services by women and children, and enhanced capacity of the M oP H to provide services. Cumulatively, these programs had a positive longterm impact in comparison with other programming areas. Access to Health Services One of the main indicators for measuring access to health services, as used by the National Development Strategy and C I D A ’s performance measurement framework, was the proportion of the population living within two hours walking distance of primary care services, disaggregated into rural and urban populations. The original baseline, as established in the National Development Strategy 2008 to 2013, saw only 9 per cent of the population living within two hours’ walking distance in 2003, which was increased to 82 per cent in 2006. The goal was then set to reach 90 per cent by 2010. According to the

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National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment in 2011–12 by the Central Statistics Organization, that goal was reached in 2011. This shows an incredibly rapid expansion of primary health facilities, resulting in significantly improved access. However, these programs did not address the larger systemic issues that continue to affect the health sector. For example, access to a health facility is not only about distance, it is also about a household’s ability to get to the facility, including transportation costs. Other issues include the quality of health care, staffing of the facilities, and funding issues. Regardless of these shortcomings, improved access to health facilities has increased the overall life expectancy of both women and men, though it still falls well below the global average (see figure 8.1). Ancillary to access to health services is training the necessary people to staff the facilities. Although there was a particular focus on providing services to women, other health professionals were also trained. One area that saw Canadian programming was nutrition. Programs like the Afghanistan School Feeding Program, Emergency Micronutrients Initiative, Nutrition Surveillance System in Afghanistan, and Improving Nutrition in Afghanistan saw extensive training of workers in nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation to tackle the prevalence of largely preventable diseases that caused wasting, malnutrition, and stunting among the population, especially in rural areas which have more limited access to clean drinking water, for example. Many of the programs specifically targeted the provinces with the most limited access to health facilities with trained health care workers. All of this contributed to significantly improving access to health care services. Health Services for Women and Children Because women had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world under the Taliban, much of Canadian health programming focused on improving maternal, newborn, and child health by providing training on midwifery, nutrition, sanitation, and hygiene. Canada used a number of indicators as part of its performance measurement framework: the proportion of births delivered by skilled health care providers (including maternal mortality rate); the number of visits to rural and urban health facilities by gender and children under five; the number of health care visits per person per year by gender; the infant mortality rate; and the under-five mortality rate.

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80 75

Age in years

70 65 60 55 50 45 40

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Year

Afghanistan life expectancy at birth, female World life expectancy at birth, female

Afghanistan life expectancy at birth, male World life expectancy at birth, male

Figure 8.1  Life expectancy of men and women in Afghanistan, 1994–2016 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://­databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators.

Much of the data about skilled attendance at delivery is only available from population surveys. This does not allow reliable trends to be established because often different surveys have different timeframes and cover only selected geographic regions. Nevertheless, there does appear to be general agreement that the number of deliveries attended by physicians, midwives, nurses, or community midwives has steadily increased. Figure 8.2, from the World Bank Development Indicators index, seems to agree with the general upward trend, though the percentages are likely only estimates. However, it is important to point out that there still remains a large difference between urban and rural service delivery. The Afghanistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2010–11, saw rural rates of only 30.5 per cent of births attended by skilled health staff, compared with 74.3 per cent in urban areas. Consequently, the availability and access to this kind of service has also positively affected maternal mortality rates. As figure 8.3 below suggests, as of 2015 there were only approximately 400 deaths per 100,000 live births, down from 1,600 during the worst of Taliban rule. The Health Information Department of the MoPH collects numbers monthly on new and repeat out-patient visits. The data collected between March 2010 and September 2013 saw an increase nationally but also an increase in the eleven provinces that were part of the SHARP program (CIDA 2014). Indeed, according to the World Bank report Progress in the Face on Insecurity: Improving Health Outcomes in Afghanistan (2018), almost all provinces improved coverage for

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100 90 80 Percentage

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Year Afghanistan

Canada

Figure 8.2  Percentage of births attended by skilled health staff, 2001–15 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://­databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators.

1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200

19

94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11 20 12 20 13 20 14 20 15

0 Year Afghanistan

World

Figure 8.3  Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births (modelled estimate), 1994–2015 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://­databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators.

key maternal and child health interventions5 from 2003 to 2015. Kapisa Province has the best coverage, at approximately 80 per cent, with Nuristan at the lowest, with 40 per cent, as of 2015. The last two indicators, infant and under-five mortality rates, also saw significant improvement (figures 8.4 and 8.5). However, it is important to note that the data is not entirely reliable due to the

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100 90 Number of deaths

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Year Afghanistan

Afghanistan

World

World

Figure 8.4  Afghanistan infant mortality rate compared with world rate per 1,000 live births, 2000–17 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators. 140

Number of deaths

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Year Afghanistan, female Afghanistan, male World, female World, male

Figure 8.5  Afghanistan under-5 mortality rate compared with world rate per 1,000 live births, 2000–17 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators.

uncertainties of the population denominator. There is a positive trend, but it too falls well above the world average. Polio Eradication and Immunizations As part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (G P E I ), Canada invested a significant amount of money into eradicating polio in Afghanistan through extensive immunization campaigns starting in

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Table 8.8 Reported cases of acute flaccid paralysis and wild polio virus

Acute flaccid paralysis

Wild polio virus

F M Both F M Both

2008

2011

2012

2013

632 742 1,374 12 19 31

861 970 1,831 30 50 80

805 1,024 1,829 13 24 37

– – 1,589 5 4 9

Source: CIDA Technical Reports (2013), Annex 6, 20.

2006, becoming the lead financer in 2008. P E I also has a well-­ organized community and health systems network for reporting cases of acute flaccid paralysis and wild polio virus, making this set of data one of the most reliable. Table 8.8 shows infection rates from 2008 to 2013. There was an outbreak of polio in 2011 in the southern provinces, which accounts for the significant jump in cases from 2008 to 2011. In response, the WHO and UNI C E F changed their strategy to reach the more vulnerable populations in the south. This has proven effective in the following years, with a continued drop in confirmed cases. Although polio remains endemic to Afghanistan due to the porous border with Pakistan and high levels of insecurity limiting access to some of the population, Canada’s contribution did put Afghanistan on the track to eradicating polio. The polio eradication programs, as well as other health programs, often provided additional services for those coming to use their services to provide additional health information and other immunizations besides polio. Much of the programming for maternal, newborn, and child mortality also provided immunizations. As figure 8.6 indicates, alongside polio vaccinations, there was a steady improvement in vaccinations for measles, diphtheria, and tetanus. However, immunization rates were still relatively low, especially in areas with higher insecurity or rural areas.

M oPH Capacity Although significant funding was put into improving the capacity of the MoPH to deliver various services, there is no long-term institutional

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100 90 80 Percentage

70 60 50 40 30 20 10

19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11 20 12 20 13 20 14 20 15 20 16 20 17

0

Afghanistan, measles

Year Afghanistan, DPT

Canada, measles

Canada, DP T

Figure 8.6  Percentage of immunizations of children ages 12–23 compared with Canada’s rate, 1994–2017 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators.

assessment available to determine the outcomes and/or the impact of Canadian efforts. However, over the duration of the Afghan mission the GoA and the international donor community’s collaboration in the health sector has been exemplary, and has significantly contributed to the impressive level of development in the health sector over a relatively short period. The M oP H was further strengthened after 2014 under the System Enhancement for Health Action in Transition (SEHA T) project headed by the World Bank, which aimed to expand the scope, quality, and coverage of health services to the Afghan population while enhancing the stewardship functions of the MoP H (C I D A Summative Evaluation 2014; World Bank 2019). The 2019 report suggests stewardship functions improved in areas such as budget development and management of the B P H S / E P H S service delivery. However, the MoP H still struggles with procurement and drug quality control. The overall World Bank assessment was surprisingly positive, stating that “there are of course gaps in MoP H ’s stewardship performance, but it is better than in many countries with comparable and higher levels of income, including countries not affected by fragility, conflict and violence” (World Bank 2019, 27). The overall impacts of Canadian efforts in the health sector were largely positive and are still considered some of the more effective

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programming in Afghanistan. Afghanistan now has a functional system to contain polio, though it is still dependent on international financial support. Child and maternal health have improved overall and access to health care for women and children has also significantly improved, though rural and conflict-affected areas still struggle to provide ­adequate health care. The CIDA contribution to SHARP and other interventions in provincial hospitals has facilitated the rehabilitation of a barely functioning system of primary and secondary care. However, whether these impacts are sustainable is questionable since the health sector is very dependent on donors to help fill the budget gaps. The ongoing conflict and the struggle for control over districts between the Taliban and the GoA may prove detrimental to the health sector, leaving the most vulnerable with no access to health care. conclusion

Afghanistan’s health sector was in a sorry state following the ousting of the Taliban in 2001. It had little to no infrastructure, extremely limited services for women and children, and the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. It thus became a priority sector not only for Canada but also for the Government of Afghanistan and the larger international community. Canada took a leading role in establishing a donor coordination mechanism through the Health Donor Forum and became a leading policy influencer in the sector. Canada was able to set clear priorities and sustainable funding for a number of programs that ended up running for almost the entirety of the mission, such as the polio eradication effort. This is somewhat unique for development in Afghanistan: long-term funding was often the exception, not the rule. Our analysis suggests that the political will of the GoA to develop policy and work closely with international donors, such as Canada, was a key factor in the relatively successful health programs. Health, in a sense, is much more apolitical when compared with security, women and gender issues, and education. For example, security issues can be used to manipulate a population to ensure the political success of the current regime. But women and gender issues bring the significant role women play in Afghanistan to the forefront, and consequently the power that can come with such a role. And, last, education can be used to change how young people think of certain issues (like ethnicity) or conceive of their country and the world. This made health

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programming a relatively “safe choice” for Canada to become involved in with very little pushback either from the Afghanistan government or from Canada’s population. Indeed, one could go so far to say that it was one of the best supported areas of programming in Afghanistan. Hence, it became increasingly important for Canada to engage with health programming. That is evident by the increasingly comprehensive logic models. Furthermore, improvements in the health sector are critical for any statebuilding effort. Health is a basic service that should be provided by the government not only to improve the health of the general population but also to build trust in the government and improve its legitimacy. Without these services, the population, especially the rural population, will turn to N G O s or other groups to provide health services, resulting in a fractured effort that does not address other systemic issues. As a result, Canadian health development programming in Afghanistan represents one of the more coordinated and better implemented efforts, with largely positive results. The maternal, newborn, and child mortality rates have improved across the country (with some provinces doing better than others), there are more trained female health practitioners available (though still not enough to meet demand), and immunization rates continue to improve due to dedicated organizations still fighting the good fight. There has been progress on almost every key indicator, though still far from what was hoped to be achieved. However, the health sector can only improve so much without addressing the other systemic and institutional impediments that persist and that affect the long-term impact of investments and programming in the health sector. The data also shows that the health sector remains highly dependent on external aid and program delivery by NGOs and other international organizations. There is still such a large financing gap between MoPH budget projections and the national priority program that even a significant increase in current government expenditures on health (8.2 per cent of GDP as of 2014) would not go far enough in addressing these gaps (W H , 2018). Without a system in place to eradicate polio in Pakistan, it will remain endemic in Afghanistan. Though the progress made in improving access for women and children to health care is positive, this type of programming does not address other deeper systemic and cultural issues that negatively impact women’s rights. The foundation has been laid for a robust health sector in

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Afghanistan, but the continued deterioration and fragility of the country, alongside shortfalls in funding, make projections on the program sustainability of the improvements made in the health sector highly speculative. What were (Some) Contributing Factors? A number of internal and external factors affected Canadian efforts in the health sector, both positively and negatively. Internal factors include, first, the limited capacity of Afghan authorities and other Afghan organizations, especially outside Kabul, which led to a strong dependence on foreign assistance for the basic functioning of government. Second, the deep investment and improved policies by G oA alongside international commitments to improving the health sector strengthened the capacity of the central government. However, on the other hand, the lack of a clear vision by the government at the provincial governance level, often referred to as “the missing middle,” deeply affected the delivery of services at the lower levels. This lack of vision on decentralization and delegation of authorities is related to the choice made in 2003 in the Constitutional Jirga for a centralized state with a powerful president. As a result of this, centralized control and decision-making processes, alongside high levels of corruption, significantly hindered the government’s ability to deliver health services at the provincial level (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015, 32). External factors, or how the programming was designed and implemented by international partners, also deeply affected the outcomes and impacts. First, the donors sought a variety of implementing partners to help mitigate certain risks. This also allowed a number of positive partnerships to be developed with a large variety of organizations and locals, that positively impacted program outputs. This strategy also provided a high level of flexibility for implementation, particularly at the project level, emphasizing local ownership. Second, there were significant efforts to better facilitate donor coordination at the policy level to create joint policy benchmarks for government reforms. Indeed, Canada played a critical role in 2010, facilitating formal mechanisms of coordination among international donors by creating a health partners forum that met monthly at the Canadian embassy. The MoPH was invited and often attended with a high-level delegation, sometimes including the minister of public health. The

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forum acted as a platform to exchange information and to draft joint statements to be submitted to the MoPH. Last, Canadian development programming was sensitive to gender implications, and emphasized the need for gender-disaggregated data and that projects and programs should be based on gender-differentiated needs analyses. However, the donor strategies also had a number of weaknesses. Few sector strategies, including health, were based on a deep understanding of the context and the main needs of Afghans, limiting longterm impacts. Canadian programming prioritized Canadian values in the design of the programming, choosing the components from the various health strategies that were aligned with what Canada prioritized. Planned monitoring and evaluation at the sector level was also lacking, with the focus almost entirely on project-level monitoring and evaluation. This goes back to the macro-micro paradox in which project-level outputs are more likely to have visible positive outcomes whereas sector-level evaluation would likely not show a positive change. Last, although using a variety of implementation partners had its benefits, including a high level of flexibility, the overreliance on local NGOs with questionable capacity affected Canada’s ability to deliver and monitor outputs and outcomes (Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada 2015, 33).

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9 The Challenge of Quality Education for All Education “is the right of all citizens and offered free of charge in State institutions… and that the State is obliged to devise and implement effective programs for a balanced expansion of education all over Afghanistan” The Constitution of Afghanistan, 2004, Article 43

h i s t o r y o f e d u c at i o n i n a f g h a n i s ta n

Afghanistan, a land that has been at war for decades, is no stranger to instability. From the Soviet invasion in 1979, to the rule of the Taliban in 1996, to the War on Terror beginning in 2001, Afghanistan has been riddled with unending conflict that has seeped into all aspects of Afghan life, including the education system. The turbulence within Afghanistan’s education system has garnered attention from many international actors, including Canada. As one of the most involved actors in Afghanistan, Canada has pledged to improve the access to, and quality of, education in the country. Before the twentieth century, following Islamic tradition, education in Afghanistan was provided at home, in mosques, and in madrasas. These institutions provided general knowledge and theological studies for young men to prepare to become community and religious leaders. Other education in topics such as writing, poetry, and literature was limited to private tutoring or small, informal scholarly circles. The main objective of this type of schooling was to learn the Holy Qur’an and live its teachings. In these settings, students would learn reading, writing, and arithmetic (Rafi 1998). Moral education, such as the individual’s obligations to society, was also an important part of Islamic education; sometimes vocational training, such as calligraphy and accounting, was also included (Baharustani 2012). In addition, Islamic education during this period was non-formal, which means that it was not “regularized and [had] no specific administrative or

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institutional rules, such as an entrance admission criteria, fees, formal examinations, and certificates” (Karlsson and Mansory 2002, 8). In the mid- to late nineteenth century, there was a shift to a more modern form of education, to include other areas of study such as science and mathematics. This also meant that education was now the responsibility of the state, with state-sponsored curricula. However, this shift did not preclude other forms of education. The Islamic tradition continued to thrive and in more rural areas other forms of traditional education were still practised. In fact, all three forms of education still co-exist in Afghanistan. During this time however, modern education flourished primarily in the urban areas. It began in Afghanistan during the early 1900s, starting officially in 1903, when King Amir Habibullah’s established the first secondary school in Kabul, named the School of Habibia (Baiza 2013, 4). The following years saw many more developments, some for the better, some for the worse. In his work, Education and Politics in Afghanistan, Spink notes that one of the first and most monumental challenges of the new government in 1919 was to introduce a modern education system throughout the country (2005, 196). Before that, modern education was only available to the Kabul-based elite. The masses were thus restricted to the religious teachings of the mosques and the other traditional Afghan learning techniques (Ibid.). After 1919, the establishment of schools began to spread outside of Kabul, their development spearheaded by progressive kings. For example, King Amanullah established many educational centres, including a school for girls in 1921. During his reign, students, male and female alike, were also sent abroad for higher education, e.g., to Turkey, Germany, and France (Karlsson and Mansory 2002, 14). In 1930, under King Nadir Shah’s rule, a new constitution was enacted, making (1) elementary schooling compulsory for all Afghans and (2) placing education under the control of the state (Samady 2001, 590). As a result of these developments, there were thirteen primary schools in the country with 1,590 students by the 1930s (Karlsson and Mansory 2002, 14). The change was gradual, but it was change nonetheless. Spink stresses that the modern education system had two goals: “to develop technical skills for people throughout the country, such as doctors and engineers; and to create a national identity for the newly independent Afghanistan” (2005, 196). However, due to conservative pressures and the fear of outside manipulation modern education

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evolved slowly. In fact, as Spink (2005) notes, it took thirty years for the system to evolve. It was not until after the end of the Second World War that the Afghan government put heavy emphasis on expanding education, and the first three five-year plans, beginning in 1956, saw large jumps in spending on education, mostly on primary education.1 By 1975, approximately 24 per cent (189,360 of 789,000) of children within the compulsory age range (6 to 12 years) were enrolled in primary education, 30 per cent of them girls (Samady 2001). Also, as Caroline Fleming (2004–05) notes, the early stages of modern education also emphasized women’s education, resulting in women and girls being active members of society with much more freedom than even today. In fact, “before the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghan women enjoyed the freedom to participate in society to an extent far beyond that of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries; they had the right to vote, serve in government positions, and send their children, male and female alike, to schools” (Ibid., 598). These progressive stances were reflected in King Mohammed Zahir Shah’s passage of the 1964 Afghan constitution, a document that guaranteed equality to men and women “while simultaneously emphasizing the country’s Islamic roots” (2004–05, 598). Although the literature praises modern education, it also puts forth many critiques as well. The first drawback, the construction of a false identity, is discussed by Spink (2005), who explores how state-­ sanctioned curricula were often used to construct a single identity: “[T]he content of the books promoted the history and culture of the dominant Pashtun ethnic group” (2005, 197). This falsely represented Afghanistan as a monolithic entity rather than a heterogeneous one with a vast array of cultures and individuals. As a result, non-Pashtun, and non-Sunni Muslim children, had no cultural representation in the education system and were thus further marginalized (Spink 2005). The second drawback was that state-sponsored education and thus the emergence of state-sanctioned curricula could actually encourage conflict. Jones (2009) examines how the changing regimes have had an impact on state-sanctioned curricula, drastically altering the purpose and ideology of education (2009, 114). Because modern education is the responsibility of the state, it was often hijacked by whoever was influencing the government, fuelling ethnic divides. The next two decades following the 1960s saw primary enrollment dramatically decrease due to political instability and the Soviet invasion. Much of Afghanistan’s education infrastructure was destroyed

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and many educated professionals fled the country, which in turn had devastating effects on the delivery of basic education for both children and adults. Moreover, as Jones (2009) argues, schools were often put at the centre of conflict and, as a result, they were used as tools to further fuel the conflict. The Soviets pushed for a curriculum that harboured communist sympathies and, in time, the entire education system reflected the Soviet approach to education (Sadat 2004). In fact, as Jones stresses, “education in the Soviet period was a mix of older Afghan curriculum and Russian textbooks” where Soviet trends “heavily influenced Afghan curricula, with its focus on ‘communist internationalism’” (2009, 114). This is echoed in a statement made by the Afghanistan Education Committee: [Afghan] teachers are forced to teach the students in such a way … against their culture and belief […]. They introduce several new subjects of communism and socialism in various faculties and schools. They, directly or indirectly, have been forced to learn Russian languages. Every day teachers should say in classes something in favor of Russian friendship with Afghanistan (1984, 1). Spink (2005) adds that as communist ideology became more salient in the national curriculum, students began to learn a new vocabulary, “which included words and phrases such as ‘revolution’, ‘people’s democracy’ and ‘rights of the workers,’” and “singing socialist dogma songs and telling their parents that religion was no longer important” (2005, 197). This resulted in extreme reactions from some communities; teachers were punished, and some schools were burned down. Unfortunately, “education became seen by many communities as threatening the very existence of Afghan values and culture” (Ibid.). This further fuelled conflict in Afghanistan because, once again, it pitted the people against the government and education. From the 1980s to the late 1990s, other influences (the US and Saudi Arabia) also began to meddle in Afghanistan. Afghanistan became a proxy in which powerful states like the US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia could indirectly engage with one another (Spink 2005, 97) by using the education system. Between 1979 and 2001 there was an “expansion of a militant ideology” in Afghan curricula. For example, the US saw Afghanistan’s education system as a potential vehicle to spread anti-communist ideology and with the assistance of the

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University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO ), developed a new set of educational materials and textbooks. Rahem Yaseer, U N O ’s assistant director at the Center for Afghanistan Studies, told the Centre for Public Integrity: “We helped all of these [Mujahedin] parties with school supplies, developing curriculum, paying teachers, teacher training and manpower training … They were taught about love for the country, love for freedom, hating the Soviet occupier” (Ibid., 198–9). In contrast, Saudi Arabia saw it as “an unparalleled opportunity [to support] a religious Jihad against the infidels” (Ibid., 198). Therefore, financial aid flowed right into Afghanistan to reform textbooks to secure certain political goals. Once the Taliban took control in 1996, Afghanistan’s education system largely reverted to how it had been before King Amanullah, with little infrastructure and even less access to education for women and girls. With the ousting of the Taliban in 2001 and the re-­establishment of the Afghan government in 2004, education once again became a national priority and the international community stepped in to help support it. c a n a d i a n e d u c at i o n p r o g r a m m i n g

Canada’s efforts in reconstructing and improving education in Afghanistan acted both as a rationalization for Canada’s involvement as well as an indicator of success, even though only a small portion (approximately 10 per cent) of total disbursements (see figure 9.1) was devoted to education. The level of school attendance was extremely low after 2001 and many of the schools were run by NGOs or religious organizations. It was not until the end of 2001 that the Government of Afghanistan assumed responsibility for educating its citizens, slowly providing services to replace NGOs (Strand 2015). Later, the 2004 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan stated in Article 43 that “education is the right of all citizens of Afghanistan,” which was reiterated in the Education Law passed in 2008. Student enrollment has greatly improved since then, from 1 million children reported in school in 2001 to 8.6 million in 2013, 39 per cent of whom were girls (Ministry of Education 2014). Although there are still significant barriers to access of education – insecurity, child labour, lack of schools in rural areas, low quality of education – the reform of Afghanistan’s education sector is viewed as a success and as an example of what a state with the political will to prioritize education can achieve (Strand 2015).

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Canada, working alongside other donors, made significant contributions to those reforms improving education in Afghanistan. Indeed, it was one of the major donors in the education sector following the US, the EU, the UK, and Germany (CIDA 2014, 34). According to the publicly accessible data on different projects for education, Canada spent more than $255 million on a variety of projects, ranging from infrastructure to community-based education. That represents approximately 24 per cent (of $1.069 billion) of the total investments in development projects and programs analyzed in this book. Canada has supported the education sector in Afghanistan since 2004, though a more defined strategy did not emerge until after 2006. From 2004 to 2006, education programming was subsumed under the Rural Livelihoods and Social Protection program for which CIDA funded a variety of activities, including microfinancing and community grants. Some of these grants were put toward rehabilitating schools and some for training and education activities. During 2006, with the release of the National Education Strategic Plan I (NESP-I), developed in accordance with the Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS) 2006 to 2010, education programming fell under Economic and Social Development (Baiza 2013). Canada identified three areas of support to the N ES P - I : 1 Supporting the capacity building of the Ministry of Education (MoE ) plans at the district level in teacher training; 2 Building management and leadership capacity within the MoE ; and 3 Embedding technical advisors into the M oE (CI D A 2014, 37). From 2008 on, partly due to the release of the Manley Report (2008), education programming fell under Basic Services. Canada identified four main priorities during this time: 1. Capacity building and donor coordination, including support to establish the Education Development Board; 2 The Kandahar signature project, to build, repair, or expand fifty schools; 3 Program implementation support, including Community-Based Education (C B E ), Education Quality Improvement Program (EQU IP ), and technical and vocational training; and

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4 Strengthening links and synergies with other sectors through the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) and National Solidarity Program (NSP ) (C I DA 2014, 37). Last, in 2010 Canada developed an Education Sector Strategy for 2011 to 2014. This internal document became one of the building blocks for Canada’s programming in Afghanistan and drew clear links with Canadian international policy drivers, including, among others, the Millennium Development Goals, Education for All, and CIDA’s Aid Effectiveness Action Plan, as well as key policies in Afghanistan, such as the N E SP - I I , ANDS, and the Kabul Process (DFATD 2015, 126). Table 9.1 shows Canadian priorities in education and their alignment with Afghanistan’s priorities as laid out in the N E S P - I and N ESP-II. C I D A ’s primary focus throughout the mission was on providing infrastructure, improving the quality of education through teacher training and accreditation, and, later, developing and implementing community-based education (CBE) programs. Despite the significant contributions Canada made in these areas, its programming did face criticisms. First, there was little follow-up with many of the schools constructed to ensure they were being used as actual schools (buildings were often appropriated for other uses) and it appeared that some aid went to funding “ghost schools,” schools that do not actually exist (SIGAR 2016). Second, although teacher training did focus on subjectbased training and pedagogy, children’s learning needs were not analyzed to better design programs to enable teachers to be well equipped to teach students according to their needs. There were also no plans initially to collect and assess data on learning (Husting and Kissam 2008). Another major critique was that the CBE projects funded by CIDA did not fully align with the MoE’s CBE policy. The CBE complements formal education provision and fulfills Canada’s commitment as laid out in NESP-I and NESP-II to increase access and enrollment. However, the misalignment with the MoE’s policy made it difficult to comply with teacher pay guidelines, the handover process for community-based schools to the government, and the transition of students from CBE to formal education (DFATD 2015, 26). These issues were not necessarily unique to Canada because these programs were often funded by multiple donors. But Canada did try to improve its education programming over time. The following

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Table 9.1 Canadian education priorities, 2006–14

M oE Policy Years

Priority Areas

NESP-I

2006–10 1 Increase enrollment of boys and girls in grades 1–12. 2 Build a new cadre of qualified school teachers. 3 Construct and rehabilitate 73,000 classrooms and ­construct 15 teacher training centres with male and female dorms. 4 Develop a new primary and secondary curriculum and textbooks. 5 Develop a modern Islamic education system. 6 Develop relevant Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET ) opportunities. 7 Develop a long-term literacy program. 8 Strengthen the MoE .

NESP-II

2010–14 1 General and Islamic education – Provide equitable access for all to quality education. 2 Curriculum development, teacher education and science and technology education – Provide modern textbooks and learning materials to support the new curriculum, based on Islamic values and relevant to the needs of society. 3 TVET – Provide relevant and quality T V E T for both men and women to meet the needs of the labour market. 4 Literacy – Teach men and women over the age of 15 to read. 5 Education management – Provide a proper and safe learning and administrative environment conducive for all students and staff through educational infrastructure throughout the country.

Source: CIDA (2013), Appendix 7, 38–41.

sections will look at the three time periods identified in chapter 2 (2001–05, 2005–09, and 2010–14) and the associated logic frameworks and programs that were identified by C I D A , followed by a discussion on the internal and external factors that contributed to or limited the success of C I D A education programming. Outputs between 2001 and 2005 In this first period, C I D A initially showed very little activity in the education sector because the mission was more focused on the military

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effort to improve security and rebuild political and bureaucratic structures to provide a source of stability. The priorities of C I D A at this time were focused on rural livelihoods and social protection, security and the rule of law, natural resources management, and budget supplementation (C I D A 2007). Table 9.2 shows an excerpt from the logic framework for C I D A ’s Afghanistan Program (2004 to 2009) for education, which fell under the Rural Livelihoods and Social Protection pillar. The efforts during this time were fairly ad hoc because there was no coherent strategy in place, and education was far from the main focus. Consequently, there were few mechanisms in place for monitoring and evaluating the few projects that CIDA did undertake during this time. However, there were a couple of larger programs that included a smaller component focused on training and education. For example, the projects in the Alternate Livelihoods Program that CIDA contributed to with $1.75 million from 2004 to 2007 included education and vocational training. The program’s creation was prompted by the economic and political importance of poppy cultivation and the threat it posed to the stability and security of the country. Thus, GoA and the international community sought a way to address this issue by developing alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers. Under this umbrella, many projects were developed to help foster alternatives to poppy farming, such as the Master Plan for Integrated Development in Bamyan, which included education, or the Water and Sanitation project, which included education on sanitation and hygiene (UNODC 2005). However, because individual components of the larger program were not monitored or evaluated, it is difficult to determine the longerterm outcomes and impacts, or what Canada’s contribution achieved. After this initial period, which lacked focus, and the GoA and international community’s growing interest in education, the Government of Canada began to take steps to improve its education programming while ensuring that the projects aligned with GoA ’s education priorities. Outputs between 2005 and 2009 The second period ran from 2005 to 2009, during which Canada took over command of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (K P R T ) and began to shift its focus to a more balanced approach, which included increasing aid levels in the education sector, with a particular focus on improving access to education for girls. Education

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Table 9.2 Logic framework for rural livelihoods and social protection, 2004–09

Priorities/ Pillars

Rural livelihoods and social protection

Programming in rural livelihoods and social protection pillar: Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (M I S F A ), National Area-Based Development Programme (NA B DP ), National Solidarity Program (NSP), National Gender Program Outputs Micro loans for poor people, particularly women; basic social and physical infrastructure; vocational training and education for women Micro and small enterprises established by rural poor; basic human Immediate needs in areas such as health and basic infrastructure increasingly outcomes (short term) met; community participation strengthened; women's financial ­self-reliance increased Intermediate Selected basic and social economic needs of the people increasingly met outcomes (medium term) Consolidation of central government’s authority and legitimacy Final across the nation, and improvement in people’s well-being, enable ­outcome (long term) the increased stabilization of the State of Afghanistan. Specific ­program activities

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD). (2015). Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program 2004–2005 to 2012–2013 – Synthesis Report, pg. 69.

moved from Rural Livelihoods and Social Protection to Social and Economic Development alongside Access to Health and Gender Equality. The release of the NE SP - I in 2006 also influenced the logic model that C I DA developed for 2007 to 2011 (table 9.3). During this period, when education programming became a priority for Canada, many education programs were introduced, representing approximately $162 million of investments. One of CI D A’s largest projects was the Education Quality Improvement Program (E Q U I P ) which was implemented nationwide from 2007 to 2014 and totalled approximately $91 million. The World Bank launched EQUIP in 2004 and C IDA became involved in 2007. E Q U I P aimed to improve the quality of education, improve access to schools, and increase the number of female students. It is Afghanistan’s largest national education program. The project had four main priorities: training teachers and principals, building and rehabilitating schools, providing school supplies, and establishing school management committees to improve monitoring and evaluation. As of March 2014, E Q U I P had resulted in the repair and construction of over 800 formal schools nationwide

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Table 9.3 Logic framework for access to education, 2007–11

Priorities/Pillars

Social and economic development: Access to education

Specific program activities

Teacher training; building capacity within all levels of government education portfolio; training women in life and vocational skills; building educational infrastructure Teacher training completed; education facilities built; capacity building performed within education sector; life and vocational skills training courses established Increased capacity to deliver essential health and ­education services; improved policy and programming that furthers women’s socio-political and economic participation Improved (equal) access to health and education ­services. Increased participation of women in political, economic, and social sectors of society A more stable, self-reliant, and democratic Afghanistan that contributes to national, regional, and global security

Outputs

Immediate outcomes (short term)

Intermediate outcomes (medium term) Final outcome (long term)

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), 2015. Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program 2004–2005 to 2012–2013 – Synthesis Report, pg. 69.

and more than 187,000 teachers and over 14,000 principals and school administrators had been trained. Approximately 13,000 school management committees, a school governing body comprising school staff, parents, and students, were established in communities across the country which helped increase public involvement in Afghanistan’s educational system. An Education Management Information System was established, which was key to producing the first national education statistical report in 2007. It is now updated regularly. A portion of C I D A ’s contribution to E Q U I P ($12 million) was allocated to Canada’s signature school project in Kandahar after 2008.2 The original goal was to build, repair, or expand fifty schools in Kandahar. Although this project resulted in sixty-four schools being built, a number well above the original target, it also faced a number of criticisms. Some saw the $12 million price tag as too costly (Banerjee 2015). Problems with construction and its quality saw many of the schools become unusable (DF A I T 2015). Furthermore, just because schools were built does not necessarily mean they were used as schools; nor did it ensure the quality of education being delivered. Unfortunately,

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there was a severe lack of monitoring and evaluation of these schools, making it impossible to trace their outcomes or longer-term impacts (SIG A R 2018). Another significant project was the Girls Primary Education Project, in partnership with B R A C , which ran from 2006 to 2013. The $19 million investment resulted in more than 4,600 community-based schools being established, providing basic education to a total of 144,329 students (84 per cent girls). The project also provided (1) inservice training to 857 government schoolteachers (368 female); (2) subject-based training in English, math, chemistry, biology, and physics to 4,744 government school teachers (1,402 female); and (3) education development training to 284 teachers. Because this is a cross-cutting program with gender, it is included in the gender chapter with more detail. The CIDA project Excel-erate Teacher Training Project delivered by Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (2007 to 2011) also invested $650,000 in teacher training. For example, by the end of the project, a total of 1,542 in-service teachers were trained, representing about 10 per cent of all teachers in Kabul Province, and about 1 per cent of the country’s entire teacher population; 51 per cent of these trainees were female. Before this project, in-service teachers were seriously under-trained. In fact, 31 per cent had completed fewer than twelve years of basic education and 73 per cent lacked the minimum teacher education requirements (a high school diploma plus two years post-secondary education) (CW4WA, 2017). This project is thus unique in that it targeted the in-service teacher population, ultimately providing a higher quality of education to their students. This project alone inspired development in the education sector due to its ripple effect. To clarify, the average teacher in this province typically instructed forty to forty-five students per class and taught between one and four classes. Therefore, the training of 1,542 teachers positively affected between 70,000 to 200,000 or more students annually (Ibid.). Moreover, according to results from tests given before and after training, assessments revealed that teachers’ skill level increased as a result of the training. In most districts, teachers improved by a staggering 49 per cent (Ibid.). This improvement also benefited teachers’ behaviours and techniques; they became more likely to apply active learning methodologies in place of rote memorization or lectures These trained teachers also refrained from corporal punishment. As a result of these improvements, the students of the Excel-erate

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program-trained teachers appeared to be more engaged in learning. In sum, this project allowed for an increase in the numbers and quality of trained teachers. This output benefited the education system because schoolteachers developed confidence in their own teaching abilities, which in turn allowed them to exercise more control over the classroom, with reduced student behavioural challenges and disruptions during class time. Although these outputs seem impressive at first glance, some projects, particularly the infrastructure projects, faced heavy criticism. For example, according to Kenneth Holland (2010) most – if not all – of the projects dedicated to the construction and rehabilitation of schools were security-centric. Often military units (e.g., PRTs) undertook education projects to win Afghans’ “hearts and minds,” ultimately as a form of counterinsurgency. Their engagement in the construction of schools was not fuelled by a desire to engage in truly sustainable development work, but to support their commander’s agenda. They saw “development and governance as tools to help win a war, rather than as ends pursued unto themselves” (Alexander 2014, 37). As Lieutenant-General Jon Vance, Chief of the Defence Staff of the C A F, describes, [F]rom a military perspective, the effort to try to build a school has a deleterious effect on the enemy. It may not have a tremendously positive effect on the education system. But it’s harmful to the enemy, because they see something built, and they have to destroy it, and then they’re seen to be destroying schools, which is good. The military doesn’t do these humanitarian things for humanitarian reasons. We do it because we’re trying to achieve military objectives. And I [make] no secret about that. That’s the game we’re in. (Alexander 2014, 37) This motivation clearly clashed with the spirit of reconstruction and development and contributed to the question about what Canada was actually trying to achieve in Afghanistan, which also inspired a re-examination of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. This resulted in the release of the Manley Report in 2008. The report recommended more focused priorities, clear benchmarks and indicators, integrated planning, and more regular communication with the Canadian population about Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan. The government responded by identifying six policy priorities, three signature projects,

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and a move from a focus on national-based programming to 50 per cent of programming focused on Kandahar. Following the recommendations of the Manley Report, the government developed three signature projects in the province of Kandahar: the Dahla Dam and irrigation system construction project, the polio eradication project, and the school construction project. During this time, nationwide education programs also focused more on coordinating donor aid, providing technical assistance, support to teacher accreditation programs, and support for the expansion of community-based education programs (DF A T D 2015). One of the key findings of the report was that Canada’s civilian programs “have not achieved the scale or depth of engagement necessary to make a significant impact” (2015, 14). From 2008 to 2011 Canada thus took on more specific projects and initiatives to address this issue. This is reflected in the logic framework (table 9.4) developed during this time. This framework shows that Canada became more deeply invested in education, realizing that the education sector was an important tool to promote stability, and more particularly, a tool that could garner local support for the KPRT staff, inspire a new generation of thinkers, and rid the new generation of Taliban sympathizers. A number of programs were launched after the release of this logic framework. First, the Vocational Training for Afghan Women (2007 to 2012) project, carried out by C A R E -WUSC and funded with $6.48 million from C ID A , provided training for Afghan women, including widows and refugees, to build marketable skills and pursue various types of employment. The project also aimed to reduce the barriers that disempowered Afghan women in Afghanistan (G AC 2017b). As of July 2011, 1,976 trainees (62 per cent women) had completed trade training, exceeding the initial target of 1,750 participants (12 per cent women). Moreover, by March 2011 758 people had graduated from the trade training program (421 women; 337 men) and completed the business program as well as the life-skills training. In an outcome survey, participants identified the type of employment they wanted to pursue after graduation. These include home-based businesses, service providers, formal employment with an existing company, or on-the-job training. In particular, the survey found that forty-two producer groups had been formed (comprising 507 members in total) and had benefited from the services of an on-site business development officer; seventeen of them were in operation (153 members) as

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Table 9.4 Logic framework for access to education, 2008–11

Priorities/ Pillars Specific PP activities

Outputs

Immediate outcomes (short term) Intermediate outcomes (medium term) Final outcome (long term)

Basic services: Access to education Providing teacher training; developing community-based education services; building or rehabilitating education infrastructure; providing literacy, vocational and life skills development training; supporting community capacity development. Teacher training completed; community-based education services established; educational facilities built or rehabilitated; literacy, vocational and life skill development training provided; local community capacity development supported Improved capacity of national, provincial, and local institutions to deliver basic educational services to Afghan men, women, boys, and girls; enhanced capacity of communities to identify and implement community development projects (Kandahar focus) Improved access to quality education services for women and girls (Kandahar focus); improved access to employment and income opportunities for women and men (Kandahar focus) A more secure Afghanistan, with a focus on Kandahar, able to deliver key services to Afghans, and better provide for its longerterm stability and sustainable development

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), 2015. Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program 2004–2005 to 2012–2013 – Synthesis Report, pg. 69.

of July 2011, with their members generating, on average, a monthly salary of $110 to $200. Starting in March 2011, 180 graduates from the trade training program began short-term employment through a Community Development Program, which was managed locally by C A R E Afghanistan. The 180 participants included ninety women working from their homes to produce, for example, 10,800 school bags. Sixty men were contracted to make 1,800 reading chairs and 900 wheelbarrows; thirty men were hired to install wiring in 1,800 houses. The nationally targeted program also included providing microcredit loans. Vocational Training for Afghan Women – Afghan Challenge Amendment was another project that aimed to scale up activities already taking place under the Community Development Program. It ran from 2008 to 2012, was delivered by CARE Canada and World University Service of Canada (C A R E -W U S C ), and represented an additional $220,122 investment. This program aimed to enable Afghan women who had no source of income (e.g., widows and refugees) to

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become more self-sufficient by helping them to acquire new skills that allowed them to find employment or start their own business. About 250 women used the program, which helped reduce poverty among vulnerable women, widows, and their family members through support for educational and livelihood opportunities. By the end of the project, fifty vulnerable women and their adult children had acquired employable skills, such as training in jewellery-making, catering, woodcarving, and mobile telephone repair; fifty vulnerable households (approximately 250 indirect beneficiaries) had increased their income and their standard of living, ten instructors had enhanced their training skills, and twenty skilled business counsellors had been trained in Kabul Province. Second, a C I D A project, Quality Primary Education in Southern Afghanistan, which operated from 2008 to 2013 (a Kandahar-specific program worth almost $4 million), yielded positive results, building 100 Accelerated Learning Centres (A L C).3 These AL Cs, for grades 1 to 6, were established in remote communities, improving access to education for 2,801 students (46 per cent girls and 54 per cent boys). These ALCs had successfully transitioned to government-run schools or had been phased out for operational purposes. This progress continued in the following years, allowing 200 AL Cs to be established and providing 6,158 out-of-school children (2,983 girls and 3,175 boys) with the opportunity to receive an education. Last, another project that was introduced during this time that included vocational training and education was the Afghan Women’s Community Support (2008 to 2013) project in Kabul and Jalalabad. It was implemented by War Child Canada and provided opportunities for vulnerable women and their families to meet their education, professional training, and microfinance training needs so that they could participate independently in the local economy. Because this project was also gender-focused, it is covered in more detail in the gender chapter. Overall, this time period saw a rapid expansion in education programming and a longer-term outlook on what needed to be achieved to create a sustainable and gender-equal education system. However, while the programs fit well into the education strategies laid out by the GoA (NESP-I and NESP-II), it is unclear after reviewing the projects done that there was an overarching Canadian strategy that would have shown the projects as part of a larger, more coherent effort to improving education in Afghanistan. This is probably what

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inspired the shift in strategy during the final time period, from 2010 to 2014. Outputs between 2010 and 2014 From 2010 to 2014, the Canadian mission in Afghanistan transitioned from combat to training and the US took over command of the KPRT, which made adjustments in education programming. Canada began to move away from programs based in Kandahar and to focus more, once again, on national-level programs. The logic model released during his time was one of the most comprehensive, with a clearer set of activities, outputs, and outcomes (table 9.5). In 2011, C I D A contributed $325,000 to the Fast Track Initiative for Education for All (E F A - F T I ) in Afghanistan. Its purpose was to provide research and consultancy to assess the M oE’s preparedness for E F A to garner endorsements and formal funding to implement the various National Education Strategic Plans. Although significant strides have been made in achieving E F A targets in Afghanistan, its exceptionally low starting point was particularly unfavourable. Much more needs to be done (UNE SC O 2015). Another project launched in 2010 was Basic Education and Gender Equality: Training of Teachers in Kandahar (2010 to 2013), a $4.8  million investment. Working with U N I C E F , teachers were trained to better support the psychosocial well-being of children affected by the ongoing conflict. Topics covered in the training included: children’s experiences in disaster and conflict situations; the impact of disaster and conflict on well-being; recognizing signs of distress in children; coping and recovering from difficult experiences; resilience; psychosocial needs at different ages; the role of the school in supporting children’s psychosocial well-being; supportive classrooms; promoting good behaviour; and communicating with children. More than 2,800 teachers were trained in these topics as well as an additional 1,546 in pedagogy, and 2,945 educators were given enhanced literacy training. From 2011 to 2013, the Fanoos/Safe Light: Teacher Training in Afghanistan project was run in Laghman and Kabul provinces by Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (C W 4 W A ) with an investment from CIDA of about $500,000. Its purpose was to upgrade the teaching skills of high school teachers, as well as provide science kits and public service engagement for teachers. The original target

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Increased availability of quality learning spaces for both girls and boys

Educational facilities established for girls and boys (either mixed or single-sex facilities); enabling infrastructure established (e.g., latrines, school boundary walls, transportation) to respond to the different needs and requirements for girls and boys to go to school

C BE teachers, particularly female ones, are identified and recruited; community-based classes ­established, especially for women and girls.

Operational: E Q U I P, A KFC , B R A C, Q P E P, U N I CE F -BEG E , Afghanistan Challenge. Planned: Increased support to community-based education. Other Program Activities: Participate in E Q U I P Donor Group, and the Afghanistan Girls’ Education Initiative working group.

Operational: B R A C, Q P EP , U N I C E F-B E G E . Planned: Increased support to community-based education. Other Program Activities: Chair of CB E working group (promotes coordination amongst partners and with the MoE .

Increased availability of male and female school teachers who reflect community need and meet ­gender-specific demand

Immediate Outcomes

Outputs

Activities

Table 9.5 Logic framework for access to education, 2011–14

Increased access for girls and boys to ­relevant learning opportunities that respond to their ­different priorities and interests

Intermediate Outcomes

Basic needs met; reduced vulnerability of the people of Afghanistan, with a focus on women and girls.

Final Outcome

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Improved ability of local, provincial, and national institutions to deliver basic education services nationally

Improved ability of teachers and educators to deliver quality basic education; increased ability of communities to engage in basic ­education-related ­decision-making processes

Technical assistance in ­management provided to the M oE; ­policy development ­processes supported and ­coordinated within the M oE

Teachers and educators provided with appropriate training. Teacher training accreditation system established; teacher ­certification system established; local community school governance bodies established, ­inclusive of both women and men; infrastructure and other needs-based grants distributed.

Enhanced delivery of quality learning opportunities for girls and boys through the education system

AK FC – Aga Khan Foundation Canada BR AC – Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee CB E – Community Based Education EQUIP – Education Quality Improvement Program QPEP – Quality Primary Education Program TC& A – Technical Assistance UNIC EF-BEG E – Basic Eucation and Gender Equality

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), 2015. Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program 2004–2005 to 2012–2013 – Synthesis Report, pg. 69.

Planned: Teacher certification and accreditation.

Operational: E QU I P , AK F C, B R AC , U N I CE F -B E G E , Education in emergencies (C A RE ). Planned: T C& A (MoE and Partner) Technical Assistance. Other Program Activities: Participate in the Education Management Working Group (strategic guidance and support services for implementation of education programs). Operational: EQ U IP , A K F C, U N I CE F -B EG E , BR A C, Q P EP

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was to train 1,000 teachers per year, but that target was surpassed, and 1,330 teachers were trained in twelve months. One of the larger programs that C I D A supported was the Teacher Certification and Accreditation of Teacher Education, which ran from 2011 to 2016 in partnership with the World University Service of Canada (W U S C ). C I D A provided over $10 million to the program which aimed to increase the quality of education in Afghanistan by improving national standards for teaching and teacher-training institutions, one of the only programs of its kind. As part of developing the certification and accreditation system the project included identifying and integrating mechanisms for increasing the recruitment, training, and retention of female teachers. It also included training for the Ministry of Education’s Teacher Education Department to strengthen its ability to plan, implement, and evaluate teacher education policies; standardizing a gender-sensitive teacher-training curriculum; and assessing the feasibility of distance teacher-training. At the end of the project in 2016, a consensus was reached with the M oE on the key principles for certifying teachers and accrediting teacher-training institutes. It also designed a teacher credentialling system that the M oE was to roll out to forty-five public teachertraining institutes, followed by private institutions. The Teacher Education Management Information System was also integrated with the credentialling system data, technical assistance that significantly contributed to establishing a national system of teachertraining accreditation. One of Canada’s largest investments, approximately $20 million, was in the 2012 Basic Education for Afghanistan Consortium (BEACON), in partnership with the International Rescue Committee, CARE Canada, the Aga Khan Foundation, and Catholic Relief Services. The project ultimately focused “on increasing the accessibility of community-based education in rural areas, while building the sustainability of programs through community and government support” (C A R E Canada 2017). This program has been reported as largely successful as of 2014, with more than 917 classes established and about 25,517 students enrolled, 63 per cent of whom were girls.4 The last significant project introduced during this time was the Community-Based Girls’ Education Project. Running from 2012 to 2017 in partnership with BRAC as an extension of the previous Girls’ Primary Education project (see gender chapter), C I D A contributed almost $20 million to this project. Community-based classes have the

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unique ability to help Afghan children in remote and rural communities participate in quality learning opportunities (DFATD 2015). This project aimed to provide education opportunities for 120,000 students, 80 per cent of whom were girls, by establishing 4,000 community-based education classes. It focused on removing the barriers that were preventing girls from accessing education. As of the end of the project in 2017, the results achieved were impressive: 3,000 community-based schools and 1,000 pre-primary schools were established, enrolling a total of 122,979 students (83 per cent girls); 3,684 school management committees were formed to help better run the schools and to establish strong links with the government schools closest to the community-based schools; basic teachers’ training was provided to 3,000 teachers (all women); an operational management course was provided to 297 staff and a training course was provided to 126 trainers; training was also provided to 3,880 government school teachers (1,596 women); and 340 capacity development workshops were conducted for members of central government “school shuras” (school councils). Overall, the framework developed during this time clearly built on past efforts and identified clearer activities than previous frameworks, and the programming reflected this. However, the listed intermediate outcomes and final outcome are virtually unmeasurable due to the lack of good baseline data and needs assessments. For example, the intermediate outcome of “increased access for girls and boys to relevant learning opportunities that respond to their different priorities and interests” (our emphasis) is almost impossible to track because no baseline studies were done to determine what would be relevant, let alone what students’ priorities and interests were. This issue is further reflected in the previous discussion about teacher training and the lack of analysis identifying learning needs and learning outcomes, and is part of the larger debate, identified in previous chapters, about the differences between outputs and outcomes, with the former garnering much more attention than the latter. Outcomes EQUIP was implemented by the World Bank between 2004 and 2009. It was followed by the Second Education Quality Improvement Project (E Q U I P I I ), which ran until 2018. A mid-term assessment undertaken in 2007 by the Norwegian Agency for Development

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Cooperation, also known as Norad (Latif et al., 2007), lists some impressive findings: •

•

•

•

•

•

Remarkable progress was made in increasing the rates of female participation, notably, the dramatic increase in girls’ enrollments and in the number of female teachers. EQU IP has been very successful in mobilizing communities to establish school management committees and parent teacher associations. Infrastructure development is progressing well. Community participation in school construction has been significant and a menu of cost-effective alternative designs has been developed. The modality for the national in-service teacher-training program has been established under the multi-donor supported teacher education program. A basic monitoring and evaluation systems in E Q U I P is in place, and a comprehensive Educational Management Information System is being developed. Project management has improved significantly since E Q U I P effectiveness; greater effort needs to be made in strengthening coordination across departments (2007, 2–3).

However, the report also noted some significant shortcomings as well. First, little progress had been made in the training of school principals and the capacity building of provincial and district education departments, primarily because of their links with the slow reform in public administration. Second, teacher training was progressing too slowly and needed to be accelerated to meet E Q U I P ’s goals. Third, better technical supervision and monitoring of construction sites was needed to ensure proper and quality instruction. Last, EQUIP relied too much on technical assistance. Many of these shortcomings continued through E Q U I P I I , as reported by the World Bank (2018), especially with the increase in security incidents. Problems persisted, with poor supervision of construction sites negatively affecting their quality. The institutional capacity at provincial and district levels was little improved. Although E Q U I P I I attained its teacher-training goals, there was a disconnect between teachers completing their training and being hired as teachers. So significant gaps still remain. Last, the overreliance on technical advisors continues to threaten the long-term

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The Challenge of Quality Education for All 257

sustainability of the improvements in the education system due to the M oE ’s lack of capacity. Working with Save the Children Netherlands, the Quality Primary Education in Southern Afghanistan program focused on improving access to children who were not part of the formal education system in Kandahar and Uruzgan. The ALCs created by this program allowed over 3,000 children to catch up with their peers and enter the formal schooling system. Unfortunately, there is no additional reporting on to say whether those children entered the formal schooling system and if they completed their education. There is also no additional information on whether the centres created by this project are still in operation, so it is difficult to determine outcomes beyond the immediate outputs. The main outcome of the Excel-erate Teacher-Training Project by C W4 WA was the training of a total of 1,542 teachers, representing roughly 10 per cent of all teachers in Kabul Province, and approximately 1 per cent of the country’s entire teacher population. A slight majority of those teacher trainees (51 per cent) were female. The project was in line with the plans by the Afghan Ministry of Education, which, during this time period (2005 to 2009), focused heavily on recruiting new teachers and building teachers’ colleges. By 2010 the number of teachers had risen from 11,708 in 2001 to close to 170,000. However, teacher trainees continued to lack training (compared with Western standards): 31 per cent of the trainees had fewer than twelve years of basic education for the job, and 73 per cent lacked the minimum requirements for teacher education: a high school diploma plus two years of post-secondary education. This project was thus unique in that it targeted the in-service teacher population. As part of the professional development program, in-service teachers were awarded with a certification as trained teachers by the Afghan Ministry of Education, allowing them to earn a higher salary (from US$60/month to US$120/month) and thus to double their household incomes. C W4 WA pre- and post-tested the in-service teachers’ level of skills attained, which improved by 49 per cent.5 As an example, the average score on the pre-test for teachers of Dari was 36 per cent in Kalakan District; post-training testing revealed an average score of 89 per cent, a 53 per cent increase. And based on classroom observation sampling following their training, teachers were more likely to apply active learning methods for their students instead of monotonous lecturing, which led students to participate more in class.

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The use of corporal punishment was lower among teachers who had been trained as part of the project, teachers were able to exercise more control over the classroom, and had greater access to resources than untrained teachers (e.g., the government teacher guides). As part of the Excel-erate project, selected schools were provided with school science lab starter kits, allowing teachers to deliver hands-on science training to students, and a permanent collection of forty teacher resources were translated into Dari to enhance teachers’ lesson delivery. The project also increased students’ access to new textbooks produced by the Afghan Ministry of Education. Between 2001 and 2013 the number of teachers employed in the Afghan education system increased from 21,000 to 180,000 (DFATD 2013, 75). In 2001 there were no female teachers. In 2013, 31 per cent were women. The Training of Teachers in Kandahar was part of the larger, U N IC EF-implemented program called Basic Education and Gender Equality (B E GE ). B E GE ’s goal was “to ensure an increase in educational levels of children, particularly girls, through a more equitable access to quality basic education services in Afghanistan” (Holmberg et al. 2016, 13) with a particular focus on the most deprived provinces, including Kandahar. Although reporting suggests that this program was relevant to the national education strategy and improved access in the provinces in which it worked, it lacked clear gender strategies and was poorly adapted to the realities of the political context, limiting its effectiveness. There was also a distinct lack of monitoring and evaluation, which should have been embedded within the design of the program (Ibid.). The evaluation of the program done by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency in Kandahar was also limited due to security concerns and teachers rarely being present during interviews. Thus, determining the outcomes of the Kandahar portion of the program is difficult to separate from the larger evaluation. The Teacher Certification and Accreditation of Teacher Education program ran from 2011 to 2016 and made significant strides in improving the teacher accreditation process, but change is proving to be slow. Many of the processes set up by this program are only now being implemented by the MoE, though they do appear promising (Goddard, Ali, and Frideres 2018). Indeed, the projects that were initiated in forty-eight teacher-training colleges showed great potential for streamlining the accreditation process to the point that it has been suggested that other low-income states may find the model useful (Ibid.). The pilot project model is now being scaled

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The Challenge of Quality Education for All 259

up and rolled out to the forty-five remaining teacher-training colleges in the country. The Basic Education for Afghanistan Consortium (BE ACO N ) is a largely lauded program that provided some 25,000 students in over 900 community-based education classes with education between 2012 and 2016. A baseline test was completed in 2014 to assess the reading and numeracy skills of those students. The results showed that the vast majority of students developed skills that are foundational to basic literacy, 74 per cent were able to read, and 5 to 6 per cent had not learned how to read. Numeracy was slightly less successful as many of the students struggled with quantity discrimination (identifying the bigger number from a pair of numbers) and subtraction (Pouras Consult Aps 2016). The program has set the foundation for holistic education in the least served areas of Afghanistan, helping to create a more literate younger generation. The Community-Based Girls’ Education Project run by B R A C between 2012 and 2017 saw significant improvements in girls’ attendance rates but recent studies have shown that there is a lack of evidence on how increased school attendance is improving girls’ learning outcomes (Asadullah, Alim, and Hossain 2019). Improving attendance is only a small part of improving education. Education is a holistic process with many interwoven parts contributing to the experience. Thus, focusing solely on attendance ultimately limits the program’s effectiveness and outcomes. p r e l i m i n a r y l o n g - t e r m i m pa c t s a n d i m p l i c at i o n s

Afghanistan continues to be faced with huge challenges as it recovers from decades of conflict and political unrest that destroyed the Afghan education system. However, after 2001, there was a concentrated national and international effort to improve education overall in Afghanistan. Canada, among other international donors, stepped up to provide assistance in three main areas: teacher training, improving access and enrollment, and capacity building for the Ministry of Education. Teacher Training In 2001 only about 21,000 teachers were officially registered nationally, none of whom were women. By 2013 that number had significantly increased to 180,000 teachers, 31 per cent of them women

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(D F A I T 2013). Despite the questionable reliability of the baseline data, there does appear to be a general consensus that there has been a significant improvement in the number of trained teachers since the beginning of the mission (C SO 2018), though there does still appear to be a significant gap between male and female teachers, with the percentage of female teachers peaking in 2015 at 34 per cent (see figure 9.1). However, as the Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey 2016–17 notes, the greatest gains in teacher training (as well as in literacy, school attendance, and educational attainment) occurred earlier on in the mission, between 2008 and 2012. Since 2015, the level of trained teachers has largely stagnated, as seen in figure 9.1. This is particularly problematic because the current average pupil-teacher ratio of fortyseven students per teacher (it varies across provinces) is much higher than the thirty-five students per teacher that the M oE is aiming for. There is also an acute shortage of teachers in certain fields, such as mathematics and science, and they are ill-equipped and ill-paid (CSO 2018). Indeed, these issues culminated in a month-long teachers’ strike in Kabul in 2015 (with teachers from eighteen other provinces joining in) that resulted in President Ashraf Ghani giving in to their demands. These included fewer hours for older and more experienced teachers, the end of the promotion freeze, and improved housing for teachers (Roehrs and Suroush 2015). The other main issue is the quality of teachers in Afghanistan. During Taliban rule, many of the qualified educators fled the country, resulting in a significant brain drain. Even those who did remain lost their connection to academia and their knowledge of their field quickly became outdated (Berger et al. 2016). Thus, much of the teacher base had to be completely rebuilt. Despite the large amount of effort and money put into teacher training, the majority of teachers (approximately 58 per cent) still do not actually have the minimum required education6 to be a teacher, which negatively affects the quality of education (CSO 2018). The number of qualified of teachers also varies greatly by province (see figure 9.2). Moreover, Afghanistan is somewhat unique in that the education system was being rebuilt during active conflict, so the current situation sees older children returning to school, possibly for the first time, alongside age-appropriate children, resulting in a large variety of students in the classroom with different needs (Oxfam 2004). Unfortunately, there was a distinct lack of a needs assessment when

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The Challenge of Quality Education for All 261 40 35

Percentage

30 25 20 15 10 5 0

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Primary education, teachers (% female)

2012 Year

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

Secondary education, teachers (% female)

Figure 9.1  Percentage of female teachers, primary and secondary education, 2007–17 Source: Data from World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2019. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/source/world-development-indicators.

Figure 9.2  Proportion of unqualified teachers by province Source: Ministry of Education (2014). Afghanistan National Education for All (EFA) Review Report 2015. UNESCO, Kabul, 48.

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designing a training curriculum that would give teachers the tools they needed to provide students what they require to be successful. For example, the redevelopment of the curricula also saw the introduction of new subjects and new teaching formats, which some teachers were not equipped to implement (Husting, Intili, and Kissam 2008). All of this suggests that although the number of teachers improved by leaps and bounds over the duration of the Afghanistan mission, there is still much more to do to minimize their attrition rate, including improving teachers’ pay and social status, overall quality, and addressing the gender gap. Improving Access and Enrollment One of the main goals for Canada’s education development program was to get more kids, both male and female, into school. To achieve this, Canada launched several initiatives, with the two largest areas being school infrastructure and community-based education (CBE ). After the Taliban was ousted, Afghanistan suffered a severe shortage of appropriate facilities and infrastructure at all levels of education. After the contributions of the international community, according to DFAIT (2013), the numbers of schools increased to more than 14,000 with more than 71,000 usable classrooms. This clear increase in the number of schools has allowed some children to attend school in areas that have never had any formal education facilities in place before and depended on home-schooling or education provided by NGOs. As part of this initiative, some of the schools built were femaleonly and other schools received facilities such as separate bathrooms and border walls that would allow girls to attend. These improvements greatly contributed to girls’ enrollment in school, as reflected in figure 9.3. The percentage of female enrollment in primary and secondary education in 2013 was 39.32 per cent with a gender parity index of 64.8, but this steadily decreases as the level of education increases, with only 25.4 per cent of females enrolled at the upper secondary level (see figure 9.4). It is important to note that there were no official figures available before 2001, so the figure of 0 per cent enrollment is misleading because much of girls’ education at that time was homebased (MoE 2014). These numbers also vary greatly across provinces, with security playing a major factor in attendance.

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The Challenge of Quality Education for All 263 Percentage of Female Students

45.0% 40.0% Percentage of enrolment

35.0% 30.0% 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0%

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Year Primary

Low Sec

Upper Sec

Total

Figure 9.3  Percentage of female students from primary to upper secondary school, 2001–13 Source: Ministry of Education (2014). Afghanistan National Education for All (EFA) Review Report 2015. UNESCO, Kabul, 42.

However, of the 14,600 schools that were available in 2013, almost 47 per cent of them did not have usable buildings (M oE 2014). According to the Ministry of Education’s EFA Review Report (2014), many of the buildings also had inadequate facilities: 30 per cent of schools lacked safe drinking water, 60 per cent lacked sanitation facilities, and 80 per cent lacked electricity. Over the past few years, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has been conducting site visits to schools in various provinces to assess the state of the facilities, and his findings largely corroborate these issues. For example, in a visit to Herat, S I G A R reported that of the twenty-five schools visited, most (twenty) did not have enough tables and chairs for the students, many of the schools had structural deficiencies, and some even lacked basic sanitation facilities and electricity (S I G A R 2016). Of the six schools visited in Paktika Province, two were closed, the others suffered structural issues, and there were problems with student and teacher attendance (S I G A R 2019). Moreover, the schools in Kandahar that were built as part of the signature project also suffered greatly from structural deficiencies and some were poorly located. When Canada left Kandahar in 2011 and the US took over the P R T , some of the schools fell outside the

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264 Violence rank (deaths/1,000 people)

Canada as Statebuilder?

Province

Girls’ net primary attendance rate

 1

Helmand

Less than 15.0

 2

Uruzgan

Less than 15.0

 3

Nangarhar

30.0–44.9

 4

Farah

30.0–44.9

 5

Kunduz

30.0–44.9

 6

Zabul

15.0–29.9

 7

Ghazni

45.0–59.9

 8

Paktika

Less than 15.0

 9

Kandahar

Less than 15.0

10

Paktiya

30.0–44.9

25

Wardak

15.0–29.9

26

Takhar

60.0–74.9

27

Herat

45.0–59.9

28

Balkh

60.0–74.9

29

Kabul

60.0–74.9

30

Parwan

45.0–59.9

31

Samangan

45.0–59.9

32

Daykundi

45.0–59.9

33

Bamyan

60.0–74.9

34

Panjshir

75 and over

Most violent

Least violent

Figure 9.4  Girls’ primary-school attendance rates in the most and least violent provinces, April 2016–March 2017 Note: Provinces ranked using population estimates from Afghanistan’s National Statistics and Information Authority and the number of deaths recorded by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) during the 2016–17 Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey period (April 2016 to March 2017). To capture violence concentration, provinces were ranked by the number of deaths per 1,000 people rather than the total number of deaths. UCDP collects and aggregates data on organized violence. It is housed in Sweden’s Uppsala University. Source: SIGAR analysis of Government of Afghanistan, N S I A , Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey 2016–17, 29 August 2018, p. 144; S I G A R analysis of Uppsala Conflict Data Program, “Number of Deaths: Afghanistan,” http://ucdp.uu.se#​ country/700, downloaded 23 December 2018.

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US area of operations in Kandahar, and were no longer monitored and evaluated. So the current state of those schools is unclear (Saideman 2016). Overall, access to schools and enrollment did improve, and Canada did significantly contribute to that through its investments in infrastructure. However, there are significant drawbacks to just solely focusing on providing infrastructure. The building may be there but there may be no teachers to service it, or no one to maintain its facilities. Worse yet, the building may be misappropriated and used for some other purpose or even destroyed – both of which the Taliban were known to do (Andalib and Harooni 2012). It is therefore critical to take a more holistic approach to providing infrastructure and including quality assurance, maintenance, and long-term monitoring and evaluation. The other main initiative that Canada supported to improve access to education and school enrollment was CBE . CBE is important for improving the education sector because community-based classes have a unique ability to help Afghan children in remote and rural communities to participate in quality learning opportunities (D F AI T 2013). Although Canada has participated in the creation of C B E schools, it is important to note that the details of this effort are contested. In fact, the number of community-based schools in Afghanistan have not been reliably recorded, so N G O and the MoE reports often offer conflicting figures. Canada’s funding for this initiative has established almost 5,000 CBE schools in total, since 2006. Of the 5,000 CBE schools created since 2006, B R A C alone set up 4,000 (D F AI T 2013). These schools are, in turn, demonstrating strong results in increasing access, particularly for girls. However, the lack of access to CBE s in many provinces, especially in the south and in more insecure areas, still remains an issue that requires attention. The other CIDA project that led to the creation of community-based schools is EQUIP. Similar to BRAC, EQUIP was responsible for establishing 13,000 shuras (school management committees consisting of school staff, parents, and students) (Government of Canada 2017).7 Shuras are recognized as a key strategy for improving community participation in C B E schools because they are responsible for the supervision of the CBE school and help ensure the delivery of quality education (MoE 2012). There appears to be a general consensus that the educational impact of C B E schools is quite positive. A study by Dana Burde that looked

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at C B E schools in Ghor Province found that C B E schools have a “stunning effect of children’s academic participation and performance and have tremendous potential for reducing existing inequities in access and gender participation in rural areas of Afghanistan” (2015, 144). In other words, Burde found that, overall, children are 44 per cent more likely to attend school, with girls 52 per cent more likely to attend. The reason for this, as cited by most of the participants, was the proximity to the school (see figure 9.5). (Burde 2015, 1445). However, CBE schools supported by Canada had some issues because they did not fully align with the C B E policy set up by the M oE, thus including the C B E schools into the formal schooling system more difficult. Moreover, outcome tracking still needs to be improved and more evidence-based lessons learned should be extracted and disseminated to ensure their continued effectiveness (D F AI T 2014). Capacity of the Ministry of Education The last main area that Canada consistently invested in was improving the capacity of the MoE. CIDA has supported building the capacity of the M oE mainly through its support to E Q U I P , though other UNICEF and CIDA-funded NGOs have worked closely with the MoE. Canada also invested in coordinating mechanisms for the MoE (such as the Education Development Board) to more effectively engage all the education stakeholders. Much of this capacity building was clearly laid out in N E S P - I and N E S P - I I , with N E S P - I relying heavily on external and technical assistance, and N E S P -I I much more Afghanowned and led (Gay and Sigsgaard 2011). One of the major contributions made by E Q U I P to the capacity of the M oE was establishing the Education Management Information System (EMIS) in 2007. This allows for regular data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results to support better planning and development of national strategies for education (D F AI T 2013). The MoE makes these datasets available for public consumption on their website, and they are still in use today. Unfortunately, many of the initiatives Canada was involved in were focused on the national level and there is very little data available on capacity improvements at the provincial and district level. This is particularly detrimental because of the extreme variation that can be found among differing provinces, especially for security and levels of violence, both aspects that deeply affect education attainment. Moreover, the

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% Enrollment: boys and girls

100 80

At 0 miles distance: Close to 70% enrollment

60 At 4 miles distance: about 20% enrollment

40 20 0

0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 Distance of community centre to nearest school (miles)

Figure 9.5  Enrollment rates and proximity to nearest school Source: Burde, Dana. Schools for Conflict or for Peace in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 145.

overreliance on technical assistance to improve the capacity of the MoE may prove to have long-term negative effects on the capacity of the ministry, because the civil service sector for education may be underqualified once aid has been diminished or withdrawn. conclusion

Canada’s aid efforts for education in Afghanistan served two purposes – to ensure domestic support for Canada’s mission and to show that aid was well monitored and effective, by using such quantitative indicators as enrollment rates and number of teachers trained. The reporting done on these programs suggests a positive narrative and an education system that has improved by leaps and bounds. CIDA’s efforts were aligned well with the G oA ’s education planning and strategies, and there was a relatively high level of harmonization around education programming among donors. Having a literate and educated population is a cornerstone to building a democratic state. A population that is uneducated cannot challenge the government status quo through informed voting. However, a number of internal and external issues limited the outcomes and impact of C I D A ’s education programming. No clear

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sector strategy was identified, making programming somewhat ad hoc and reactive to Canadian domestic politics. This made it virtually impossible to leverage other programs to create the momentum needed for sustained improvement. There was also no clear exit strategy for Kandahar, weakening efforts there. Moreover, there was an apparent lack of capacity at national, provincial, and district levels to implement programs and to absorb funding for education programs. Furthermore, a number of issues were either minimized or disregarded in the reporting. Poor monitoring and evaluation meant little oversight of programming. Consequently, some funding was poorly spent, and some programs were ill-suited for what they were trying to achieve. For example, little follow-up has been done on the fifty schools built in Kandahar about the quality of the education or maintaining enrollment rates. This is especially concerning because of rising insecurity in the province. Another issue is that when compared with the education baseline, as established during Taliban rule, education has improved a great deal, but when compared with data from the 1970s, education and enrollment has yet to reach those levels again. With the withdrawal of troops and the drawdown of foreign aid that began in 2014, the outlook for education in Afghanistan is concerning because vital resources for maintaining education programs are slowly disappearing, making some of the outcomes achieved unsustainable. What Were (Some) Contributing Factors? A number of both internal and external explanatory factors have contributed to or limited the effectiveness of Canadian education sector programming. One of the major issues was the lack of a clear sector strategy. This includes limited contextual analysis and clear prioritization as to which programming would be used. A review of the four logic models developed during the mission suggests that Canada had trouble with strategic planning and ensuring continuity between programming periods, which would have increased the impact of its programs over time. This was especially pronounced in Kandahar. With the release of the Manley Report in 2008 and the adoption of the WoG approach, C I DA was under a lot of pressure to deliver visible results in a short time in Kandahar. This resulted in a seemingly scattered series of interventions, including building schools, teacher training, capacity support, and CBE that was not embedded in a contextually specific coherent strategy (CI D A 2014). However,

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C I D A managed to minimize the effects of the lack of strategy by closely aligning with the M oE ’s plans, particularly N E S P - I and NESP-II. CIDA also coordinated well with other donors, representing some of the highest levels of harmonization among the sectors analyzed in this book, which positively contributed to the immediate and intermediate outcomes achieved in education. Another issue was the lack of capacity and high levels of corruption of the G I R oA , which negatively affected its ability to deliver services outside of Kabul. The highly centralized decision-making process left little room for provincial governments to make simple decisions on spending and how to use support from the M oE or E Q U I P . This had a negative impact in Kandahar because it contributed to the lack of capacity at the provincial level and limited the achievement of a number of outcomes, including but not limited to promoting gender equality. Third, the two previously mentioned issues also affected the sustainability of the outcomes in both national programming and in Kandahar. Because C I D A did not have a clear sector strategy, it had not identified a clear exit strategy for Kandahar. Although C I D A funded relevant education activities, its commitment in Kandahar was limited when the US took command of the KP RT in 2011, and much of the programming was wrapping up by 2012. This left the provincial and district governments with a lack of capacity to sustain much of the programming, and the continued high level of insecurity still limited access for girls to education. Fourth, when developing the programming no needs assessment was conducted. Implementing programs and developing infrastructure without understanding the context in which they would operate, also known as the blueprint approach, created untenable outputs. Indeed, there is evidence that the infrastructure built for schools was misappropriated, including for the use of the Taliban. Last, there was a lack of baseline data, and monitoring and evaluation practices were spotty or did not happen at all. Although output tracking by CIDA was relatively good, outcome tracking was much poorer, with limited reporting done by both the M oE and NGOs on learning outcomes. This has limited Canada’s ability to collect and apply lessons learned in the education sector for future programming.

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10 Conclusion

Before we summarize the main findings of this monograph, we need to recall its two main objectives. Our first objective, given the limitations in the data, was to assess as many of Canada’s development projects in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014 as possible, whether they were directly funded by the Government of Canada, through international organizations such as the World Bank, or through N G O s. In doing so, we were able to draw a picture of which development projects were performing the best, which ones the worst, and why. Moreover, by going through the large dataset of Canadian development projects we were able to find information for, we discussed the outputs of the projects funded, the short-term outcomes, and the long-term impacts. In that sense this analysis contributes to evidencebased discussions of one of Canada’s most important foreign policy activities in recent years. Our second goal was to bridge the academia–policy divide and derive lessons learned and policy implications from our data assessment, assuming that future Canadian activities in fragile and conflictaffected states and international statebuilding more generally will be quite similar to those in Afghanistan. It is therefore imperative, we argue, that the government seriously engage in lessons learned processes across the entire WoG spectrum and adjust all the peaceand statebuilding policies and practices currently in place. This entails a critical reflection of where the government should invest more capabilities based on its expertise and perhaps resources, where to cut its losses, and where to improve its oversight mechanisms (at home and abroad).

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We critically assessed 136 development projects that the Government of Canada helped to finance either directly or indirectly in Afghanistan (through international organizations, N G O s etc.) between 2001 and 2014. This signifies development projects with a total volume of more than $1 billion ($1,069,431,839.25 to be exact). We consider this percentage and the selection of the projects representative enough to derive reliable conclusions from the data.1 Needless to say, at some point future researchers might be able to gain access to the full dataset containing all Canadian development projects (and their respective budgets and outputs) if the information becomes available. good and bad projects

As expected with projects worth more than $1 billion, several can be considered successful, others not so much. Below we highlight both for the issue areas that we identified and that correspond to the chapters in this book. What all issue areas – from security, women, and health, to education – share is a high volume of outputs. The Canadian government or its project partners took part in a lot of activities for each of the projects. However, when it came to the projects’ outcomes or even impacts, the results were often meagre and show very mixed results. Security Leaving the military aspect of the security equation aside, the Bonn Conference agreement called for wide-ranging reforms in the security sector (SSR) as well as in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR). As noted in chapter 6, the SSR and DDR reform programs were among the core of the international community’s broader postconflict peace- and statebuilding agenda,2 and are clearly linked and interconnected.3 As Mark Sedra (2010) reflects, the wide-ranging DDR program in Afghanistan has been among the best-funded programs worldwide since the D DR concept evolved in the late 1990s. Overall, Canadian-funded D DR projects (directly or indirectly) were mostly in line with the priorities set by the Afghan government and its Afghanistan National Development Strategy (AN D S ). Projects that had largely positive results include the support to the Afghan government for holding presidential and parliamentary elections. It is evident that without external aid the Afghan government

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would have been unable to hold these elections or even guarantee their security. Moreover, the international donor community was quite successful in supporting demining projects throughout the country and collecting and containing heavy weapons in a safe location. Although demining was not noted as one of the priorities of the ANDS, it nonetheless achieved remarkable success and significantly reduced the number of people severely affected by landmines, either by being victims or by reducing their exposure. Overall, the program reduced more than 70 per cent of the Afghan land area contaminated by mines. Also successful was the Mine Risk Education Program for more than 6 million Afghans, including children, which increased awareness of the risks of mines, especially how to identify and avoid them (O E CD 2007, 28). Equally successful was the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (A R TF) managed by the World Bank. Despite some financial irregularities that were discovered, the A R T F helped to fund important projects, including the National Solidarity Programme (N S P ) and M I S F A . The former became a flagship program for strengthening community development, local governance, and local government participation (notably, it created more than 17,000 Community Development Councils (C D S) in 274 districts and 34 provinces, and empowered Afghans locally). Less successful projects include the support for the Law and Order Trust Fund (L O T F A ). On the one hand L O T F A helped to set up an electronic payroll system for the Afghan judiciary system (e.g., judges, corrections officers etc.). On the other hand, the projects were unable to account for what the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan, John Sopko, called “ghost” soldiers and police officers. Similarly, the reforms of the Afghan National Police (AN P ) force as well as the Afghan National Army (AN A) produced mixed results. On the one hand, with the help of international donors the Afghan government was able to undertake significant reform processes of both institutions, which were partly successful. For example, the number of recruits for both services was increased significantly, their equipment modernized, and operational strategies revised. On the other hand, both services were plagued with similar constraints and impediments, which not only reduced their operations’ viability but went to the nub of what these services were, how they were governed, and to whom they were accountable. The most serious problem, for both the ANA and the A NP , was corrupt officers, making it difficult

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for Afghans to trust their work and effectiveness. Above all, corruption fuelled the grievances of local Afghans against their government, and while draining billions of dollars worth of aid from the Afghan economy it resulted in bolstering support at local levels for the insurgency (S I GA R 2016, ii), the corruption thus undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan government. Moreover, the A N P and the A N A ’s ethnic composition was unequal, which fuelled ethnic tensions among Afghans, and thus indirectly the civil war, rather than preventing it.4 Third, according to some estimates, close to 80 per cent of the police force was involved in the drug trade in one way or another or had drug addictions. More than 86 per cent were also illiterate (see also S I G A R 2014). In sum, there were serious doubts as to whether members of the A N P themselves respected the rule of law, and thus became themselves part of the security challenge (Wilder 2007; International Crisis Group 2011, Sopko 2017). Fourth, despite all the (significant) monetary investments in reforming the A N A and A N P , both forces mostly remained incapable and ineffective in addressing the primary security needs of Afghanistan, including local policing. Fifth, donor states differed significantly on the role of both the A N P as well as the A N A . The Europeans, for example, did not consider either of them to be the first line of defence in the fight against terrorism; the Americans, however, did. Finally, the patron approach, whereby certain donor states would be responsible for certain aspects of the S S R /D D R reform process, was deeply flawed because donors could not agree on an overall strategy. For example, the Germans, who were initially responsible for reforming the A N P , faced significant opposition from the Americans, who wanted to entirely dismantle and then rebuild the A N P (as well as the A N A ). Both the A N A and the A N P were also significantly underfunded, which impeded their development enormously. Furthermore, the Afghan New Beginnings Programme (A N B P ), created at the Tokyo Conference in January 2002 and one month after the Bonn Conference, had the primary objective of disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating an estimated 100,000 ex-combatants from what was then called the Afghan Militia Forces and the former Afghan Army (Bhatia and Sedra 2008). As we saw from the discussion in chapter 6, the results of the nearly US$16 million project (which were channelled by international donors through UNDP and UNAMA) were mediocre at best, primarily because the total number of

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combatants and their weapons was unknown. This makes it difficult to verify how successful this project really was in disarming former combatants and illegal armed groups and reintegrating them back into society. It was also unclear exactly who was disarmed and what happened to that person after the fact, and if former militia commanders used the demobilization and reintegration program as a tool for patronage and personal gain. Taken together, this makes a serious scholarly assessment difficult. On the administrative side, the entire SSR program in Afghanistan, including its D D R component, lacked the required resources, leadership, and security support right from the beginning to achieve sustainable S S R reforms and to achieve an impact (Thruelsen 2006). One of the most significant failures of the SSR/DDR reform process was the lack of a holistic and integrated D D R/S S R strategy. Instead, donors divided up the responsibilities among themselves in separate issue areas. However, no mechanism was put in place so the lead donors could build synergies across the issue areas, to meaningfully exchange best practices among themselves, or even to achieve coherence in their statebuilding efforts across sectors. As a result, the process siloed the national donor approaches, and made donor states’ engagements primarily territorial. Women and Gender The situation of women and gender in Afghanistan ranks at the bottom of the world. It deteriorated considerably after three decades of protracted civil war (Farhoumand-Sims 2007). The international donor community invested significant amounts of resources to address this issue, and to help Afghan women to overcome the structural and cultural barriers in Afghan society, including access to health care services. Along with other international partners, Canada contributed to funding projects that were aimed at improving women’s access and quality of education as well as their literacy; improving their employment opportunities, supporting maternal, newborn, and child health; fighting sexual violence against women; increasing participation and representation in all forms of political life; and ending child and forced marriages. However, women’s issues did not feature prominently on donors’ initial agenda list and only became a cross-cutting theme for Canada in 2006, more than three years after Canada’s statebuilding mission began.

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Among those projects, the Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance program run by C A R E Canada, which had been operating in Kabul since 1997 in multiple phases, can clearly be counted as one of the success stories. It improved women’s abilities to independently generate income. It also offered food assistance to widows and significantly reduced malnutrition among Afghan children (and thus the prevalence of disease). Equally successful was the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan program (M I S F A ). This was considered key to the development of rural financial services and improving the rural livelihoods of more than 430,000 people. Similarly, the Vocational Training for Afghan Women (2007 to 2012) project, carried out by C A R E W U S C and funded with $6.48 million from C I D A , provided training for Afghan women, including widows and refugees, to build marketable skills and pursue various types of employment. It was largely considered a success. The Girls’ Primary Education Programme, carried out by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (B R A C ), had great success in improving girls’ access to and quality of education, and establishing thousands of schools in the country. The Through the Garden Gate program, carried out by the Mennonite Development Associates of Canada, significantly improved food security for women and their families, and increased women’s status in their household and their community. As a result, women’s access to health care, employment, education, and societal representation was considerably improved through Canadian-funded donor projects. However, as discussed in chapter 7, it is questionable how sustainable these projects are over the long term. As Strand reminds us, “systematic knowledge is lacking regarding the impact on local peace processes, including the roles and effectiveness of both male and female religious leaders” (2015). On the less successful side of Canadian-funded projects (directly or indirectly) was the Support to the Development of Free Media in Afghanistan (2003 to 2006) project. C I D A highlighted this N G O ’s fiscal mismanagement after it became known that of the planned sixty radio programs only thirty-four were actually produced. In addition, the projects that were intended to improve women’s rights in Afghan society failed to a significant extent, in part due to heavy resistance from men, whose perspective had not been addressed in the programming. An important key voice was thus not heard causing widespread resistance. Moreover, about two-thirds of all projects that

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were externally evaluated did not show any gender results at all (DFATD 2013, 157), which was due in part to the worsening security situation on the ground as well as the militarization of aid. The rate of women’s unemployment also did not drop significantly between 2001 and 2014. Last but not least, NDI ’s project aimed at increasing the participation of women in provincial politics received mixed results. Women’s overall participation increased only slightly. There was also no evidence that women who participated in those CI D A-funded projects designed to help them get elected into office actually succeeded. Indeed, what our data seems to indicate is that international development programs targeting women and aiming to increase the percentage of women being elected to parliament were only successful in the earlier years of the intervention, until roughly 2007. After that the success rate can be considered meagre. Health Afghanistan’s health sector has never been particularly strong and relied too much on NGOs to provide many of the services. But after many years of conflict, the health system was absolutely devastated and had some of the worst health statistics in the world, especially for those most vulnerable among the Afghan population, women and children. Although both the Afghanistan government and the international community recognized that health services needed to be improved, it did not become a strategic priority for Canada until 2006. After 2006 though, both the Canadian government and other donors made significant efforts to quickly improve access and infrastructure as well as nutrition and immunization rates. Many of the improvements made in the health sector and in the Ministry of Public Health are often used as a good example of what a prioritized and well-coordinated effort can achieve. Many of the health programs and projects had at least some positive effect simply because the baseline statistics were so poor. One of the strongest initiatives, with consistently good outputs and outcomes as well as good monitoring and evaluation, was the Strengthening Health Activities for the Poor (SHARP) program. It aligned well with government priorities, was directed to the population that needed it most, and had a strong gender component. S H A R P also played a significant role in ensuring that the majority of the target population

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had access to the basic package of health services, which plays a critical role in providing baseline health services and building a foundation on which the health sector can grow and improve. Another successful, but seemingly underappreciated effort, was the programs that aimed to help procure, test, and distribute pharmaceuticals in Afghanistan. Canada had only limited investments in this area although other donors seemed to have much success and thus more of an impact. The Capacity Building and Access to Medicines program is worthy of particular note because many of the basic logistics of importing, storing, and distributing medicine were not seen as a priority and thus did not receive as much support as, say, improving maternal mortality rates. However, without building the proper infrastructure and administrative capacities for pharmaceuticals, much of what was achieved in other areas would either not have been possible or else had greatly reduced efficacy. Another area of intervention, nutrition, was also relatively successful in reaching a large number of people and providing education and supplements that are important in minimizing easily preventable diseases. However, these programs were and still are highly dependent on mobile teams that were supplied and supported by the international community, making its sustainability questionable. Without continued external support, the Ministry of Public Health is unlikely to be able to maintain the programs. The last major intervention area for the health sector was immunization, including the polio eradication campaign, whose results were mixed. Significant investments by Canada and other donors even before the intervention began in 2001, have resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of polio cases diagnosed and reported. The numbers appear to have stalled since 2015. This is partly because of the lack of access to some of the most vulnerable populations in the most insecure areas, as well as the porous border with Pakistan. The current Global Polio Eradication Campaign is working in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the strategy needs to find innovative and creative ways to reach the more isolated rural populations to finally rid Afghanistan of polio for good. Education Like health, the education sector had to be rebuilt from the bottom up after years of conflict and devastation. From early on, Canada

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focused on a number of key areas that were laid out in the national education strategies (N E S P - I and N E S P - I I ) such as infrastructure, improving enrollment, and teacher training. However, though the education projects and programs had some basic alignment, an overarching strategy was missing, making the overall approach somewhat ad hoc or even opportunistic rather than an effort that focused on achieving certain long-term goals through a well-coordinated intervention. However, a number of projects were better implemented than others and, despite their shortcomings, had better outcomes. One of the largest education programs that Canada invested in was EQU IP, one of the better designed and implemented programs. The size of the program alone ensured that its outcomes and impact would be notable; it was also well-managed and made appropriate adjustments in strategy and mandate in accordance with the changing conditions. It was also one of the few programs with monitoring and evaluation embedded in its original design. That is not to say that some of its programming did not have its shortcomings. Over the lifespan of the program, it did not manage to address the lack of effectiveness of some of its capacity-building initiatives below the national level. It also had longstanding issues with some of its construction efforts. This is especially apparent with the Canada’s signature project in Kandahar to build fifty schools, which fell under this program. Despite these shortcomings, EQUIP still managed to markedly improve the education system in Afghanistan. The B EA C O N project was also a largely successful initiative that laid the foundation for a strong community-based education program. The vast majority of the 25,000 students in the program improved their literacy and numeracy skills significantly. Also, the more than 900 community-based education classes will significantly improve access for many rural students, especially girls. However, it was noted that this program could have been more effective if a proper needs assessment of the students had been done and if the most important pedagogical issues had been addressed. Above all, the communitybased education programs created in Afghanistan did not necessarily align with the Ministry of Education’s policy on community-based education. Indeed, the ministry created dissonance between the two programs, and lowered their effectiveness and efficacy. The last two programs worthy of note are the BRAC-run programs, Girls Primary Education Project and Community-Based Girls’

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Education Project. These programs undoubtedly contributed to, among other things, the improved enrollment rates for girls and the number of trained teachers. However, taking an approach that only focuses on a limited number of issues rather than taking a more holistic approach can be detrimental to the endeavour as a whole. Having more girls in school does not mean they are receiving a quality education, nor does it mean they will stay in school until they have completed their diploma. Overall, it is not easy to clearly distinguish good from bad programs in education because the state of education in Afghanistan was so poor to begin with that most efforts had some sort of positive outcome. However, many of the programs did suffer shortcomings in design, limiting their potential. These shortcomings often contributed to larger issues like “ghost schools,” teacher absenteeism, problems with pay, and maintenance of schools as well as the questionable quality of education as a whole in Afghanistan. Despite these continued issues, and though there is a general consensus that education in Afghanistan has improved by leaps and bounds since 2001, it still has a very long way to go. i n t e r v e n i n g va r i a b l e s

As we have noted throughout this book, political decisions on development projects and programs are not taken in a vacuum. They are embedded in sociality – complex social processes that involve humans (e.g., bureaucrats and politicians) as well as structure.5 The first intervening variable to note is the reflexive behaviour of the social agents who affect the outcomes of Canadian development projects and programming in Afghanistan. Human agents working in either national governments or as staff for international organizations constantly engage with one another (e.g., through discussing policy options and choices) and do so embedded in a structure that contextualizes and reflexively informs their behaviour. Below, we identify some of the most pertinent intervening variables identified in the secondary and grey literature that have most likely affected Canadian development programs and practices in Afghanistan. It is important to note here that these variables are not causally derived from our data analysis. We have come across some of them (e.g., corruption) in our analysis but did not study them systematically

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because our research design had a different objective. We simply restate these variables here for other researchers to pick up and “test” systematically later. 1. The “not enough” hypothesis A significant body of the secondary and grey literature discusses the international community’s lack of sustainable commitment in Afghanistan (Suhrke 2007; 2010; Rynning 2012), including Canada. This lack of commitment manifested itself in the form of insufficient funds, human resources (civilians and military troops) for the complex stabilization operations in Afghanistan, as well as the overall government capacity to govern this complex and multicomplex peace- and statebuilding, and reconstruction operation. We could partly confirm this finding in our analysis, especially for SSR/DDR reforms, but also in reforming the health and education sector. There was also “not enough” political will domestically in Canada, especially in the early years, to put significant domestic resources and expertise behind Canada’s Afghan commitment, and to develop an (exit) strategy right from the beginning. It seemed that Canada, like many NATO allies, mostly relied on the Americans, not only to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, but to eventually take the lead in establishing a flourishing liberal state there guided by the principles of democracy and the rule of law (see also Saideman 2016; Boucher and Nossal 2017). However, what America’s allies (Canada included) underestimated were the changing currents in US foreign policy. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration increasingly refocused its attention, away from Afghanistan and toward Iraq. Jointly with the UK, Australia, and Poland, and with more than 180,000 troops, the US-led illegal invasion6 of Iraq commenced on 20 March 2003 to produce regime change and overthrow its dictator, Saddam Hussein. According to George W. Bush and UK prime minister Tony Blair, the aim of the invasion was “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.”7 With insurgents increasingly reverting to tactics of asymmetric warfare and a war of attrition against the American-supported Iraqi government and American forces in central Iraq, the US was forced to shift its (human) resources based in other parts of the world (especially Afghanistan) more and more to Iraq. This shift in US strategy took fiscal and human resources away from the US-led peace- and statebuilding operation in Afghanistan, thus

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weakening international efforts there. This is the changing context that Canada’s early development programs and projects were faced with. Although allies were surprised by this shift, the US administration made it unmistakably clear that it expected them to pick up more of the stabilization tab, also in blood and treasure. At the same time, by concentrating on Iraq, the US reinforced the “light footprint” setting and the fact that allies were not able to adequately replace the Americans to deliver security for Afghanistan (Rubin and Humayun 2007; Hodes and Sedra 2007) and help with the reconstruction of the country. According to some estimates, the international community spent roughly only between 30 and 40 per cent of the foreign aid that it had spent on the reconstruction of Bosnia in the 1990s.8 The Canadian government, particularly the former C I D A and DFAIT, needs to significantly improve its outcome tracking. It should ensure regular and continuous evaluations, to control their program and project spending (poor monitoring and oversight). This oversight would also allow the government to know which of these programs and projects are working, and what specific outcomes and impacts they have produced in return. If this oversight had existed, it would have shown, at the departmental level, that Canada did not devote most of its development aid to the province of Kandahar as requested by the Manley Report, but instead focused on aid at the national level. Such oversight would also have shown that the government overrelied on technical assistance to the G oA and that the GoA’s ability to absorb Canadian aid was very limited. 2. Failed Leadership and Corruption It has become increasingly evident throughout the Western intervention in Afghanistan, in spite of reasonable successes with Afghanistan’s parliamentary and presidential elections in choosing a new political elite, that a corrupt and ineffective government administration has eliminated the slight political progress that had been achieved since 2001. Afghanistan’s institutions today remain, above all, weak and ineffective, incapable of providing essential goods and services to the Afghan people (Weijer 2013), thus weakening the social contract. It is thus no surprise that nearly two decades after the Bonn Conference, Afghanistan’s development indicators today remain at the very bottom of underdeveloped countries and are comparable to those of states in sub-Saharan Africa (Rubin and Hamidzada 2007).

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The root causes of this problem are ineffective government structures and bureaucratic cultures that enable mismanagement and corruption, even at the highest levels of government. Moreover, top levels of government were involved in drug production, warlordism, predation, political intimidation, and ethnic warfighting. From a reconciliation and transitional justice point of view, appointing former warlords to high political offices was particularly problematic (e.g., as cabinet ministers, deputy ministers etc.). Former warlords also gained the majority of seats during the 2005 parliamentary election. Both developments not only empowered but also vindicated them politically. Corruption also helped to prop up powerbrokers outside of the Afghan government (SI GA R 2016, I, ii). Further, the issue of who was put in power is very important, and it is debatable whether indeed the leaders (e.g., President Karzai and his administration, who were appointed on an interim basis by the international community) gained legitimacy through the Bonn Agreement in 2001. These appointments can be considered regressive to peace- and thus statebuilding, because ultimately they did not improve the legitimacy of the state (Fields and Ahmen 2011), or its effectiveness for that matter. Representation is not just about who obtained power, but also how individuals are represented, and how they are perceived by the electorate. To recall, President Karzai was a member of the mujahedeen who gained power during the chaos that followed the withdrawal of the Soviet Union (Sedra 2006; Johnson and Mason 2007; Simonsen 2004; Arreguin-Toft 2015; Rubin and Hamidzada 2007). Many of the warlords who were threatened under the Taliban regime went into exile abroad. Once in power, their corruption practices did not change much. In spite of the new positions and international partners that these individuals were able to showcase, their conduct as government officials was virtually synonymous with their behaviour as warlords where “their spinal reflex [was] to go after money and influence, disregarding the common good” (Simonsen 2004, 726). The Afghan administration thus remained dependent on the same mechanisms of control and channels of power that had existed before the Bonn Conference. As a result, top levels of government were involved in drug production and engaged in land grabs, predation, political intimidation, and ethnic cleansing (Rubin and Hamidzada 2007). Over time, while leaders retained their titles and went along with the façade of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, top

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officials operated around state institutions with complete disregard for notions of justice and human rights. Although the empowerment of corrupt individuals is a frequent criticism of the statebuilding process in Afghanistan, some scholars, and practitioners who were involved in the Bonn Conference, have defended these individuals’ claim to power on the basis that “there was no other alternative.” This line of thinking is exemplified in Fields and Ahmen’s analysis. They note that, “[t]he critique towards the empowerment of warlords] ignores the reality of events on the ground. At the time of the Bonn Conference, the warlords who led the Northern Alliance to success on the battlefield controlled 75 per cent of Afghanistan” (2011, 19). The U N envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, also noted that achieving peace for Afghanistan was of higher value than achieving transitional justice. It was imperative that “Bonn had to be effective to avoid a civil war. The best anyone could reasonably expect was an agreement that structured transition, powersharing, and compromise, which over time would evolve from a complete political vacuum to a relatively peaceful and stable government” (2011, 19).9 Corruption in Afghan institutions is regressive to statebuilding efforts, but the interesting question remains as to whether corrupt institutions were the main cause for Afghanistan’s ineffective state, or a product of the failed international state-engineering practice there? As we discussed in the chapters above, it has also become widely known by now that a significant amount of external donor funding went straight into drug production, land grabs, predation, political intimidation, and ethnic warfighting, which caused further instability for Afghans and was a major source of insecurity (see SIG A R reports for details). At the same time, critics’ expectation of the Afghan mission “that the Bonn Agreement could somehow surgically remove warlords and their militias from Afghanistan’s fundamental culture and power base was and remains unrealistic” (Fields and Ahmed 2011, 19). 3. Representation and Legitimacy The general tone at the time of the Bonn Conference was about building consensus among Afghans and appeasing different ethnic and religious groups.10 Figure 10.1 shows the different ethnic groups that comprise Afghanistan.

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Figure 10.1  Ethnic composition of Afghanistan

The specific challenge that political leaders and government officials were faced with during the Bonn Conference was trying to find an answer to the question of how to develop and create a sufficient level of representation to satisfy the various different ethnic and religious groups in Afghanistan, including the Pashtuns, who have traditionally lived in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Brahimi was tasked with trying to find an answer to this question and at the same time reconcile the diverging interests of the delegations, as well as appeasing different (ethnic) groups. For example, Pashtun leaders were largely sidelined from the Bonn Conference. That resulted in a rising sentiment of alienation in Pashtun communities and, over time, against the Afghan government because they felt underrepresented. This was problematic because Pashtuns represent roughly 42 per cent of the Afghan population.11 Pashtuns are the same ethnic tribe who

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supported the Taliban and its insurgency in 2000s. It also did not help that the majority of the Afghan administration was made up of Tajiks. Furthermore, tribalism and factional divides had a long history in Afghanistan and were hard for international statebuilders to overcome. Thus, by placing Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, as the head of the government, historical and tribal rivalries were automatically provoked. When the Taliban came to power in the 1990s, its members came largely from the Ghilzai tribes and rallied support from Pashtun communities, who have historically had rivalries with the Durrani (the most divided Pashtun group in Afghanistan). By supporting the Northern Alliance, these tribes, who opposed the Tajiks, became marginalized. The Western coalition, including Canada, largely failed to recognize and understand the importance of the rural Pashtun areas and overall the ethnic composition of the country, including the rivalries between the tribes. Brahimi’s initial intention at the Bonn Conference was to meet solely with internal Afghan groups, including the Northern Alliance; the Rome group (supporters of former King Mohammed Shah); the Peshawar group (former Afghan leaders in Pakistan); and the Cyprus group (a group of opposition figures with links to Iran). Although the key players behind Bonn preached the notion of inclusivity and praised the multiethnic governing institutions that were created, many segments of the population in Afghanistan felt that those involved in the negotiations and the composition of the Afghani administration following the Bonn Agreement did not represent the population. One key issue was the fact that many Pashtun leaders were sidelined from the Bonn Conference and the political institutions that were established following the discussions in Bonn (Ahsan 2002), including the Taliban. The decision to sideline many prominent Pashtun leaders was largely based on their association with the Taliban, who had been blacklisted from all statebuilding efforts. At the time of the conference, the Taliban was “the enemy” of the West, and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and its allied Northern Alliance had experienced rapid success in pushing members of the Taliban out of Afghanistan (and primarily into Pakistan). In this context, involving the Taliban in the discussions and subsequent institutions was noted as being “out of the question” (Fields and Ahmen 2011). At the same time, it needs to be noted that (Western) participants and donors assumed that Pakistan had agreed to cut ties with the Taliban. In hindsight, we now know that this was false; overall, the

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Western coalition fundamentally underestimated Pakistan’s role in the Afghan civil war. In addition to excluding prominent Pashtun leaders and members of the Taliban, the Bonn Conference also failed to include many informal actors who played a large role in governing local, tribal, and communal networks within Afghanistan. It has been argued that such negligence toward local and tribal leaders, whom much of the Afghan population considered legitimate leaders and hence sources of governance, later paved the way for problems of local representation (Edwards 2010). The Afghan administration, in various instances, failed to satisfy this criterion. As a result, popular sentiments of underrepresentation in national governing institutions undermined the legitimacy of the Afghan government, which in turn compromised the capacity of its institutions to effectively govern the country. 4. Regressive Intervention OEF 12 began on 7 October 2001 with the aim of destroying Al-Qaeda and removing the Taliban regime from power (Yung and Canada P I R S 2007). The Americans received (military) support from a number of their N A T O allies for this counterterrorism operation. Initially it was 8,500 strong, including Canada with 1,900 troops. O E F always remained a US-led mission, even after N A T O took control of the International Security Assistance Force (I S A F ) and thus most of the military operations in Afghanistan. O E F was very successful militarily in quickly ousting the Taliban regime, almost leading to their total defeat. I S A F had been created as part of the Bonn Agreement and was designed to help the new Afghan government to provide basic security for the country until the government could establish and maintain its own security forces (Simonsen 2004). Initially I S A F was a U N force, established by Resolution 1386 of the U N Security Council on 22 December 2001.13 Its main purpose was to train the Afghan National Security Forces (A N S F ) and assist the Afghan government in rebuilding its institutions. Against this backdrop, the Bonn Agreement was about building institutions on the one hand, on the other hand, being very much linked to military interventionism and massive external statebuilding that had a very strong security footprint. Yet, it turned out that the military strategy of interventionism paired with building government institutions was significantly flawed. As

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Johnson and Mason (2007) remind us, “the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan one Pashtun village at a time, bursting into schoolyards full of children with guns bristling, kicking in village doors, searching women, speeding down city streets, and putting out cross-cultural gibberish in totally ineffectual campaigns – all of which are anathema to the Afghans.” Even though the initial premise of the Afghan intervention was to eventually hand over responsibility for security to the Afghans, the premise was never fulfilled. It did not help that many Afghans considered their government a puppet of the US administration in Washington, especially in light of the fact that the US kill and capture strategy made things worse (Johnson and Mason 2007). The lesson international intervenors learned was that military intervention was antithetical to statebuilding. Indeed, the kill and capture strategy led to more grievances and fostered hostilities among Afghans, particularly in rural Pashtun villages. Moreover, the process of rebuilding and redeveloping Afghanistan was primarily divided up among members of the G 8, which allowed five countries in particular to focus on their preferences. Military reform was initially led by the US; police reform by the Germans; the United Kingdom was in charge of counter-narcotics; the Italians were in charge of judicial reform; and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (D D R ) and security sector reform (S S R ) was led by Japan. In the end, as Sedra (2006; 2010) reminds us, the lack of a coherent overarching strategic framework to guide the SSR and DDR processes created a foundation that was too fragile for the development of the entire security sector and significantly increased the chances that Western intervenors’ statebuilding agenda had failed. 5. Conceptual and Theoretical Flaws with Liberal Peace- and Statebuilding To fully understand the shortcomings of the Bonn Conference and why its statebuilding agenda did not translate into an effective, legitimate, and functioning Afghan state, we must understand some of the shortcomings of the statebuilding approach. To start with, the Bonn Conference adopted a functional view of the state, founded in Western enlightenment ideals, including Weberian and Westphalian notions of what constitutes a state and sovereignty (Edwards 2010). The Bonn Agreement was about mandating Afghan institutions to govern and was informed by a Weberian state model in which the bureaucracy

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is based on rational-legal authority, hierarchy, firmly established chains of authority, and a clear division of labour among ministries. In other words, the state was seen as comprising various functional aspects – i.e., the executive, judiciary, and legislative branches of government. Thus, the statebuilding concept agreed upon in Bonn rested on the assumption that putting in place these various functional components of the state would almost automatically create a functioning and effective Afghan state and thus mirror the ideal type of a Western system of government. However, there are several problems with this externally imposed statebuilding model, which we now know largely failed miserably in Afghanistan. The first one is the model’s failure to understand the local context of the statebuilding mission, which “is extremely important when attempting to implement any form of statebuilding, particularly in a post-conflict country such as Afghanistan, which in turn makes the economic and political sector that much more vital” (Edwards 2010). In other words, there was a discrepancy between the traditional patterns of governance in Afghanistan and those that were informed by the state model imposed. Traditional notions of legitimacy in Afghanistan don’t come from centralized national governing institutions; they come from customary sources of kinship and tribal relations (Edwards 2010; Roy 2004; Arreguin-Toft 2015). The problem with the state model adopted for Afghanistan by international intervenors conflicted with these customary sources of legitimacy and norms of trust and reciprocity. Edwards charges that “[v]ery little attention is paid to traditional community and social institutions, nor to the ‘interactions’ between the ‘two different sources of legitimacy, namely those located within the state realm and those located within the social and community realms” (2010, 15). Imposing a model for statebuilding that failed to understand the importance of traditional forms of governance thus meant that despite state institutions obtaining power they lacked popular support and legitimacy (Edwards 2010; Arreguin-Toft 2015). Understanding the local context and hence what constitutes legitimacy locally is extremely important for any future Canadian statebuilding mission. There is also a contradiction between local ownership and control. As noted, local ownership is an integral part of the latest hybrid peacebuilding paradigm (see chapter 3 for details), as well as aid effectiveness, that the Bonn Conference embraced. However, since 2001 the international aid and donor community continued to press

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control over the Afghan administration and the entire statebuilding process (Suhrke 2010). This contradiction unnecessarily gave Afghans grounds to question donors’ intentions as well as the intervention more generally. Afghans themselves critiqued the idea of local ownership, citing the intervention and decision making as “our ownership of their ideas” (Suhrke 2007, 1292); ultimately, the Afghan people drew the conclusion that they did not have ownership of their ideas because all important decisions were being made by foreigners and financial resources were being provided by foreigners (Suhrke 2007). Moreover, Western intervenors (including Canada) did not understand Pakistan’s role and importance as Afghanistan’s neighbour, and as an active, yet covert supporter of the Taliban insurgency. Afghanistan shares a border with Pakistan, Iran, China14 (where the border is only about 80 kilometres long), Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. These directly neighbouring states, along with several others, have, to varying degrees, a keen interest in the success or the failure of the Afghan government. As Weinbaum notes, “[t]he region’s opportunistic states are liable to revive their interventions in Afghanistan in the event of a faltering Kabul government or an international community that reneges on its commitments to help secure and rebuild the country” (2006, 2). Afghanistan’s neighbourhood is thus a dangerous one, with rivalling powers; historically, it has also been subject to foreign interventions for centuries. Thus, Afghanistan is largely defined by and should be understood in the context of its neighbours and their degree of involvement in the Afghanistan internal affairs. International intervenors should have examined the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iran and Afghanistan, along with Afghanistan’s relations with other neighbours before the intervention took place. That would have alerted them to explore Afghanistan’s place in the region and its potential for security and order in the future. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to be strained and fraught with difficulties, making their relationship one of the most difficult ones in Afghanistan’s immediate neighbourhood. Numerous obstacles prevent the two states from improving their relationship. One of the most contested issues is their shared border, the so-called Durand Line. It was initially “time-bound” and legally should have lapsed in 1993, 100 years after the initial signing of the documents in 1893 (Qassem 2006, 66). This border is particularly problematic for ethnic Pashtuns, who have traditionally lived on either the Afghan or Pakistan side, once again making targeted development

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policy in the issue areas (e.g., health, education, etc.) in the absence of a holistic Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy ineffective. “The 30 million to 35 million Pashtuns in Pakistan represent 15 to 20 per cent of the country’s population. In Afghanistan they are the largest ethnic group, comprising just short of half of its estimated 30 million people” (Rubin and Siddique 2006, 5). The Pashtuns were arbitrarily divided when the colonial Durand boundary that divided their traditional living spaces was imposed. With Pashtuns assigned labels of “Afghan” or “Pakistani” based on where they lived geographically, there emerged an inevitable clash between their ethnic identity, their prescribed nationality, and thus their belonging. At the political and international statebuilding level, not only does the Durand Line show that a better understanding of the ethnic composition of both Afghanistan and Pakistan is required, it also suggests that simply increasing international intervenors’ roles, whether by committing additional military forces or by employing another operational tactic, is an ill-informed reaction to quell the increased violence produced by the Taliban insurgency or boosting Afghanistan’s overall development. This is not an effective long-term solution to contending with insurgents if it is not accompanied by extensive and deeply committed diplomacy beyond Afghanistan’s borders that could convince the Pakistan government to stop supporting the insurgency. As Jones reminds us, “[t]here is significant evidence that the Taliban, Hezb-iIslami Gulbuddin (HI G), Al-Qaeda, and other insurgent groups use Pakistan as a sanctuary for recruitment and support. In addition, there is virtual unanimity that Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has continued to provide assistance to Afghan insurgent groups (Jones 2007,15).” Pakistan thus played a dangerous and active role in escalating the conflict in Afghanistan, a detail that no international intervenors (Canada included) fully understood throughout their tenure in Afghanistan. Such failure, unwillingness perhaps, to holistically address the insurgency had significant consequences in virtually guaranteeing “the continuing destabilisation of Afghanistan and threaten[ing] to uproot the fragile reconstruction effort orchestrated by the United States, NA T O, United Nations and other international organisations since 2001” (Jones 2007, 15–16). However, Afghanistan enjoyed a more amicable public relationship with Iran (at least when compared with Pakistan), something that international intervenors could have exploited. That relationship, however, is not without complexity, again underlining the necessity

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of having deep knowledge of the region, which international intervenors must have before they intervene. Iran also tacitly supports the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in an effort to disrupt American interests in the region and their military deployments close to the Iranian border. Indeed, Iran has a strategy to balance “U.S. and allied (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) power in the region” (Nader and Laha 2011, 1); its tacit support for the Taliban is used as a vehicle to achieve this political goal. In that sense, Iran’s political objectives are similar to Pakistan’s. At the same time, there are a plethora of differences as to why each of them supports the insurgents. Pakistan’s support of the Taliban is a trade-off to maintain stability within its borders, whereas Iran intends to maintain conflict in Afghanistan to a certain level so that its foremost enemy, the US, is hindered from permanently stationing American troops close to Iranian territory. Furthermore, as Nader and Laha remind us, Iran is well positioned to become a key economic player in Central Asia. “It shares a border with Turkmenistan and has direct access to Central Asian markets, unlike Pakistan, which must go through Afghanistan to reach Central Asia” (Nader and Laha 2011). Such a passage is problematic if the conflict in Afghanistan continues unabated. Compared with Pakistan, Iran enjoys a more favourable regional position for trade with the markets of Central Asia, and can thus afford to play its political games with Afghanistan without showing much concern for Afghanistan’s general stability. Third, international intervenors were almost hypnotized by their affection for the armed (military) statebuilding enterprise and forgot to make an important yet much overlooked distinction between external statebuilding and nation-building. Statebuilding, as discussed in chapter 3, refers to an endogenous process of enhancing the capacity, institutions, and legitimacy of the state; it focuses on establishing and strengthening a governing structure capable of delivering public goods (von Bogdandy et al. 2005). This cannot be achieved by exogenous intervenors. Nation-building is a process that aims to construct or structure a national collective identity. It projects a meaningful future but also draws on existing traditions, culture, institutions, and customs, redefining them as national characteristics to support the nation’s claim to sovereignty (Ibid.). It is, as Wimmer (2018) reminds us, an intrinsic process that must be led by Afghans themselves; it cannot be imposed externally. International intervenors did not

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understand this dissimilarity, and unfortunately reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan have focused heavily on statebuilding without considering the importance of nation-building. Moreover, legitimacy derived from the Western-influenced state model and the indigenous forms of legitimacy within Afghanistan contain two discrepancies: first, the Westphalian concept of Afghanistan as a “nation-state” with a shared national identity fails to understand the complexity of Afghanistan’s (ethnic) identities. Second, the notion of a centralized government in Kabul conflicts with traditional and local forms of governance in a tribal society. A Westphalian nationstate model assumes that governing institutions should represent a national sovereign territory. In adopting this model, the Bonn Agreement attempted to build governing institutions based on a “national identity” that corresponded to the state borders of Afghanistan (Edwards 2010; Arreguin-Toft 2015) rather than Afghan society’s ethnic composition. Indeed, many Afghans do not identify with the borders that ostensibly define their state (e.g., the Pashtuns). In this context, Ivan Arreguin-Toft refers to Afghanistan as “an imagined state” (as opposed to a real one), suggesting that the Bonn Agreement failed to correspond to the territorial perceptions of the local populations and their shared notions of identity. Elaborating on this, Arreguin-Toft comments that “the ‘international community’ wants the globe to be entirely quilted with states. But … the more interesting question then becomes, ‘do people in Afghanistan want to be a state?’ I argue that in most cases they do not” (2015, 224), which in part helps to understand why the international statebuilding mission largely failed. A government that is founded on an “imagined” national identity operates in the absence of legitimacy. In a region where identity plays a crucial role in informing legitimacy, the notion of a centralized national Afghan government thus fails to realize the aspirations of the Afghan people. Fourth, both the Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) interventions revealed that there is no ideal type of externally assisted statebuilding or a statebuilding passe-partout for that matter. Indeed, states are clearly distinct in their governance settings, political cultures, local dynamics etc. Responding to their needs requires unique and coordinated approaches and local knowledge to avoid detaching the state that is supposed to be created from the society it governs. This was clearly not what happened in Afghanistan (Elayah 2016). International intervenors prescribed the Afghan state a certain model of governance,

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which Afghans neither understood nor accepted. Indeed, local ideas and practices were mostly disregarded. Moreover, as Autessere reminds us, the problems of intervention are primarily due “to the imposition of foreign ways of thinking and working, whatever they might be” (2014, 97–8). Such dissonance decreased the Afghan people’s respect for the Afghan government and its legitimacy. Afghanistan traditionally embodied a system of governance that was based more on kinship, rather than the Afghan central state that the Bonn Agreement was trying to construct. These traditional values are what enable such communities and tribes to co-exist. Traditional values of what constitutes legitimacy were in many ways antithetical to the Weberian state model that was imposed onto Afghanistan by the Bonn Conference. The Conference failed to give agency to the traditional sources of legitimacy and the interactions that were involved in establishing legitimacy in the country. Fifth, Afghanistan became indisputably a rentier state due to its heavy dependence on foreign aid to deliver basic public goods to Afghans. It is therefore hardly surprising that Afghans have tried to maximize the amount of foreign aid they could get, although the Afghan government was only able to absorb between 30 and 50 per cent of the aid (Sopko 2017), ultimately feeding the growth of corruption and patronage networks (S I G A R 2016, i). This did not go unnoticed among the international donor community who responded by channelling their money into “external budgets” that were outside the reach of the Afghan government (Suhrke 2010). For instance, approximately 75 per cent of Afghanistan’s economic assistance did not pass through the accounts of the Afghan government (World Bank 2015), thus failing to strengthen the role of the Afghan state or ensure public monitoring and accountability (Suhrke 2010). In addition, many countries continue to make their aid to Afghanistan conditional based on the rationale that donor governments are accountable to their taxpayers (rather than Afghans). “This creates a situation where the aid money is given to imperfect projects under a ‘best practices’ framework in recipient countries that does not contribute to stable peace that was best for the recipient country (Barnett 2005).” With this practice the international community undermined the Afghan government’s internal capacity by not allowing the necessary trust to be built between the government and its citizens. This is why donors have been urged to direct their financing through the accounts of the Government of Afghanistan (World Bank 2015a) to help bring fiscal

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sustainability and support to the country’s long-term development (R A N D 2007; Rubin and Hamidzada 2007). That Western donors (including Canada) continued to make those mistakes with questions of local ownership is surprising. To combat these issues, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness of 2005 offered some important guidelines. The first of five central pillars developed at this second high-level forum was local “ownership.” It was assumed that local ownership would allow developing countries to set their own strategies for poverty reduction, as well as improving their institutions and tackling corruption within them (OECD 2015). The second pillar, “alignment,” professes the need for donor countries to align their external objective with that of the local country using local systems (Ibid.). The third, “harmonization,” is meant for donor countries to coordinate, simplify procedures, and share information with the local government to avoid duplication (Ibid.). The fourth pillar is “results,” requiring developing countries and donors to shift their focus to development results, because they get measured (Ibid.). The final pillar, “mutual accountability,” requires donors and development partners to hold themselves accountable for development results (Ibid.). Overall, the idea of aid effectiveness is that it should eventually promote local development. Therefore, aid effectiveness has shifted to development effectiveness, with three main organizations (O E CD , U N D P , and World Bank), lobbying for these standard definitions (Ibid.). However, neither Canada nor its partners adhered to them. A positive example of where the principles of the Paris Declaration were followed is the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ART F ) established in 2002 (A R T F 2015). The ART F serves as a coordinated financing mechanism for the government of Afghanistan’s budget and national projects, focusing on transparency and accountability (World Bank 2015b). The idea of using trust funds for international reconstruction was promoted by R A ND to ensure coordination and alignment among donors (RAND 2007, 170). Since 2002, thirty-four donors have contributed over $8 billion, making the ART F the largest single source of external financing (Ibid.). The funding was administered by the World Bank in cooperation with the government of Afghanistan (Ibid.). This connects with the Paris Declaration’s point on country ownership and Afghanistan having a say over its funding. The ART F has funded many projects, two of which are the 2006 Afghan Compact and the 2008 Afghanistan National Development Strategy (AN D S ) (A R T F 2015). The Afghan Compact was launched on 31 January

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2006 at the London Conference for Afghanistan to better coordinate the international reconstruction effort, focusing on security, development, and counter-narcotics (A R T F 2015). It was valued very highly by the international community, with the U N Security Council fully endorsing it (Ibid.). 6. Logistical Failures of the Afghan intervention Figure 10.2 below nicely shows that from 2001 to 2009 Afghanistan had been a major humanitarian aid recipient. Indeed, humanitarian aid to Afghanistan “increased dramatically” in the year following the US-led invasion (Spencer 2010). Development aid continued to grow steadily throughout the decade and humanitarian aid remained at relatively low levels – until a major escalation in humanitarian needs in 2008 put it back on the international agenda (Ibid.). One of the reasons for this was the logistical failures of the Afghan intervention that arose following the Bonn Agreement, including the resources provided to Afghanistan and the lack of coordination of responses at the international level both between and among donors. The appropriateness of the amount of resources being allocated overall to Afghanistan was contested in both the policy world as well as the academy. Whereas on the one hand some argue that funding to Afghanistan was insufficient (Sopko 2017), others note that assistance has far surpassed its optimal level. The former suggests that funding, troops, and other resources have been inadequate to provide security in Afghanistan and foster effective statebuilding. From this perspective, the mission to support institutions and stability in Afghanistan was limited in its capacity, where “both [I S A F and the US-led Coalition] operated with a ‘light footprint’ that has been inadequate to deliver security” (Rubin and Hamidzada 2007, 11). In sharp contrast to this, it has been argued that the assistance to support institutions took on an excessively “heavy footprint.” In an analysis of statebuilding in Afghanistan, Arreguin-Toft (2015, 236), for example, comments that “ISAF and aid personnel were ‘foreigners:’ the bigger the footprint, the greater the hazard.” There is also the issue of the technical distribution of these resources and the inability of international donors to establish a coherent and collective strategy for approaching and ultimately helping Afghanistan (Suhrke 2007; 2010; Rynning 2012). Although the intervention in

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US$ billion (constant 2009 prices)

8

6

4

2

0 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 Total official humanitarian aid

Other ODA

Figure 10.2  Total official humanitarian aid and other official development ­financing to Afghanistan, 1995–2009 Source: OECD DAC, 2018.

Afghanistan was largely led by the US after 9/11, over time several entities were operating in the country, including the U N -mandated ISA F, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (U N AM A), and the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (E U P O L ), to name a few. All of these entities had their own agendas and strategies and the Afghan mission began to suffer from a lack of unity and coordination (Schroeder 2014). In this context, the absence of a strategic framework and effective cooperation (that also included Pakistan) had a negative impact on the capacity of the international intervention to establish effective Afghan institutions. Finally, challenging development programs such as Canada’s require the best and most experienced civil servants to handle their management and governance. In principle, such expertise is available in the Canadian public service. However, the high security risks that automatically come with being deployed on such a mission, as well as the short rotation cycle of staff, the stressful living conditions on the ground, and almost no financial incentives for civil servants to deploy to high-security risky and fragile countries like Afghanistan make it very difficult to recruit and retain capable and effective staff. An

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intervention like the one in Afghanistan requires a significant amount of human resources from C I D A right from the beginning to deploy expertise on the ground and to cope with the challenges and required level of effort, as needed. 7. Changing Strategies Above, we have already discussed the shift in US strategy away from Afghanistan in early 2003. The Americans drained their resources there and deployed them to Iraq instead, and asked their NATO colleagues to chip in and increase their share of burden in the Afghan mission. Among them was Canada, America’s closest (geographical) friend and ally. For its part, the Canadian military as well as its development strategy for Afghanistan changed significantly over the years. The reconstruction (2001 to 2005) as well as parts of the early statebuilding phase (2005 to 2009) were characterized by the Canadian government’s efforts to lay the foundations for a secure country that was in great need of external assistance. The premise thereby was that a secure country would almost automatically lead to development, and that, vice versa, by supporting Afghans through strategic development programming, would lay the foundations for a prosperous country in the long term. For example, CIDA’s Interim Assistance Plan for Afghanistan (2003 to 2005) prioritized the following issue areas: •

•

•

improve Afghan’s rural livelihoods and increase social protection by increasing Afghan’s access to social services; improve Afghanistan’s overall security and rule of law by contributing to re-establishing the country’s security institutions and services (e.g., the Afghan National Police (AN P )), the judiciary, and demining vital areas for development; improve Afghan’s food security and standards of living through rehabilitation and developing agriculture.

The overall goal of Canada’s Afghanistan program at the strategic level was thus to support the efforts of the Afghan government, its people, and the international community in stabilizing the country by consolidating the government’s authority and legitimacy across the country and ultimately through improving Afghans’ daily lives. By the time Stephen Harper was elected as Canada’s 22nd prime minister in 2006, C I D A had already gained some experience with

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assisting Afghans. With the new government’s first development framework in place, C I D A shifted the project selection criteria to working with more capable Afghan ministries (and ministers); and to channelling Canadian aid to Afghanistan via trust funds managed by international organizations. The World Bank’s managed A R T F is a case in point. It helped to protect funding flows, kept administrative costs down, and ensured financial accountability to Canadian taxpayers. This model should be preserved for future statebuilding missions. Although it may be “normal” from an operational perspective to respond to changing Afghan needs and contexts, what was missing was an overarching grand Canadian strategic WoG plan that could be deployed effectively and produce an impact, as well as an effective exit strategy. lessons learned and final remarks

Afghanistan was likely one of the most difficult and complex environments in which to undertake development and state reconstruction projects. High levels of violence, significant government corruption, weak governance, an extensive narcotics trade, and high levels of internally displaced people were just some of the challenges that contributed to a highly unstable and non-permissive situation and made development extremely difficult. It quickly became apparent (though probably not quickly enough) that security was key to producing any kind of development, let alone sustainable development, to put Afghanistan on the path to stability. The issue of security remained a significant challenge throughout the statebuilding mission, resulting in a consistent questioning of whether the international community should have committed to statebuilding and reconstruction in the first place. Canada had its own debates in this regard, leading to the Manley Panel, which paved the way for more focused and targeted Canadian spending, thus increasing Canada’s aid effectiveness on the ground. Indeed, there appears to be a general consensus that the results of the massive efforts put forth in Afghanistan were underwhelming, to put it mildly. Our analysis in part supports such an assessment. Some go as far as to argue that this type of mission should never be conducted again (e.g., in Syria). Against this backdrop, instead of eliminating the idea of reconstruction and stabilization, Afghanistan can be seen as a valuable source of information and insight for future

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reconstruction and stabilization missions and how to improve them. It also needs to be acknowledged that not all efforts in Afghanistan were failures. As we have shown, there are examples of well designed and delivered development projects that created a positive outcome, especially in the education and health sectors. However, if anything needs to be done better it is these two things: (1) be more realistic and modest in what can be achieved given the host-nation’s security and political context and its own limited resources; and, (2) improve the government’s ability to coordinate, prepare, design, execute, monitor, and evaluate all development and reconstruction programs that it chooses to undertake. First, the level of ambition coming into Afghanistan was extremely high. It was expected that the entire country, with a long history of conflict and deep-seated cultural beliefs, could become a liberal democratic polity with a well-governed and effective state that respects human rights (especially women’s rights) in a matter of years, as long as enough money was poured into it. What was ignored was paying attention to the limited absorptive capacity of Afghanistan for that much capital. Much of the aid went to lining the pockets of corrupt government officials and warlords, greatly hindering reconstruction and stability efforts. The incredible amount of aid money that went into Afghanistan probably did more harm than good. Second, the complex mix of military and civilian efforts in Afghanistan often saw development being used as a means to achieve military ends, especially earlier on in the mission before the Manley Panel issued its report in 2008 that significantly changed Canada’s Afghan mission and priorities. Consequently, many of the development projects initiated were ad hoc. There was minimal understanding of the context they were operating in and the potential unintended effects and consequences. Moreover, the reporting on much of what Canada did in Afghanistan before 2006 is very sparse (or it simply has not been made publicly available, which is equally problematic). More information on Canadian development projects in Afghanistan after 2006 is available but still lacks robust monitoring and evaluation, even the largest programs, where Canada invested millions of dollars. Canadian development programming did improve over time, especially after the release of the Manley Report, but many of the issues were never resolved and many lessons never applied. It is thus imperative that the experience in Afghanistan inform future Canadian missions that include development and reconstruction

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objectives. Applying the lessons below would likely help improve the effectiveness of future statebuilding and reconstruction missions.15 1. Development takes time and requires a prolonged effort. For any future large-scale statebuilding and reconstruction efforts, Canada must set reasonable expectations about what can be achieved and do so prior to the intervention. Without a long-term commitment to invest in various programs and capacity-building efforts, most short-term efforts will have minimal impact. This is evident in the compressed one- to three-year timelines often seen in Afghanistan due to the short rotations of both military and civilian staff. Programs were often forced to compromise on quality and finished up too quickly with few to no mechanisms in place to ensure sustainability and long-term impact –that is, ensuring that the program kept running effectively after the donors have left. It also has the unintended effect of creating distrust among the Afghan population of any international effort done in the name of the local government because most projects had little to no staying power. Projects managed by international organizations (e.g., World Bank) appear to be more effective. 2. The political and policy dialogue must clearly link to an overarching development strategy and the funding of activities while promoting synergy both within and across sectors to maximize effectiveness and efficiency and ensure gains are sustainable. It is important for Canada to better align its activities with its stated goals. This may seem obvious, but Canada faced significant criticism for its inability to effectively communicate to its citizens at home what it was trying to achieve in Afghanistan. The political and policy dialogue needs to explicitly link funded activities to clearly identified goals as well as descriptions of how it’s going to get there. There are some sectoral examples of this lesson. For instance, a positive example in which this principle was applied was in the health sector. Canada’s success in creating a clear framework for partner coordination combined with its targeted initiatives, especially the capacity support it provided the MoPH, helped Canada to achieve a good reputation that facilitated policy influence in several areas, particularly gender equality. A less positive example was evident in the education sector. The community-based education policy was developed with good

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coordination channels in place (e.g., with N G O s and other donors). However, not enough was done to align it with Afghanistan’s own national education policy. At the end of the program there were significant gaps that the Ministry of Education did not have the capacity to address. Better linkages between the policy and the program should have been established, and Canada should have made more of an effort to share lessons learned with the ministry to ensure the gains would be sustained. 3. All development efforts must be rigorously monitored and evaluated for mid-term outcomes and long-term impacts. Some of the larger programs, such as E Q U I P , had monitoring and evaluation built into their design but the majority did not. The smaller programs, such as Family Health Houses, faded into obscurity almost immediately, with no larger impact outside of the people it immediately helped. That is not to devalue the meaningfulness of this project and its ability to help those people in dire need. But it appears to be a one-off project that did very little to contribute to the improvement of the overall health sector, nor does it appear to have fed into a larger strategy (and if it did, it was not clearly articulated). More important, evaluation reports on projects that Canada contributed to need to be made available to the public. This would not only have helped to explain what Canada was doing in Afghanistan, it would also have built public trust and support for the mission at home. Political corruption was endemic in Afghanistan and well known to international donors, including Canada. Former US ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker charged that it was the “ultimate point of failure for our efforts” (SIGAR 2016, i). As a consequence, addressing corruption should be a high priority concern from the beginning of any future Canadian statebuilding intervention (S I G AR 2016, iii). Indeed, corruption can be considered one of the key barriers to successful and sustainable peace- and statebuilding in Afghanistan. 4. Successfully designing and implementing a development program or project requires extensive local knowledge of the host government and population as well as local buy-in. The Government of Canada should have put much more energy and resources into learning about the Afghan government and the population (and ethnic distribution) when designing its development

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program. This knowledge gap produced overly ambitious programs that were set up to fail. Without a sufficient understanding of local cultures and institutions as well as local power dynamics, pouring aid money into development projects can actually result in exacerbating the conflict and increasing the already high level of distrust between the population, the government, and the intervenors (Elayah 2016). Further research is thus needed on internally driven statebuilding and reconstruction to avoid the local accountability and legitimacy trap in the future. Scholars also need to theorize the importance of local knowledge in international peace- and statebuilding interventions. This will help to develop practical tools and guidelines of how to better gather local knowledge in the field, and ultimately how to effectively implement that knowledge in future peace- and statebuilding operations. Canada must also recognize that its role in contributing to security, stability, and reform in fragile and conflict-affected states is limited, and that peace- and statebuilding solutions can only be found by including the local population (Mac Ginty and Sanghera 2012; Richmond 2009). At the same time, when partnering with local organizations or groups, these partners should be the “right” partners and should ensure and ideally promote the legitimacy and representativeness of the local government. Canada must avoid choosing the most convenient partners. Here, Goldstone’s five general guidelines for effective peace- and statebuilding are helpful to remember (Goldstone 2008, 292–5).16 Also, local partners should not be perceived to be more accountable to the donor community than to the local Afghan ­government (as was the case in Somalia for example). For all this, a standard political economy analysis of structures, institutions, and agents is a useful starting point for any Canadian peace- and statebuilding intervention in the future. 5. Statebuilding needs to go beyond the national focus and include sub-national levels to ensure sustainability. As discussed throughout this book, there was a distinct lack of programming at the sub-national level. Despite Canada leading the P RT in Kandahar and dedicating half of its development funding to it, in reality only about 30 per cent was spent on Kandahar, with most of the rest going to Kabul or other national programs. One of the primary goals of the P R T was to facilitate provincial and local governance,

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thereby extending the reach of the Afghan government in Kabul. These efforts proved to be largely ineffective, because after Canada handed over the PRT to the US in 2011 and the PRTs were shut down in 2014, Kandahar remains one of the most insecure provinces in Afghanistan, with high levels of violence. However, efforts were made in some of the programs to improve sub-national governance. For example, E Q U I P had a sub-national component but since much of the decision-making was centralized, it was less effective than expected. In the health sector, there was a heavy reliance on external technical advisors to fill the sub-national governance gaps and help build capacity. But this is only a short-term solution and threatens the sustainability of the gains made. Even at the national level, in some cases, capacity building was largely based on salary top-ups of Afghan civil servants or technical assistants, and in a highly corrupt government this may actually have exacerbated the problem (C I D A 2013). 6. An overreliance on NGO s and the international community to implement development programs threatens the sustainability of the improvements made. As noted in the Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program (2015), “a very prominent and effective risk mitigation measure taken by the program was the choice made to diversify the range of implementing partners” (2015, 3). However, these implementation partners did not always contribute to capacity building in their respective sectors, and often linkages to national policies and strategies were not taken into account. Moreover, this strategy saw too much focus on the project level, which often precluded the ability to address sectoral or cross-sectoral issues effectively (CIDA 2013). In other words, there was little guidance on how to identify, document, or manage risks in a fragile and conflictaffected context above the project level. These issues, alongside the well-known financial shortfalls, have all affected the sustainability of the programs. 7. The Manley Report did well to refocus Canadian efforts, but it was too late. As shown multiple times throughout this book, there was a distinct lack of prioritization and strategy in the Afghanistan mission, especially

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in the early days. There was also the issue of several Canadian governments’ unwillingness or inability to explain or demonstrate to Canadians what Canada was trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Ultimately, it was these issues that created the need to reassess the mission, resulting in the Manley Report. Arguably, this report came too late in the mission. It was something that should have happened in 2003. Although some people even go so far as to argue that the Manley Report was a glorified exit strategy and not an honest attempt to help Afghanistan, the prioritization and strategic planning that it recommended should have happened as soon as Canada agreed to contribute to the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan in 2003, not halfway through the statebuilding mission. Canada’s statebuilding mission progress should also have been monitored every one to two years. See also point 9 below. 8. The ability to adapt is key to maximizing the effectiveness of any given development program. A number of programs, such as E Q U I P and the community-based education program, were noted for their lack of contextual suitability and alignment with national policies. Furthermore, Afghanistan was a highly volatile operational environment characterized by rapidly shifting conditions, which few Canadian government officials fully grasped. Thus, any development program, both long- and short-term, needs the government to be able to quickly adapt and be flexible to the changing conditions for it to be effective, efficient, and sustainable in the long term (impact). A strong example of Canada showing this type of adaptability and flexibility was the polio breakout in 2010, which required a change of sub-contracted NGO implementers in the southern region to address the issue (CIDA 2013). However, this was only one of very few projects where we observed the Canadian government’s ability to adapt. 9. Actively capturing lessons learned and disseminating that information will only make development efforts more effective over time. This lesson is closely tied to the issue of robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of Canada’s projects and programs. If these mechanisms for M & E are not in place, it will be difficult to determine what is working in the respective projects and what is not. At the international

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level and in close coordination with international organizations (e.g., NATO, World Bank etc.), any information sharing among the various donors was done on a voluntary basis. This needs to change. Although lessons learned reports were produced, they were often only internal documents with significant restrictions as to who would have access to them, forcing each donor to learn and relearn the lessons that others had already learned and that could have been known already. 10. Donor coordination is critical for any development and reconstruction effort to have any long-lasting, positive effects. Canada took a number of leading roles in donor coordination, particularly in health and education, which garnered them a higher level of policy influence internationally. This is a significant achievement for a middle power and should not be underestimated. However, some of these coordination mechanisms were not created until quite late into the mission, such as the Health Donor Forum created in 2010, a mere four years before Canada pulled out of Afghanistan. This greatly diminished its impact. Donor coordination remains one of the most significant policy issues that needs to be addressed in future statebuilding missions; indeed, it is the key to aid effectiveness in the long term. Achieving that coherence was a significant challenge for Canada throughout the mission in Afghanistan; it was never actually overcome, and requires significant political will. 11. Improve Canada’s Whole-of-Government approach (W oG ) to statebuilding. Canada has adopted the moG approach as part of a standard (domestic) toolkit to ensure coherence in its statebuilding mission in Afghanistan. This was consistent with similar developments and approaches at the international level (those of other states or international organizations). However, the Canadian practice of the W oG approach in Afghanistan failed to substantively recognize the importance of moving beyond core federal stakeholders at the national level in finding lasting solutions to complex peace- and statebuilding challenges (e.g., civilian and non-governmental organizations). Although a number of studies have focused on the operationalization of the comprehensive approach (C A ) or national WoG (see e.g., LindleyFrench and Hopkinson 2012; Rotman 2010; and Rathmell and

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Lindley-French 2012), we suggest that the answer to the failures identified above must begin with building a formal educational foundation for the W oG at home in Canada’s public service, which is presently absent in the curricula of both civilian and federal government-funded universities (e.g., the Royal Military College of Canada, or the Staff College in Toronto). The W oG must be built on four reinforcing principles: proactive engagement, shared understanding, outcome-based thinking, and collaborative working (British Ministry of Defence 2010, 11). Moreover, Canada faces the following practical challenges with successfully implementing its WoG (Faria 2014, 11): at the political level one of the most significant challenges is to improve the comprehensive action of the participating federal departments. At the organizational level, the range of actors and instruments involved in comprehensive actions are too broad and must be streamlined. In reforming Canada’s W oG , reformers should avoid a too restrictive 2.0 version for responding to a range of crisis management situations, because each peace- and statebuilding environment is unique. The WoG thus requires a high degree of institutional adaptability. Moreover, Canada’s future W oG intervention must leave behind the rather rigid separation of civilian and military spaces, culture, and their respective protection that are grounded in diverging identities of the respective WoG actors (Leggat 2011). As a result, military processes of traditional command and control are deeply challenged by the necessity to cooperate with civilian actors, who organize and perform in a different cultural context. This already starts at the planning process of crisis management operations where, in the context of the Afghan mission, stove-piping could be witnessed right from the start. Mutual antagonism or even mistrust between civilian and military actors appears to be the norm, not the exception. Canada’s future peace- and statebuilding missions need to overcome the divide between humanitarian and military spaces. In sum, from a policy practice point of view and in preparation for Canada’s future statebuilding missions, one of the most important and very basic lessons learned from Canada’s Afghanistan experience is that the very first step must be an in-depth analysis of the political, historical, cultural, economic, institutional, and social contexts of the country to be intervened in. Only then can a future mission understand how this context is shaping conflict as well as the incentives and interests of local actors, power brokers and structures, and how it

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allows statebuilding to address local needs and ideas. Never underestimate (or disregard) local and regional power brokers or the regional dimension of statebuilding; they are most likely the most important properties of statebuilding success. Second, Canada must better understand its own role in the international statebuilding intervention and clarify its objectives for the intervention. It must thereby put the interests that result from its role on the backburner to allow local knowledge, expertise, and agency in local statebuilding dynamics to flourish and thus shape the future of the local statebuilding enterprise. Third, providing local security through massive foreign military presence is only a small fraction of the equation. The ministries of defence (D N D in Canada), while undoubtedly having the most advanced capacities on the ground, must recognize that security is deeply connected to development in fragile and conflict-affected states. In other words, a muscular security presence will not produce sustainable peace or development. It will lead to local disempowerment and thus undermine the authority of international statebuilders. Fourth, be mindful of who you work with and build local structures that are there (rather than exogenously impose new ones). In so doing, improve your accountability processes17 and structures at home to allow a coherent and impactful statebuilding assistance. In the aftermath of a conflict it is not always recommended to work with statebased actors. At times it might be more effective to deliver aid through informal networks like the Canadian government has, for example through religious organizations or faith-based N G O s. Fifth, realize that any exogenous Canadian statebuilding enterprise in a fragile state faces significant temporal dilemmas – that is, shortterm domestic requirements – “to do something.” To produce short-term security and stability such an enterprise is immediately confronted with longer-term commitments and funds needed to foster social, political, and economic transformations that are required at the local level. Against this backdrop, the links between legitimacy, stability, and institution building that we have discussed extensively throughout this book are made more complex when considered not as independent parts, but rather as pieces of a whole and more complex issue that intersects with social, economic, international, and local concerns for the state. As Sisk reminds us, statebuilding is a very extensive and labour-intensive process that “involves a constant and perhaps unending search for an appropriate balance between an endogenous, locally

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driven process that is internally “owned” by the recognized government – and, ostensibly, the “people” – and one in which international actors assertively and without excuse advance global norms” (Sisk 2013, 26). However, any future Canadian statebuilding mission will fail if there is no local peace to keep, or as Richmond notes, if the “state cannot be the final arbiter of peace.” It must instead come from “local communities, united federally” (Richmond 2011, 196–7).

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appendices

appendix 1 g r a n d t o ta l o f c a n a d i a n a i d p r o g r a m m i n g i n   a f g h a n i s ta n ( n o n - m i l i ta r y )

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Disbursements

Amount (in CAD )

Security programming Women programming Health programming Education programming Total

246,253,169.25 189,656,833.00 378,415,472.00 255,106,365.00 1,069,431,839.25

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Name of Project

Mine Action Program Afghanistan Refugee Return and Reintergration Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (D D R ) Afghanistan Stabilisation Program (A SP ) U N Mine Action Development Budget Heavy Weapons Cantonment (H W C ) Ammunition Survey and Destruction (A SD ) A/P Mine & A M M O Stockpile Destruction

Afghan New Beginnings Programme (A N BP + D D R )

1 year

2004–05

2004–07 2004–07 2004–07 2004–07 2004–07

Nationwide

–

–

–

–

–

C I D A and U N D P

C I D A and U N D P /UNA M A

C I D A and U N D P /UNA M A

C I D A and U N M A S

C I D A and World Bank

3 years

3 years

3 years

3 years

3 years

C I D A and U N A M A , U N D P 1 year

C I D A and U N H C R

2004–05

4,000,000

1,200,000

1,200,000

15,000,000

12,000,000

6,500,000

5,000,000

99,900,000

19,883,031

Duration Cost (in CAD ) 3 years

Nationwide

Who/With Who

security

8 years

When

–

2003–06 C I DA and UNDP / U N A M A Kunduz Province, Gardez, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, and Kabul Nationwide April 2004–12 C I DA and UNM A S

Where

appendix 2 s u m m a r y a n d g r a n d t o ta l o f c i d a p r o j e c t s

15,906,425

in USD * (exchange rate at 25%)

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2005–07 October 2008– March 2012 March 201–March 2011

Nationwide

Nationwide

Total disbursements

Arghandab Valley

2004–08

–

Mine Action in Support of Arghandab Irrigation Rehabilitation Project (Dahla Dam)

2004–07

Nationwide

Counter-Narcotics Capacity Building Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (D I A G ) Strengthening the Rule of Law in Afghanistan (S R LA ) Support to Mine Action Program for Afghanistan

2004–07

–

Law & Order Trust Fund (LO TF A )

2 years 4 years

1 year

C I DA and UNM A S

C I D A and U N M A S

4 years

3 years

3 years

C I DA and I DL O

C I DA and UNDP

C I DA and UNODC

C I DA and UNDP

246,253,169.25

2,000,000

58,095,138

4,300,000

6,375,000

5.1 million

9,800,000 2 million / posgate files: 3.8mil (2002-03), 4mil (2003-04), 2mil (2004-05) 1,000,000

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Women for Women in Afghanistan

Through the Garden Gate Integrating Women into Markets Vocational Training for Afghan Women Maternal Waiting Home in Kandahar Province Excel-erate Teacher Training Project, Canadian

Girls’ Primary Education

Support to the Development of Free Media in Afghanistan Women’s Rights in Afghanistan Fund (WR F A) Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MI SFA ) Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance 2004-2007 Through the Garden Gate Integrating Women Into Markets

Name of Project

2004–07 December 2006–March 2013

Kabul Nationwide

Kabul

Kandahar

Nationwide

December 2006–January 2013 December 2006–March 2013 February 2007–May 2012 February 2007–June 2010 2007–11

2004–10

Nationwide

Nationwide – 20 provinces Nationwide

2004–07

–

When 2003–06

–

Where

–

Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (C W 4 W Afghan)

UNICEF

CARE

M E DA

Mennonite Economic Development Associates of Canada BRAC

CARE

World Bank, A R T F

R&D

IMPACS

350,000 650,000

5 years

6,260,027

4,394,895

4 years

6 years

7 years

19,002,551

4,394,895

7 years

7 years

9,000,000

94,500,000

1,520,000

2,100,000

Cost (in CAD )

4 years

6 years

3 years

Duration

women and gender

Who/With Who

appendix 3 s u m m a r y a n d g r a n d t o ta l o f c i d a p r o j e c t s

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Total Disbursements

Community-Based Girls’ Education Project Promoting Women’s Political Participation

Afghanistan - Knowledge Fund

Rights in Practice - Women’s Rights and Family Law Reform Responsive Fund for the Advancement of Women (R FAW ) Vocational Training for Afghan Women- Afghan Challenge Amendment Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance 2008–2010 Afghan Women’s Community Support Women as Decision Makers Women’s Political Participation at the National Level I FR C and Afghan Red Crescent Society Global Appeal 2011 September 2008– September 2010 November 2008–March 2013 July 2009–March 2011 July 2010–June 2011

Kabul

Nationwide

Nationwide

Badakhstan; Paktya; Nangarhar; Bhalkh; Jawzjan Nationwide

Kabul; Jalalabad Nationwide Nationwide

December 2012–June 2017 February 2014–March 2017

June 2011–April 2019

March 2011–December 2011

August 2007–October 2012 January 2008–May 2012

Nationwide Nationwide

June 2007–January 2012

Nationwide

National Democratic Institute

BRAC

Global Affairs Canada

3 years 1 years

U N Women National Democratic Institute IFRC

4 years

9 years (still operational) 5 years

9 months

6 years

2 years

5 years

6 years

6 years

War Child Canada

CARE

Asia- Program Support Unit Consortium: C A R E W US C

Rights and Democracy

189,656,833.00

6,300,000

19,750,000

1,248,892

2,900,000

1,995,000 548,757

4,953,933

1,324,474

220,122

3,314,269

4,929,018

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Nationwide Southern Afghanistan Nationwide Nationwide Nationwide 11 provinces Nationwide Nationwide Badakhstan; Paktya; Nangarhar; Bhalkh; Jawzjan

Tuberculosis Control Program

Increasing Access to Maternal and Child Health

Polio Eradication Signature Project - WH O

Polio Eradication Signature Project - UNICEF

Capacity Building and Access to Medicines

Emergency Micronutrients Initiative

Afghanistan Health Services

Polio Eradication W H O

I FR C and Afghan Red Crescent Society Global Appeal 2011

Where Kandahar

Maternal Waiting Home in Kandahar Province

Name of Project

UNICEF

W HO

UNICEF

Who

– Duration

4 years

4 years

1 year

7 years

4 years

h e a lt h

March 2011–December I F R C 2011

9 months

4 years

1 year

Micronutrient Initiative 1 year and 5 months

Health Partners 7 years International of Canada

March 2010–March WHO 2011 December 2011–March W HO 2014

July 2009–November 2010

November 2008–June 2014

December 2008–March U N I C E F 2011

December 2008–March W HO 2011

March 2008–March 2014 February 2008–March 2009

February 2007–June 2010

When

appendix 4 s u m m a r y a n d g r a n d t o ta l o f c i d a p r o j e c t s

2,900,000

16.149,000

1,000,000

617,055

6,326,968

16,300,000

43,700,000

7,800,000

7,791,449

350,000

Cost (in CAD )

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Nationwide

Strengthening Health Activities for the Rural Poor Improving Nutrition for Mothers, Newborns, and Children

March 2011–March 2014 February 2012–March 2016

March 2015–March 2016

Balkh

Nutrition Assistance in Balkh Province–Action Against Hunger 2015

Nationwide

March 2013–June 2016 UNF P A March 2013–March 2018 December 2015– December 2020

Nationwide Nationwide

Family Health Houses

National Surveillance System in Afghanistan Health Action Plan for Afghanistan (H A P A)

Action Against Hunger

Aga Khan Foundation

UNI C E F , W HO

Aga Khan Foundation, Toton Matthew James

February 2013–June 2016

Nationwide

World Vision Canada

Improving Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

February 2013– October 2016

Nationwide

1 year

6 years (still operational) 5 years

4 years

4 years

4 years

2 years

5 years

Free the Children

UNICEF

4 years

less than 30 days 1 year and 6 months

World Bank

UNICEF

W HO

Maternal and Under-5 Nutrition and Child Health

Polio Eradication – U N I C EF

Southern Afghanistan

Polio Eradication 2011–U N ICE F

March 2011–March 2011 March 2011–October 2012

9 provinces: Bamyan, Daikundi, Faryab, Kandahar, Jawzjan, and Sari Pul, Takhar, Kunduz, and Nangarhar Nationwide February 2012–March 2014

Nationwide

Polio Eradication 2011–WH O

1,000,000

55,500,000

6,430,000

5,200,000

40,350,000

9,000,000

17,000,000

66,000,000

15,000,000

1,000,000

1,851,000

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Name of Project

Where Nationwide

Total disbursements

Maternal Waiting Home in Kandahar Province

Kandahar

Nationwide Support to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund–Health (SE H A T ) Afghanistan School Feeding Program Nationwide

Support to Afghanistan’s Polio Eradication Initiative Program

When

Who

Duration

UNICEF

4 years

World Food Programme 1 year

May 2014–March 2015 February 2007– June 2010

4 years

World Bank

3 years

Novemner 2014– December 2017

March 2014–December U N I C E F , W HO 2016

378,415,472

350,000

3,600,000

33,750,000

19,800,000

Cost (in CAD )

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Where

Integrated Alternative Livelihoods Kandahar Program Kandahar (I AL P ) Girls’ Primary Education Nationwide in 20 provinces Through the Garden Gate– Nationwide Integrating Women into Markets Vocational Training for Afghan Nationwide Women Kandahar Local Initiatives Kandahar Program Education Quality Improvement Nationwide Project Responsive Fund for the Nationwide Advancement of Women (R F A W) Kabul Excel-erate Teacher Training Project, Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan Nationwide Vocational Training for Afghan Women–Afghan Challenge Amendment Quality Primary Education Southern in Southern Afghanistan Afghanistan

Name of Project

February 2008– December 2013

January 2008– May 2012

5 years and 2 months 4 years and 7 months 7 years and 7 months 5 years 2 months 4 years

C I DA and C ONsortium: C A R E -W US C C I DA and Multiple ­implementation partners C I D A and World Bank

C I D A and Save the Children Netherlands

C I D A and Asia- Program Support Unit C I D A and Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (C W 4 W Afghan) C I D A and Consortium: C A R E -W U S C

7 years

C I D A and M E DA

December 2006– March 2013 February 2007– April 2012 May 2007– December 2011 August 2007– March 2014 August 2007– October 2012 2007–11

5 years and 11 months

4 years and 4 months

7 years and 1 month

C I D A and B R A C

December 2006– January 2013

3 years

Duration

3,885,635

220,122

650,000

3,314,269

91,500,000

16,842,200

6,260,027

4,394,895

19,002,551

5,000,000

Cost (in CAD )

e d u c at i o n

C I D A and U N D P /M R R D

Who/ With Who

–

2004–07

When

appendix 5 s u m m a r y a n d g r a n d t o ta l o f c i d a p r o j e c t s

Notes

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Water Resource Management Expertise at Kandahar University

Kandahar

Basic Education and Gender Equality–Training of Teachers in Kandahar Enhancing Agricultural Expertise at Kandahar University Fanoos Light House: Teacher Training in Afghanistan

Kandahar

Laghman; Kabul

Kandahar

Kabul

Kandahar

Nationwide

Jalalabad

Kandahar

Kabul; Jalalabad Kandahar

Where

Education For All–Fast Track Initiative (E F A- F TI )

Education in Emergencies– Minimum Standards Skills for Employment (Kandahar Technical School)

Afghan Women’s Community Support Basic Education and Gender Equality in Kandahar Kandahar Teacher Training and College Rehabilitation Afghanistan Challenge–Build a School

Name of Project

CIDA

C I D A and War Child Canada C I D A and U N I C E F

Who/ With Who

May 2011– September 2013

July 2010– March 2011 April 2011– August 2013

C I D A and Agriteam Canada C I D A and Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (C W 4 W Afghan) C I DA and Loy Kandahar Reconstruction Organization

C I D A and C R C I D Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development November 2009– C I DA and C A R E Canada November 2011 December 2009– C I D A and G I Z - German March 2013 Society for International Cooperation March 2010– C I D A and Government August 2010 of Denmark - Ministry of Foreign Affairs May 2010– C I D A and U N I C E F April 2013

November 2008– March 2013 March 2009– May 2013 August 2009– August 2011 October 2009– February 2014

When

2 years and 4 months

1 year and 8 months 2 years and 4 months

196,961

499,968

3,000,000

4,809,458

325,000

5 months

3 years and 1 month

1,525,000

671,088

503,005

1,503,715

6,450,000

4,953,933

Cost (in CAD )

4 years and 3 months

2 years

4 years and 4 months

5 years and 4 months 4 years and 2 months 2 years

Duration

Notes

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Total disbursements

Kandahar Sustainable Skills Program Community-Based Girls’ Education Project Afghanistan School Feeding Program Support to Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund–Education (E Q U I P)

Teacher Certification and Accreditation of Teacher Education Programs BE A C O N : Increasing Access to Quality Basic Education

August 2011– June 2016

 

Nationwide, March 2012– special focus March 2016 in 12 provinces: Badakhshan, Baghlan, Balkh, Bamyan, Ghor, Herat, Kabul, Kapisa, Khost, Nangarhar, Paktya, and Parwan Kandahar March 2012February 2013 Nationwide December 2012June 2017 Nationwide May 2014– March 2015 Nationwide November 2014– November 2017

Nationwide

4 years

 

 

C I D A and Afghan Learning 1 year 11 Development Organization months C I D A and B R A C 5 years and 6 months C I D A and World Food 1 year and Programme 10 months C I D A and World Bank 3 years

C I D A A ND: International Rescue Committee, C A R E Canada, Aga Khan Foundation, Catholic Relief Services

C I D A and World University 5 years and Service of Canada 7 months

255,106,365

25,750,000 from C I DA ­project profile page; other sources cite grand total of $32.25 million

3,600,000

19,750,000

248,538

20,000,000

10,250,000

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Notes

introduction

  1 This needs to be qualified because there are gaps in the data, especially in the early years. This was compounded by the government moving to a new web domain. As a result, our data is only 100 per cent reliable from 2006 onwards, precisely when the government began to emphasize ­transparency and started publishing all the projects on its website.   2 We understand resources here holistically, including all political, military, and development resources made available by the Canadian government.   3 See, for example, Saideman 2016; Nossal and Boucher 2017.   4 Dr Nipa Banerjee was the first head of aid in Afghanistan, from 2003 to 2006. In March 2013, the Conservative government announced that C IDA would be folded into the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the organizations renamed as the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. They were later renamed Global Affairs Canada by the Liberal government that took power in 2015.   5 As noted, our numbers and assessments differ from those of the official evaluation due to the different coding schemes that we employed as well as our limited access to data from Canadian funded projects and initiatives.   6 We should add that if Canadian disbursements are included (including those for the military, diplomacy, and development), analysts estimate that the total price tag for Canada’s Afghan mission was between $15 billion (Stone 2015, 140), to $20 billion (Graham 2015, 50) and $28 billion, as projected by a 2008 Rideau Institute report (Macdonald & Staples 2008). These diverging numbers are the result, in part, of different accounting techniques (e.g., Stone calculates the incremental costs; Macdonald & Staples also include costs for health care and veterans’ benefits).

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  7 To recall, we were able to assess all development projects that had publicly available data.   8 Many thanks to our research assistants Shermeen Umar Khan, Ikram Handulle, and Esengul Tasdemir for their assistance in collecting the data.   9 We should not understand the boundaries of these clusters as rigid or closed in a methodological sense. Some of the projects we assessed indeed speak to more than one cluster. Where applicable, we point this out in our assessments in later chapters. 10 Canada’s military, diplomatic, and development engagement in Afghanistan lasted from 2001, after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, through Operation Enduring Freedom, and ended in 2014 with the end of Canada’s combat mission in Kandahar and the beginning of a so-called training mission. Throughout this time period, Canadians elected four governments, the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien (1993–2003), ­followed by the Liberal government of Paul Martin (2003–06), a Conservative government under Stephen Harper (2006–15), and the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau (2015– ). 11 The dataset can be found in the appendix. 12 In the academic literature this has become known as the 3D approach. It subsequently evolved to the whole-of-government approach and finally the comprehensive approach. For an overview and discussion see Rostek and Gizewski 2011. 13 In the literature this is also known as the security-development nexus. See, for example, World Bank 2011; Carment and Yiagadeesen 2011; Chandler 2007; Reid-Henry 2011. chapter two

  1 See, for example, the fragile-states index of the Institute for Peace at www. fragilestatesindex.org.   2 Information taken from Canadian International Development Platform, Carleton University, http://cidpnsi.ca.   3 The Northern Alliance is formally known as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan. It was created by former president Burhanuddin and former defence minister Ahmad Shah Massoud, and included the leaders of nearly all ethnic groups in Afghanistan.   4 For the importance of U N involvement, see Tardy 2004.   5 For a detailed discussion of this operation see United States 2002; Center of Military History 2004; Tripp and Project Air Force (U.S.) 2004. For a

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historical discussion of Canada and Enduring Freedom see, for example Pigott 2007; Stein and Lang 2007; Warnock 2008; Maloney 2009.   6 On 28 December 2014, after thirteen years in operation, President Barack Obama announced the end of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan; US combat and non-combat missions now occur under Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.   7 Unfortunately, the new government also brought to Cabinet a number of (former) warlords, returned refugees from Pakistan, and ex-pats of the diaspora who had lived abroad in Western countries. This group of individuals unfortunately did not possess the experience of governing to lead a functioning government.   8 Some sources note (DFATD 2013) that from 2002 to 2012 alone more than US$50 billion official development assistance was provided to Afghanistan, including 13 per cent for humanitarian assistance alone. The World Bank reported that after 2005, foreign aid to Afghanistan had increased to more than US$10 billion per year (up tenfold from 2001). In contrast, the total cost of the war in Afghanistan, including the military missions and reconstruction, is estimated to have cost more than US$4 trillion (Bilmes 2013).   9 However, although these trust funds were clearly beneficial, the lack of an overarching Afghan development strategy led to incoherent assistance practices and transparency. Moreover, international donors did not channel the agreed upon minimum of 50 per cent of their development funds through the budget of the Afghan government, or align at least 80 per cent with the priorities set by the Afghan government. 10 Canada was not alone here: more than sixty-three bilateral donors as well as forty-seven troop-contributing countries helped with reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. 11 http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/ UNPAN016262.pdf. 12 About 300,000 people and $2 billion in trade cross the border daily, which explains why the primary focus of politicians is to maintain the free flow of goods and people across that border. That is why Ottawa’s first and foremost national security objective after 9/11 was to keep the border with the US open for trade and commerce (see Bow 2008, 13–14; Zyla 2012, 106 and 113). 13 Sokolsky and Zyla (2010) argued that Canada indirectly supported the US operation in Iraq by sending thirty-one exchange officers to serve in Iraq alongside American forces, and by having its naval ships help

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to enforce U N sanctions against Iraq. Parliament’s lack of participation in those ­decisions is noteworthy, cf. Lagassé, 2010). 14 “Canada to Send Troops to Kabul: Iraq Role Unlikely,” National Post, A1, 13 Feb. 2013. 15 For a discussion of these terms see, for example, Chapnick 1999; 2005; 2006. 16 For a detailed account of Canada’s Afghan mission, see Cox 2007; Saideman 2016. 17 For a detailed discussion see Boucher 2010. 18 This is also known as the whole-of-government approach. 19 Those priorities were first listed in the Manley Report (Canada 2008). Among other things, it became deeply involved in the issue of detainee abuses. 20 To be fair, among the reasons why the agreed upon 50 per cent benchmark was not achieved were significant capacity restraints and the province of Kandahar’s inability to absorb the large influx of funds quickly enough. 21 For a broader discussion, see Holland 2010. 22 http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/ACDI-CIDA.nsf/eng/ CAR-616141241-PD4. 23 It changed in 2008 because the Canadian government decided to channel more funds through civil society organizations (e.g., Canadian NGOs). 24 Afghanistan’s National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment from 2011 to 2012 calculated that about 36 per cent of the population lived below the poverty line; it also consistently ranked (and continues to do so) at the bottom of the U N ’s Human Development Index, in spite of a decade of growth between 2003 and 2011 that produced, on average, a 9.1 per cent increase in its G DP per year. The agricultural sector accounted for about 25 per cent of this growth, with nearly 60 per cent of the population working in that sector. 25 Afghanistan Embassy, Afghanistan Compact, http://www.afghanistan​ embassy.no/afghanistan/government/core-state-documents/afghanistancompact (Accessed 14 April 2014). 26 To be a bit more specific, the AN DS listed the following areas as national priorities for development: peace, human resources, infrastructure, private sector, agriculture, and governance (here, in particular, governance refers to eradicating corruption). A World Bank Report of 2006 however, had already noted that technical assistance to Afghanistan was not as successful as anticipated, primarily because it was way beyond Afghanistan’s ­ability to absorb it, leading to a weakened local ownership. See World Bank 2006, 23; see also OECD 2009.

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chapter three

  1 We must point out here that our goal cannot be to review the entire ­literature on peace- and statebuilding due to space limitations. Rather, our goal here is to provide some of the most important highlights on these two literatures, filtered by the relevance to our focus in this monograph.   2 This became the so-called security-development nexus, as we explain ­further below. The remainder of this paragraph draws heavily from Zyla 2019.   3 The conceptual development of human security followed its institutionalization. In 1999, for example, Japan established the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, which Canada also joined. Ottawa also helped to establish the Human Security Network as well as the independent Commission on Human Security (CHS ) in 2000 in an effort to address the root causes of conflicts and the protection and development of people living in fragile and conflict-affected states. The Human Security Unit was created in the UN Secretariat of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in 2004. All these efforts helped to broaden the policy discussions and the coalition of like-minded states (Krause 2008).   4 In 2003, the CHS published its report Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People, which reaffirmed the broad definition of human security.   5 For a disagreement on the link between fragile states and terrorism see Hehir 2009; Traub 2011.   6 For a rebuttal see Newman 2004, 173.   7 The term “intervention” as well as its sister term “humanitarian intervention” are highly debated in the literature (e.g. Hehir 2010; MacFarlane 2002). Over the years a number of definitions have emerged. Vincent, for example, notes that an intervention is an “activity undertaken by a state, a group within a state, a group of states or an international organization which interferes coercively in the domestic affairs of another state. It is a discrete event having a beginning and an end, and it is aimed at the authority structure of the target state (Vincent 1974, 13). This represents the so-called traditional view of interventions. Recent scholarship has built on this definition and notes that intervention covers a whole spectrum (MacFarlane 2002) ranging from minimum coercive means (e.g., diplomatic visits, public speeches in foreign country) to absolute coercive means (e.g., military engagements) (see also Annan 1999; Bellamy 2010; Hehir 2010).   8 Call (2008) defines six problems associated with the definition “failed state:” excessive aggregation of diverse states, cookie cutter policies for

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stronger states, dodging proper democratization, conflation of peacebuilding and statebuilding, Western bias over traditional states, and hiding the West’s role in failure (for the latter two see also Bøås and Jennings 2007, who point out that the label “fragile state” is mostly applied when Western interests are at stake; it was not applied for Nigeria or Sudan). Call proposes that instead of “failed state” the literature should differentiate between collapsed states like Somalia, war-torn states like Afghanistan, and authoritarian states like North Korea. For a similar disagreement see Jackson and Rosberg 1982; Manjinkian 2008; Ayers 2012. However, Goldstone (2008, 285) disagrees by noting that there is no universal definition of fragile or failed states (see also Nay 2013). Lemay-Hébert (2009, 22) points out that the concept of state collapse is generally recognized as straightforward, but “the proliferation of terminologies” concerning the phenomenon of state collapse (collapsed state, failed state, fragile state, shadow state, weak state, quasi-state) and the process of addressing this issue of collapse (through peacekeeping, peacebuilding, statebuilding, nationbuilding) is evidence of conceptual ambiguity. In a similar vein, Milliken and Krause state the need to “develop more precise and nuanced concepts of state failure and state collapse” (2002, 754; see also Goldstone 2008).   9 There is a significant debate in the literature on determining the exact characteristics of fragile and failed states. For our discussions here it is ­sufficient to state that, generally speaking, these states experience the loss of monopoly of violence (following a Weberian view of the state; see Suhrke 2007); an inability of the state to provide citizens with basic public goods (following a social contract view of the state); and a breakdown of ­economic institutions (an argument often used by economists). 10 Peacekeeping speaks more to the post-conflict settlement process, in which negotiations between former combatants (Regan 2002) are facilitated by a third party as a means to maintain the absence of violence (Gawrec 2006). 11 This is not the place to review at length the literature on liberal peacebuilding, which is extensive. Good overviews can be found in Paris 2010; or Barnett 2006. 12 Against this backdrop, national armed forces service operators entered an already crowded space of crisis management with a number of civilian organizations already working in this area by, for example, delivering food, ensuring human security, managing refugee camps, or supplying medical care (Rotberg 2004). 13 Yoo (2011), however, points out that simply building state institutions will not solve state fragility, and that power-sharing arrangements must be devised among existing social blocs. That suggestion is similar to

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Malejacq’s proposal for working with warlords on the basis that they will continue to exert an influence regardless. Barnett’s republican peacebuilding is based on republican principles of deliberation, constitutionalism, and representation to help states recovering from war (Barnett 2006). 14 At the same time, it remains highly controversial as well. 15 This is evident in the fact that the United States, a permanent member on the UN Security Council, allocates more than half of the country’s spending on security, which, as some have argued, signifies a shift to securitizing development – giving an increased importance to security over development (Tucker 2014, 1; for a similar argument see Tschirgie et al. 2010). 16 As Max Weber argued, a state is characterized by state autonomy, state authority through the monopoly of legitimate forces in a given territory” (Weber 1921). According to Ghani and Lockhart (2006) a state must exercise ten functions: legitimate monopoly on the use of force; administrative control or make rules and regulations; manage public finances; invest in human capital; delineate citizenship rights and duties; provide infrastructure services; form and regulate markets; manage collective assets, ­including natural resources, cultural assets, and the environment; ­conduct international relations; and implement the rule of law. 17 There are four main sources of legitimacy: the input (process) legitimacy (e.g., through constitution); output (performance) legitimacy, which depends on perceptions about state performance, and the effectiveness and quality of the public goods and services states deliver; shared beliefs about what public authority should be; and international legitimacy, which derives from the recognition of state sovereignty by external actors. 18 Snyder and Jervis 1999 discuss the danger of ethnic security dilemmas in this regard; see also Lake and Rothchild 1996. 19 As a result, Zartman charged that “any single-factor or single-discipline theory of civil war is “profoundly uninteresting; instead, interactions among these drivers at the intersection of “need, creed, and greed” should inform our understanding of the underlying causal relationships” (Zartman 2005, 257). 20 The social contract theory goes back to British philosopher Thomas Hobbes who argued in Leviathan that citizens would agree to submit to governmental authority as long as it provided them with security. The O E C D argues that non-fragile states are characterized by the following: (1) political settlements reflecting the balance and distribution of power that exists in the state and the bargains that have been struck between contending elites and social forces (i.e., “the rules of the game”); (2) ­political processes – mechanisms through which state-society relations are

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mediated (e.g., elections, government policies, legislative decisions, constitutions etc.); (3) the capability and responsiveness of the state to effectively fulfill its principal functions and provide key services; and (4) broad social expectations and perceptions of what society expects from the state along with the ability of society to articulate demands that will be heard from the state’s government. 21 Specifically, he lists five steps to state failure (2008, 288–90): 1. Escalation of communal group conflicts (ethnic, religious, or other identity group; e.g., Liberia, with moderately effective institutions, or Nepal, as an example of an institution with high legitimacy but low effectiveness); 2. State predation (e.g., Nicaragua); 3. Regional or guerrilla rebellion (e.g., Colombia); 4. Democratic collapse into a civil war or by coup d’état (e.g., Nigeria; 5. Succession or reform crisis in authoritarian states (e.g., Indonesia (a succession crisis) and Pakistan (a reform crisis). 22 Hettne defines development as “a way to conceptualize aspects of pervasive, continuous social change to which human actors attribute particular meaning and value” (2010, 33). Stewart (2004) states that development should be understood as a means to enhance people’s capabilities and opportunities – that is, “enlarging people’s choices in a way that enables them to lead longer, healthier, and fuller lives” (262). In contrast, Hettne defines security as “a reasonable level of predictability at different levels of the social system, from local communities to the global level, or the world order” (2010, 33). Similarly, Stewart (2004) reminds us that security can have a broad meaning, though he focuses on a narrow view of individual security. At the same time, Stewart (2004) acknowledges that security at higher levels, such as that of the state, can have much influence on the degree of security enjoyed by individuals. 23 To complicate things even more, both the security and development ­paradigm overlap significantly in their interest in education, health care, violence, or national wealth (Stewart 2004, 278). 24 Resilience, on the other hand, is defined as “the ability to cope with ­changes in capacity, effectiveness or legitimacy” (OEC D 2008, 19). The majority of the literature has considered fragility and state failure as the opposite of resilience (OECD 2009; Pospisil and Besancenot 2014). Moreover, it has been linked to capacity and outcome whereby the former represents the ability to adapt to disturbances, stress, and adversity, and the latter signifies a return to a stable position (Chandy 2015). For example, the United Nations characterizes resilience as having “the ­capacity to withstand or absorb the impact of a hazard [whether natural or man-made] through resistance or adaptation, which enables … certain

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basic functions and structures during a crisis, and bounce back or recover from an event” (U N I S DR 2012, 11). 25 Easterly, for example, points out that in the past forty years “$568 billion [has been] spent on aid to Africa, and yet the typical African country is no richer today than 40 years ago” (Easterly 2006; similar arguments can be found in Collier and Hoeffler 2007). Moreover, a World Bank meta-­ analysis of evaluations acknowledges that “despite the billions of dollars spent on development assistance each year, there is still very little known about the actual impact of projects on the poor” (Baker 2000, 6). 26 By contrast, Barnett (2006) argues that peacebuilding is essentially statebuilding. The OECD disagrees, arguing that “peacebuilding is primarily associated with post-conflict environments, and state building is likely to be a central element of it” (OECD/DA C 2008a, 13). 27 The literature does not agree on a definition of either security or development. In the broadest sense, development can be understood as economic growth, environmental sustainability, and human rights protection whereas security often refers to conceptions of national security and ­military intervention as well as non-military issues such as human rights and protection (Hettne 2010, 34). 28 The UN has reminded its members on several occasions of a need to improve the U N ’s operational coherence to crisis management, namely that “peace requires a comprehensive, concerted and determined approach that addresses the root causes of conflicts, including their economic and social dimensions … [that] must involve all the relevant actors in this field” (UNS C 2001). 29 For most states and international organizations, their C A can be identified among these four types of the W oG/CA and is well represented in their respective policies of international crisis management and conflict reconstruction. 30 The accepted formula was first deploying external peacekeepers to ­provide security as emergency relief, followed by disarmament, and the establishment of transitional governments (which have been found disappointing by Caplan 2005; Chesterman 2004). Second, elections must be held, and new constitutions be drafted and ratified by elected parliamentarians. In the third phase, the international community continues its presence and assists with rooting out the causes of conflict, for example through economic development and further democratization (Dobbins et al. 2005). 31 Peacemaking tends to refer to the process of negotiation between policy makers to determine an official resolution to a specific conflict.

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32 The O E C D is even more specific with its guidance and recommends “conduct[ing] joint conflict analysis and agree[ing] on a joint support strategy whenever possible” (OECD 2012,1). 33 The hybrid peacebuilding approach has also received criticism. Nadaraja and Rampton, for example, charge that hybrid peace actually “reproduces the liberal peace’s logics,” as the term hybridity only disguises the underlying power inequities between international and local actors (2015, 49). Hybridity, they note, “does not necessarily entail reciprocal exchange or the diminishing of cultural hegemonies, but it is uneven and selective across and within subaltern groups” (Ibid., 55). Concerns were also raised regarding the “depoliticizing and romanticizing [of] the local,” as local actors are depicted as neglected, non-elites that are removed from political processes (Ibid., 65–7). The peacebuilding reality, however, is that the local population plays a key role in an effective and legitimate society, because they are confronted in “everyday life by exclusion, racism, discipline, and violence, and thus in which emerge the dissipated resistances that make possible and cohere in counter nationalist political mobilization and militancy” (Ibid.). These manifestations occur, for example, through social movements at local, national, and global levels and are not well explained in the way hybridity theorists depict the local levels. chapter four

  1 The development budget is on-budget projects funded by donors with resources earmarked for particular projects and programs.   2 Andrew Rogerson (2005). Aid Harmonization and Alignment: Bridging the Gaps between Reality and the Paris Reform Agenda. Development Policy Review, 23(5): 531–52.   3 International Development Association (2004). Indicators on Aid Harmonization and Alignment. World Bank: Washington, DC . http://­ siteresources.worldbank.org/IDA/Resources/ IndicatorsAidHarmonizationAlignment.pdf.   4 For example, see CI DA (1996). Results-Based Management in CIDA Policy Statement, Ottawa: Canada; and CIDA (1999). Results-Based Management in CIDA : An Introductory Guide to the Concepts and Principles, Ottawa: Canada.  5 O E C D (2002). Glossary of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results-Based Management. Paris: OECD/DAC.   6 Government of Canada (2018) Results-Based Management Lexicon. https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/

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audit-­evaluation/centre-excellence-evaluation/results-based-managementlexicon.html.   7 The notable exception here is the Summative Evaluation done by the Government of Canada (see DFATD 2015). chapter five

 1 Even though politicians might call for security first in rebuilding fragile states, it is actually highly contested in the literature whether security should arrive first before development, or the other way around (see Hettne 2010; Stewart 2004; Carment and Yiagadeesen,2011; OEC D-DA C 1997; World Bank 2011; Chandler 2007; Stern and Öjendal 2010).   2 This has also been done in part; see Stein and Lang 2007.   3 For a detailed discussion of OEF, see United States. Congress 2002; for a Canadian angle, see Pigott 2007; Stein and Lang 2007; Warnock 2008; Maloney 2009.   4 This invasion was backed by international law, including Article 51 of the UN Charter (right of self defence) as well as UNSC Resolutions 1368 (12 September 2001, provided the US with unanimous support/ the condemnation of the attacks); 1373 (28 September 2001, added the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to international sanctions lists); and 1377 (12 November 2001): condemned all forms of international terrorism and supported the global “War on Terror.”   5 Karzai won the 2004 presidential elections and became president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, with a second five-year term in the 2009 elections.   6 For the importance of U N involvement, see Thierry Tardy, ed., Peace Operations After 11 September 2001 (London: Routledge, 2004).   7 National Defence, “Archived – Backgrounder – The Canadian Forces’ Contribution to the International Campaign Against Terrorism,” http:// www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=the-canadian-forces-­ contribution-to-the-international-campaign-against-terrorism/hnocfnnn (accessed 10 March 2014).   8 It sent six naval vessels, six aircraft, special forces, and roughly 2,000 troops (see Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c).   9 Minister Art Eggleton, “Deployment of Canadian Forces,” Canada. Parliament. House of Commons, Debates, 1st Session, 37th Parliament. 2002. 10 UN Security Council Resolution 1368 (12 September 2001) recognized the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence; called on all states to

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work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers, and sponsors of these terrorist attacks; and stressed that those responsible for aiding, supporting, or harbouring the perpetrators, organizers, and sponsors of these acts would be held accountable. It also expressed its readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations. 11 National Post, “Canada in Afghanistan: 2001 – the Long Road,” http:// afghanistan.nationalpost.com/canada-in-afghanistan-2001/ (accessed 10 March 2014). 12 See for example Canada. Parliament 2008. 13 Undoubtedly, this was also important for domestic interests in keeping the Canada-US border open for trade (Massie and Zyla, 2018; von Hlatky 2016) as well as considering Canada a serious partner in the fight against terrorism. 14 P R T s were first established by the US in Paktia Province in late 2002, and their number had subsequently risen to twenty-seven by 2011 after NA TO had decided to extend its role throughout the country. 15 For a discussion of the W oG approach, see e.g., Patrick and Brown 2007. 16 For the importance of so-called caveats during the Afghan mission see Saideman 2015. 17 For a counter-perspective that Afghanistan could not be considered a failed state see Barfield 2010. 18 National Defence. “ARCHI VED – Minister’s Speeches Archive–Defence Minister David Pratt speaks at 20th annual C DA I Seminar.” Government of Canada, http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=defence-­ minister-david-pratt-speaks-at-20th-annual-cdai-seminar/hnocfnnf (accessed 12 April 2014). 19 Part of S T A RT’s mandate was managing the Global Peace and Security Fund encouraging conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and security sector reform in fragile and conflict-affected states. 20 MP Rick Casson, “Canada’s Military Mission in Afghanistan,” Edited Hansard. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons, 1st Session, 38th Parliament, 15 November 2005. 21 The Compact was followed up separately by the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (AN DS ), 2008–13 that outlined the details of the country’s security, governance, economic, and poverty reduction strategies. 22 “The Afghan Compact,” http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/ afghanistan_compact.pdf, accessed 3 May 2014.

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23 A twenty-five-person-strong Task Force was also created at the Privy Council Office, which provides advice and support from the bureaucracy to the prime minister; and deputy ministers of federal departments responsible for Afghanistan met on a weekly basis. 24 Elissa Golberg was the first person to hold that position. 25 The operationalization of this Kandahar Action Plan very much resembled wording from the US-developed COI N strategy: to clear an area of insurgents, hold that area, rebuild it, and enable locals to live there. 26 Government of Canada, “History of Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan 2001–2014,” http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/progressprogres/timeline-chrono.aspx?lang=eng (accessed 10 March 2014). 27 Stephen Harper, “Canada’s Commitment in Afghanistan,” Edited Hansard. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons,1st Session, 39th Parliament, 17 May 2006. 28 The problem with this approach, of course, was that it did not address the root causes of the conflict as well as the rudimentary grievances of Afghan society. 29 http://www.sft.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?d=1364. 30 http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/21/afghan-mackay.html?ref=rss. 31 For the most rigorous account of this thought see Cellucci 2005; Cohen 2004; for a contestation of that argument see Zyla 2015. 32 https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2008/s080130b.html, accessed 12 February 2018. 33 One obvious limitation of the approach undertaken in this paper (i.e., that of studying rhetoric) is the neglect of studying what actors actually do to see if their behaviour complies with the identified norms (or not). Such an approach requires more space than was available for this book. 34 This section is partly drawn from Schofield and Zyla 2014. chapter six

  1 According to the Afghanistan Common Humanitarian Action Plan (C H A P ) (U N 2013, 3) a minimum of 40 per cent or more than 400 districts are prone to natural hazards, and more than 250,000 Afghans are affected by those hazards every year.   2 Obviously, the rate of displacement varies per year. However, in 2012, for example, 445,856 Afghans remained internally displaced (UN, 2013, 3).   3 It is interesting to note that humanitarian action was not a priority for the Afghan government. It focused on the long-term development and the

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reduction of donor-driven aid to the country. Between 2003 and 2008 the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNA MA ) was responsible for coordinating the international humanitarian assistance. But UNA MA maintained that the Afghan government should be in charge of coordinating it rather than U N AM A, which perceived itself in a support and oversight role with regard to humanitarian assistance. Between 2001 and 2006 Canada donated to humanitarian assistance primarily through multilateral organizations, such as the Humanitarian Assistance Directorate (IHA ). As of 2007 (until 2014, when Canada left Afghanistan) that responsibility was transferred to Canada’s own new Afghanistan Task Force and focused more on the province of Kandahar where Canada’s PR T was stationed. In a snapshot, CI DA’s support for humanitarian assistance, with about $184 million directly spent (an additional $121 million on peace & ­security), was not a priority for the department between 2004 and 2007. It then increased and focused on Kandahar (2008 to 2011), and became one of the key priorities between 2011 and 2014.   4 There was no data point available for 2008.   5 For example, this may include programs to address the reduction of small arms and light weapons (S ALW ), mine removal activities, or reconciliation through transitional justice programs.   6 See for example Statement by the President of the Security Council 2005; 2007; UN Report of the Secretary-General 2008; UN General Assembly 2008.    7 This insight is not unique to the UN; it has been equally found and supported by other international organizations operating in conflict-affected states. See, for example, OECD 2005; CEU 2005; EU Commission 2006; ECOWAS 2008; and, U N Security Council 2007. However, that relationship is not necessarily linear because the challenges facing both SSR and DDR are indeed distinct with specific contextualization, interests, timelines etc.   8 To recall, we were only able to assess projects related to women and gender issues in the total amount of $189,656,833.00.   9 That level of funding was consistent until the fiscal year 2010–11. At the Brussels conference in March 2003, Canada committed an additional $250 million for the years 2003 and 2004. Then at the donor conference in Berlin in March 2004, Ottawa pledged another $250 million, especially for reconstruction and development for fiscal years 2005–06 to 2008–09 (O E C D 2007, 3). 10 See D D R summary in Afghanistan by The School for a Culture of Peace at the University of Barcelona at http://escolapau.uab.cat/img/programas/ desarme/mapa/afganistan09i.pdf as well as Hodes and Sedra 2007.

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11 Summary of the Evaluation of DDR and C IP in Afghanistan (n.d.). Qatra Qatra darya meshad – One drop at a time makes a river – Collecting one gun at a time makes peace. Report of the Evaluation of DDR and C IP in Afghanistan. https://erc.undp.org/evaluation/documents/download/3452. 12 In comparison, the US appropriated US$96.57 billion between 2002 and June 2013 for Afghanistan reconstruction, yet this sum includes appropriations for the Departments of Defense (D OD); State (State), and the United States Agency for International Development (USA ID). For USA ID alone that amounted to US$13.3 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan between the beginning of fiscal year 2002 and June 2013 (SIGA R 2014b). 13 The Afghan government launched a total of seven NPP programs between 2002 and 2003: the Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police, National Emergency Employment Program (NEEP), Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR), Justice Sector Reform, National Solidarity Program (N S P), and Civil Service Reform. 14 It was established in 2002 to coordinate the financing of the Afghan ­government’s budget as well as national investment projects. The A R TF has collected over US$10.6 billion since 2002, which makes it the largest single source of on-budget financing for development in Afghanistan. Canada contributed more than US$612.7 million to the fund, which is administered by the World Bank. The ARTF’s management committee ­consists of the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, U N DP, Afghan Ministry of Finance, and UNA MA as an observer.  15 In the earlier years, 25 per cent of those funds were disbursed for supplying drinking water, 21 per cent for rehabilitating irrigation systems; 20 per cent for infrastructure projects (roads, bridges); 17 per cent for providing energy (generators, micro-hydro, solar energy); 11 per cent to improve livelihoods and generate income; 5 per cent for education infrastructure; and 1 per cent for other investments. 
 16 The Compact set out a number of high-level outcomes and benchmarks to be achieved in the following three areas: a) security; b) governance, rule of law, and human rights; and c) economic and social development, which the Afghan government was to implement based on its Afghanistan National Development Strategy (AN DS ). 17 There are conflicting numbers, though, in the public domain. For example, the Afghan Program Ongoing Review 2007 reported that 62,376 ex-­ militia members were disarmed and demobilized, and 53,462 reintegrated into society. Hodes and Sedra (2007) report 63,380 demobilized, and 57,629 light and medium weapons being collected.

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Notes to pages 132–9

18 Elections for the Upper and Lower Houses of the National Assembly were held on 18 September 2005; the new parliament was officially sworn into office on 19 December 2005. 19 The official evaluation for U N DP and its D DR program lists slightly ­different numbers. It is available at Report of the Evaluation of DDR and C I P in AFG HAN I S TAN , https://erc.undp.org/evaluation/documents/ download/3452. 20 It is important to note here that the numbers are not consistent. The O E C D (2007, 28), for example, reports the following: Ammunition Surveyed 28,866 tons; Ammunition Consolidated 8212 tons; Ammunition destroyed 12,401 tons; Anti-Personnel Mines destroyed 334,025; AntiTank Mines destroyed 12,755; total number of caches surveyed 1,302. 21 In the absence of an official census in Afghanistan it is difficult to determine the exact amount. 22 The evaluation report is available online at Report of the Evaluation of D D R and C I P in AFG HAN I S TAN https://erc.undp.org/evaluation/­ documents/download/3452. 23 To be sure, these funds are in addition to the $109.5 million between 2007 and 2014 that Canada contributed to defray costs for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund. Results achieved as of March 2011 include the recurrent cost window that provides for regular payment of O&M costs, such as the salaries of approximately 250,000 non-uniformed employees across the country’s thirty-four provinces, pensions, fuel for government vehicles, and maintenance for public buildings. This enables the government of Afghanistan to maintain and expand basic government services, including the delivery of health care and education. In addition, the A R T F ’s fiduciary framework has contributed to strengthening the ­government’s public finance management systems. 24 We noted above that the Canadian government withdrew all their money from the A S P program due to lack of proper management, as did the US Agency for International Development (USA ID), which withdrew its US$8 million contribution, as well as the UK’s Department of International Development (DFI D) with approximately US$10 million. 25 The Americans had their own separate ANP training mission. There was also an imbalance with regard to the funding. In the first five years of the A NS F reconstruction process (2002 to 2007), the US alone invested approximately $11.8 billion, and almost quadrupled that amount in the following five years (2007 to 2012) to roughly $40.4 billion (SIGA R 2012, 174) before those funding levels dipped slightly while remaining largely consistent afterwards (2013 to 2016).

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26 It had supported Afghanistan’s police in the 1960s and 1970s, and thus had some experience with the AN P. German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Ministry of Interior, Assistance for Rebuilding the Police Force in Afghanistan (Berlin: Federal Foreign Ministry and Federal Ministry of Interior 2005). 27 The US reluctance can also be partially explained by its shifting focus on Iraq, thus directing resources away from Afghanistan. 28 However, compared with other allies, Germany’s mission with, twentyfour officers and a budget of €12 million per year was not that well resourced, compared with the Americans, for example. 29 In part, this was due to the fact that the German government did not want to make the funds available for such fundamental reform. 30 Council Joint Action 2007/369/CFSP of 30 May 2007 on Establishment of the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan (EUPOL Afghanistan) O J L 139, 31.5.2007. In December 2014 it was decided to terminate E UP O L effective 31 December 2016. 31 According to some analysts, however, this had the side effect of securitizing the entire set of S S R reforms. 32 The Afghanistan Compact: Building on Success (February 2006). 33 Yet, in 2017 the total sum that the US alone had spent on fighting the Taliban (for the AN A, AN P, and Afghan Air Force together) since 2002 totalled more than US$70 billion (S I G AR 2017). 34 This is roughly slightly more than the US$109.6 billion that the US alone had spent on reconstructing Afghanistan by 2015, inclusive (SIGA R 2016). 35 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Interior, Review of the Quality, Structures and Accountability of the Afghan National Police (A NP ), Kabul, January 2008, 3N4. 36 NA T O Training Mission – Afghanistan, NA TO Allied Command Operations, www.aco.nato.int/page2083144846.aspx. 37 In 2009, the N ATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (N T M-A /C STC -A ) set the goal that 100 per cent of AN S F forces personnel possess basic literacy (level 1, which is equivalent to first-grade proficiency) and at least 50 per cent of the A N S F attain level 3 (functional literacy, equivalent to third-grade ­proficiency) by 31 December 2014. It is not clear whether that goal was met (S I G AR 2014a). 38 Estimates of how much Afghans paid for bribes is somewhat between US$2 and $4 billion (see Integrity Watch Afghanistan 2014: UNODC 2012). For a country with a total G DP of roughly US$20 billion, this is a significant amount.

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Notes to pages 154–66

39 In November 2004, the length of the course was increased to twelve weeks. 40 Its name was thereafter changed to the Office of Security CooperationAfghanistan (OS C-A) in 2005, and the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CS TC-A) in 2006. 41 One hastens to add that the same could be said about teachers employed, schools built, and soldiers serving (S I G AR 2016). 42 To put this number into perspective, this is almost twice as many US ­service personnel killed since 2001. 43 See General John Campbell, 2016. “Afghanistan in 2016: The Evolving Security Situation and U.S. Policy, Strategy, and Posture.” House Armed Services Committee, Tuesday, February 2, 2016 – 10:00am, 114th Congress. 44 Kabul 5184, “N S A Spanta Stresses that the Corruption ‘Elephant’ Needs to Be Tackled Together,” 2 October 2010. 45 In 2015, Transparency International ranked Afghanistan second last (rank 166) , ahead of only Somalia and North Korea. Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2015,” Transparency International, 2016. 46 See also General John G. Allen, Hearing: A Transformation: Afghanistan Beyond 2014, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. 47 See, for example, U.S. Joint Staff, Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis, “Operationalizing Counter/Anti-Corruption Study,” Washington, D C , 28 February 2014. 48 To be sure, local ownership also extends to involving all groups (whether they are ethnic or otherwise) of society, especially those who have been marginalized or underrepresented (for right or wrong). In short, all ­segments of society must feel part of this process. 49 Not only did Canada follow that practice, so did most international donors (S I G AR 2014b). chapter seven

  1 We discuss these projects in their respective chapters: gender, health, or education.   2 This section draws heavily on Zyla 2013.   3 Moreover, the mortality rate for young boys (infant mortality rates are NO T maternal mortality rates) dying before the age of 1 was at 95.8 deaths per 1,000 births in 2000; it dropped to 55.4 in 2017 (the rate for Canada was 5.7 and 4.8 respectively). For young girls in Afghanistan

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  4

  5

  6

  7   8

  9

Notes to pages 166–72

339

the mortality rate before the age of 1 was 84.3 in 2000, and 47.4 in 2017 (for Canada 4.8 and 4.2 respectively). Data is based on World Bank, Gender Statistics, accessed on 12 January 2019 at https://databank. worldbank.org/data/source/gender-statistics#. “Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan: Setting the Course to 2011,” Government of Canada, Ottawa, 2008, 5. Though the data is very sparse, a comparison for 2011 might underline the need to improve literacy in Afghanistan. That year 58.7 per cent of the female Afghan population over the age of 15 were illiterate, which represents 6,086,596 individuals (data is taken from the World Bank Education Statistics; accessed 24 January 2019). This rate is slightly lower than the world average of 63.2 per cent of women being illiterate. Readers will notice that our coding of Canadian development projects is not identical to that of the summative evaluation. As explained in the introduction, this has to do with the different access to the primary data, as well as the way certain projects were coded, especially those that speak to more than one issue area (e.g., women and health). Consequently, our calculations of the grant total for each of the issue areas (security, women, health, and education) vary from those provided in the Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghan mission. As full disclosure, the Summative Evaluation finds that the Canadian ­government had spent $308,717,114 in total on women and gender issues in Afghanistan (DFATD 2013, 70 in Part II). Once again, the difference between our numbers and those in the Summative Evaluation can be explained by our coding scheme, which differed significantly from theirs. Moreover, the Summative Evaluation is based on classified and unclassified documents and materials; our assessment is based solely on publicly available data. This is Treasury Board’s Results and Risk Management Accountability Framework, 2011–2014. Canada had a strategy itself for how to implement Resolution 1325 (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. 2010). This was the first time that CI DA had actually recognized and addressed women’s issues over its entire portfolio beyond Afghanistan (DFA TD 2013, 154–5). This is a charity based in Waterloo, Ontario, whose mission is to create business solutions to poverty – they aim to partner with the poor to start or grow small- and medium-sized businesses in developing regions around the world. In particular, they offer financial services, technology, b ­ usiness training, better access to markets, and equity investment.

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Notes to pages 172–83

10 See http://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/projectprojet/details/a032769001. 11 https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/ afghanistan-economic-empowerment-through-garden-gate. 12 Ibid. 13 http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/cidaweb/cpo.nsf/vWebCSAZEn/2E16589D961 6BD11852574EA00371ECF. 14 For all those details see http://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-­ banqueprojets/project-projet/details/a034231001?Lang=eng. 15 Before this contract, CI DA had a twenty-year relationship with B R A C and substantially funded its non-formal primary education program for more than 35,000 schools in Bangladesh with a curriculum showing equality between women and men content (70 per cent of the students at minimum must be girls) (OECD 2007, 42). 16 We were unable to determine the outcomes or impacts of this program due to a lack of data. 17 This is based on data from the Interparliamentary Union, http://archive. ipu.org/wmn-e/ClaSSif.htm. The percentage for Canada is 26.9 per cent; for the US it is 23.5 percent. 18 See https://www.ndi.org, accessed 14 February 2019. 19 Additional exchange of information, mapping gender projects, and (informal) oversight also came from the Gender Donor Coordination Group chaired by U N Women, the Donor’s Working Group on Human Rights and Gender (supported by the European Union), and a Gender Coordination Group within the Afghan Reconstruction Fund (A R TF). 20 See http://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/projectprojet/details/a032769001. 21 The female labour force of all age categories combined and as a percentage of the total labour force shows the extent to which women are active in the labour force (includes people age 15 and older who supply labour for the production of goods and services. In 2001 13.79 per cent of female Afghans over the age of 15 were active in the labour force; in 2014 that share was 16.09 per cent (derived using data from International Labour Organization, I LOS TAT database and World Bank population estimates. Labour data retrieved on 22 September 2018). 22 We use the term “preliminary” here deliberately as it really has only been less than five years since the completion of the mission, and thus a full assessment of Canada’s long-term impacts can only be preliminary. This caution is consistent with the literature, which we discuss in the results-based evaluation chapter, and that warns against assessing impact too quickly.

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23 Gender mainstreaming involves assessing the implications for people of different genders of any planned policy action, including legislation and programs, in all areas and levels. 24 Gender equality outcomes were assessed based on C IDA ’s three gender equality objectives set out in its Gender Equality policy: decision-making, human rights, and access/control of resources (DFA TD 2015). 25 Prime ministers/heads of government are included only when they ­concurrently hold ministerial portfolios; vice-presidents and heads of ­governmental or public agencies are excluded. Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (I PU ). Women in Politics, www.ipu.org; accessed 22 December 2018. 26 To put this into context, of the $19 billion that Canada’s Afghanistan Portfolio entailed –the sum of all of its development programming of all sectors and issue areas in Afghanistan combined – only $273 million or 1.4 per cent was spent on Kandahar (DFA TD 2013, 41). For the same time period Canada committed $1.97 billion to development and ­reconstruction, out of which CI DA spent $1.66 billion (Ibid., 34). 27 In some countries the school year spans two calendar years (e.g., from September 2010 to June 2011). In these cases, the reference year refers to the year in which the school year ended. 28 This is confirmed by World Bank Education Statistics. The world average is 55 per cent; no World Bank data available for Canada. 29 The projects by U N I CEF were found to be less positive in terms of ­increasing girls’ access to education than those carried out by NGOs (D F A T D 2013, 158). 30 The actual amount only came to $19 billion; see footnote 26. 31 See Treasury Board’s Results and Risk Management Accountability Framework, 2004–09, which is a key oversight framework to assess ­management practices, performances, and accountability. 32 See footnote 5 for details. 33 This is confirmed by the 2013 Asia Foundation Survey, https://www.­ asiafoundation.org/resources/pdfs/2013AfghanSurvey.pdf. chapter eight

  1 In our sampling of Canadian programming and projects in Afghanistan, the health sector accounts for approximately 35 per cent ($378 million of $1.069 billion) of total disbursements.  2 https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/projectprojet/details/A033507001.

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Notes to pages 220–65

  3 A community from which in-depth data are gathered with the resulting analysis used to inform programs and policies affecting a larger geographic area.   4 For example, see http://nutritionmoph.gov.af/wpcontent/uploads/2018/ Surveillance/ISSUE%209%20NNSS%20Afghanistan%20Nutrition%20 %20Bulletin%20September%202017.pdf.   5 In this case, interventions include demand for family planning satisfied, at least one prenatal care checkup, skilled birth attendance, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine, three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine, measles vaccine, oral rehydration treatment for diarrhea, and care for acute respiratory infection. chapter nine

  1 See Royal Government of Afghanistan (1956). First Five Year Plan 1956/57–1961/62 Afghanistan. Accessed 2 May 2017 from http://­ afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/handle/azu/784; and Royal Government of Afghanistan (1967). An English translation of The Third Five Year Economic and Social Plan of Afghanistan 1967–1971. Accessed 2 May 2017 from http://afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/handle/azu/14022.   2 Government of Canada (2018) Project profile – Education Quality Improvement Project. Retrieved 4 November 2018 from http://w05.­ international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/ a033780001.   3 Global Affairs Canada. Project profile – Quality Primary Education in Southern Afghanistan. Retrieved 22 August 2017, from http://w05.­ international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/ a034063001.   4 See Government of Canada (2017). Project profile – B EA C ON: Increasing Access to Quality Basic Education. Accessed from http://w05.­ international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/ a035398001.   5 These statistics were taken directly from the project’s website at http:// www.cw4wafghan.ca/article/news/update-excel-erate-teacher-training-­ project; accessed 18 September 2019.   6 The minimum required education is two years of higher education.   7 Global Affairs Canada. Project profile – Education Quality Improvement Project. Retrieved 22 August 2017, from http://w05.international.gc.ca/ projectbrowser-banqueprojets/project-projet/details/a033780001.

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Notes to pages 271–83

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conclusion

  1 To recall, we were only able to assess all development projects that had publicly available data.   2 For example, this may include programs to address the reduction of small arms and light weapons (S ALW ), mine removal activities, or reconciliation through transitional justice programmes.   3 See for example the Statement by the President of the Security Council, 2005; 2007; U N Report of the Secretary-General 2008; UN General Assembly 2008.   4 For a discussion on the challenge of “ethnicization” of Afghan institutions and politics see Simonsen 2006.   5 In the literature this is often referred to as the agent-structure debate.   6 Slaughter, A. (2004). The Use of Force in Iraq: Illegal and Illegitimate. Proceedings of the AS I L Annual Meeting, 98, 262–3. doi:10.1017/ S0272503700061383.   7 “President Discusses Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Retrieved 15 February 2019, available at https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives. gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030322.html.   8 Michael E. O’Hanlon. The Aid and Reconstruction Agenda for Afghanistan. The Brookings Institution, 19 December 2001.   9 Following a conflict, arrangements can be made to ensure that political, military, and/or territorial power is “shared” between various groups. In an analysis of “military power-sharing arrangements” Hoodie and Hartzell (2003) argue that implementing provisions aimed at sharing power between parties improves the likelihood of peace by forcing parties to incur high “costs,” thereby signalling their commitment to maintaining a sustainable peace. They claim that the costs parties incur by engaging in a power-sharing agreement are twofold: first, leaders must be willing to sacrifice (to varying degrees) some of their war aims by agreeing to share power; and second, agreeing to share power is likely to lead to schisms within their party because some sects will likely not agree with the notion of sharing power. The authors postulate that by incurring these costs, the conflicting parties can effectively overcome their distrust for one another and signal to each other a genuine commitment to peace. In this context, the authors note that, “there is a correlation between successful efforts to implement agreement provisions for the sharing or dividing of military power and long term peace.” (Hoodie and Hartzell 2003, 304). However, there are also voices critical of power-sharing agreements (Simonsen 2006).

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Notes to pages 283–9

Glassmyer and Sambanis (2008) conducted a study looking at thirty-four cases where military integration strategies (MI) have been implemented. Contrary to Hoodie and Hartzell’s analysis, they suggest that “at first glance” there is no apparent correlation between military power-sharing arrangements and peace in the long or short term. However, the authors highlight the complexity in the research they conducted and note that after various regressions, used to isolate and control certain variables, it is ­evident that the implementation of M I agreements has a large influence in shaping the prospects that these agreements would have in ensuring peace. Thus, they conclude that military power-sharing agreements are not necessarily incapable of fostering peace, but rather the common failure to properly implement M I agreements makes such an objective unrealistic. The authors further expand on their analysis and highlight that if properly implemented, power-sharing agreements could in fact lead to peace based on the employment opportunities they provide to rebels, which de-incentivizes re-engagement in conflict. Expanding on the notion that the relationship between power-sharing agreements and peace is complicated by numerous variables, other authors have highlighted that the type of power-sharing agreement adopted (i.e., political, military, or territorial) is important in understanding the prospects such an agreement has in facilitating peace and stability. Jarstad and Nilsson’s (2008) research notes that military and territorial power-sharing pacts are more likely than political agreements to result in peace. Thus, although various authors have tried to understand the relationship between p ­ ower-sharing arrangements following conflicts, the complexity of and discrepancies in their research highlights the vast number of variables that are involved in ­drawing conclusions about such agreements. 10 Between 85 and 90 per cent of Afghans are Sunni Muslims, an estimated 8 to 9 per cent are Shia Muslims, and less than 1 per cent are members of other religious groups. 11 Tajiks represent roughly 27 per cent of the populations, Uzbeks 15 per cent, and other ethnic groups roughly 16 per cent. 12 For a detailed discussion of OEF see United States Congress 2002; for a Canadian angle see Pigott 2007; Stein and Lang 2007; Warnock 2008; Maloney 2009). 13 For the importance of U N involvement, see Thierry Tardy, ed., Peace Operations After 11 September 2001 (London: Routledge, 2004). 14 China has maintained regular yet underdeveloped relations with Afghanistan since the 1950s. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan

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in 1979 and the subsequent Moscow-backed government threatened the regional balance of power and soured the relationship between Beijing and Kabul. As a result, the Chinese were among the various supporters of the anti-Soviet insurgency: they provided weapons and training (together with the US and Pakistan) where most of the guerrillas were based. China also built hospitals and water conservancy projects. With the arrival of the Taliban regime (1996 to 2001) bilateral diplomacy essentially froze. In 2002, China reopened its embassy in Kabul, and relations have ­prospered ever since, resulting in numerous agreements: 1 On 22 December 2002 China joined Afghanistan’s five other border countries (Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) in signing a non-interference pact (the Kabul Declaration); 2 The 2006 Treaty of Good Neighbourly Friendship and Cooperation, which lifted customs duties on 278 commodities; 3 A US$3.5 billion Aynak copper mining venture in Logar province in 2008 by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MC C ); this investment is bigger than any other commercial investments combined and includes a 28 square kilometre area containing worth US$88 billion of copper resources; 4 A joint statement between China and Afghanistan reaffirming the “principle of non-interference into other countries’ internal affairs, its respect for Afghanistan’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, its respect for the Afghan people’s choice of a development road suited to their national conditions; [Can you add the end q ­ uotation mark?] 5 In June 2012, China signed a Strategic and Cooperative Partnership, which allows an exchange of security intelligence, counter terrorism cooperation, and increased training for Afghan security forces in China over the next four years (especially the latter ones seem to be driven by China’s frustration over Pakistan’s failure to crack down efficiently Uighur militants). 6 China has almost completely written off Afghanistan’s debt of US$75 million. 15 To be clear, this list is not comprehensive but selective, and more ­discussion on the Afghan mission will complement it over time. 16 These are: 1 An analysis of legitimacy and effectiveness must take place which ­isolates causation factors; 2 Attempting to correct an institution with low legitimacy, but moderate to high effectiveness;

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Note to page 307

3 Attempting to correct an institution with low effectiveness, but high legitimacy; 4 After actions are taken to improve institutional stability there must be analysis of their intended and unintended results on both legitimacy and effectiveness. 5 The highest priority in securing any state is in establishing security and political legitimacy. This is the base of institutional success. 17 Rowswell, for example, has noted that “as a result of international statebuilding efforts, progress has been made in Afghanistan, however, political dysfunction and a lack of accountability remain problems. It has been ­suggested that failures of accountability may, in fact, be a product of the state-building effort itself. In the hybrid form of governance where authority is divided between the government and the international community, it can be difficult for the population to determine where accountability lies.” (2011, 1).

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32183_Grant.indd 392

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Index

3D , 53, 108, 322n12 32 approach, 53, 55, 108, 322n12 9/11: Afghanistan, 19, 98, 296; aftermath of, 98, 280; Canada, 104; Canada-US border, 24; international involvement, 19, 118, 125; pre-9/11, 17 Accelerated Learning Centres (a l c ), 250, 257 Access to Information Requests, 8 accountability, 346n17; assessment, 5, 197; deficits, 45, 60; from donors, 82; financial, 8, 294, 298; in government, 48, 177, 293; local, 302; mission, 30; mutual, 78, 79, 92, 294; state, 45; structures, 45, 60, 307 Accra Agenda for Action, 79–80 administrative capacity, 22, 277 Afghan Army, 126, 273 Afghan Constitution, 26, 142, 237 Afghan Department of Mine Clearance (dm c), 128 Afghan forces, 29, 30, 109 Afghan Institute of Management and Training (ai tm ), 173

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Afghan Interim Authority, 22, 200 Afghanistan Compact: establishing the, 32, 130; objectives, 110, 141; pillars of the, 54; signing of the, 109 Afghanistan Infrastructure Trust Fund (a itf), 23 Afghanistan Knowledge Fund, 179 Afghanistan Living Conditions Survey, 260, 264 Afghanistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 226 Afghanistan National Development Strategy (a nds), 110, 170–1, 241, 271–2, 294, 324n26, 335n16 Afghanistan Polio Eradication Initiative (pei), 211, 229 Afghanistan School Feeding Program, 220, 223–5, 316, 319 Afghanistan’s Communist party, 18 Afghanistan’s National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, 225, 324n24 Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme (a nb p), 125, 161, 273, 310; composition, 132;

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394 Index

Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups, 138; funding, 126; goal of, 126; mechanisms, 126, 133; pilot phase, 125; small business option, 161; success, 127–8. Afghanistan’s political institutions, 21, 93, 177 Afghanistan Stabilisation Program (as p), 129, 136–7, 310, 336n24 Afghan Militia Forces, 126, 273 Afghan Ministry of Defence, 132–3, 154 Afghan Ministry of Education. See Ministry of Education Afghan Ministry of Interior, 136, 140, 144–5 Afghan Ministry of the Interior, 159 Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWa), 179–80 Afghan National Action Plan for Women (n apwa), 179–80, 184 Afghan National and Border Police, 110, 142 Afghan National Army (an a): capacity, 159; building the, 30, 122; capability development, 110, 142; capacity of, 31, 114; challenges, 154–5; effectiveness, 155, 159, 272; establishing the, 153, 156; ethnic tensions, 157, 161; ex-combatants, 126; failure, 156, 273; funding, 154, 158, 273; inspector general, 154; officers, 154; operations, 154, 156; reform, 152–4, 156–7, 159, 161, 272; role of, 152, 155; success, 157; as a security force, 12, 97, 110, 146; training, 155–6, 159, 160; troops, 153, 156, 158, 160;

32183_Grant.indd 394

US oversight body, 154–5; US responsibility, 155 Afghan National Assembly, 21, 109 Afghan National Auxiliary Police (a na p), 142 Afghan National Development Strategy: align support, 202; funding, 110, 271, 294; gender issues, 180; key areas, 32, 170, 240 Afghan national institutions, 30 Afghan National Police (a np), 12, 122, 138–9, 145, 147–8, 272; American priority, 144–5, 153, 336n25; capability development, 110; change of priority, 141; ­corruption, 146–7, 159, 272–3; as a counter-terrorism force, 141–2; donor disagreement, 153, 159, 273; ethnic tensions, 161, 273; ex-combatants, 126; failure, 143–4, 146, 148, 156, 273; fiscal management, 136; force ceiling, 142–3; funding, 142, 144, 151, 153, 273; international police, 139, 140, 146, 160; long-term development, 139, 161; loyalties, 148; oversight and monitoring, 141–2, 146; personnel database, 136; recruits, 138, 142, 145–6, 152; reform, 139, 140–1, 152–3, 159, 161; as a security institution, 297; training, 54, 140, 142, 144–6, 152, 155, 159, 160 Afghan National Security Forces (a nsf), 115, 143, 146, 336n25, 337n37; development, 34; ­operational effectiveness, 141; ownership of security, 115;

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Index 395

policy priority, 11; training, 29, 103, 113, 115, 286 Afghan people: aspirations, 292; goods and services, 21–2, 281; interests of 21, 57; ownership of ideas, 289; respect for government, 293 Afghan presidential election: corruption, 281; establishing elections, 21, 99; first election, 132; funding for the, 26, 105; women participation, 185 Afghan reconstruction process, 22 Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (a rt f ), 22, 241; creation, 23; funded programs, 170, 241, 272, 294, 312; funding hold, 129; money channelling, 23, 32, 129, 294, 335n14, 336n23; success, 272, 294, 298 Afghan security forces, 12, 33, 58, 127, 345n14 Afghan society: development of, 5, 166; ethnic composition, 292; reintegration into, 134, 161; ­tension in, 185, 198; women in, 164–6, 168, 174, 185, 187, 197–8, 274–5 Afghan statebuilding process, 50, 287–8, 292 Afghan women: barriers to, 164, 248, 274; and children, 116; electoral participation, 185; food security, 181; health, 169, 194–5; labour force, 189; most vulnerable, 165, 167; needs of, 184, 198; networks, 172; representation in institutions, 176, 179, 186; rights, 166–7, 174, 184, 199, 237

32183_Grant.indd 395

Afghan Womens Community Support program, 173, 250 Africa: aid effectiveness, 67, 74; armed conflicts, 37; fragile states, 41, 59; polio eradiction, 206; sub-Saharan, 71, 281 Agenda for Peace, 38–9, 46 agricultural sector, 182, 188, 324n24 agriculture: Afghanistan’s livelihood, 134; development area, 9, 83, 297; labour force, 183, 190 aid effectiveness: addressing, 82; Bonn Conference, 288; Canada’s, 85, 92, 94, 298; development effectiveness, 294; development of, 66; discussion of, 71, 74, 92; donors, 203, 305; forum on, 75, 80–1; history of, 66, 70; improving, 71, 294; literature, 67, 70, 75, 81, 83; measuring, 66–7, 71–2, 81–2, 84, 92–3; ownership, 74; Paris Declaration, 77, 79, 81–2, 85, 93; policies, 81–2 aid fatigue, 67, 69, 85 aid fragmentation, 74 aid implementation, 86, 92 alignment, 78, 92, 294 Al-Qaeda destroying, 20, 98, 108, 162, 286; refuge to, 98, 290 Alternate Livelihoods Program, 243 ammunition, 127, 133, 148, 310 ammunition stockpiles, 126, 128 ana . See Afghan National Army anarchy, 18 anb p. See Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme ands. See Afghanistan National Development Strategy anp. See Afghan National Police

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396 Index

ansf. See Afghan National Security Forces Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, 128 anti-personnel mines, 126, 128, 134–5 Anti-Terrorism Act, 28 Arghandab Irrigation Rehabilitation Project, 131, 311. See also Dahla Dam Project armed conflict: ethnic, 37; G BV in 169; human vulnerability, 36; inter-state, 37; nature of, 37; peacebuilding, 39; resurgence of, 121; statebuilding, 58 armed groups, disbandment of ­illegal, 126–7, 130, 133, 138; reintegration, 274; under control of the Interim Authority, 127; weapons, 133 a rt f. See Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund Article 5, 20, 24, 104 Asian Development Bank, 23, 40, 335n14 Banerjee, Nipa, 321n4 Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (brac), 275; ci da, 174, 193, 246, 340n15; Community-Based Girls’ Education Project, 254, 259, 265; funding, 179; partnerships, 246, 254; programs, 252–3, 278, 312–13, 317, 318 Basic Education and Gender Equality (b e ge ), 251–2, 258, 318, Basic Education and Gender Equality: Training of Teachers in Kandahar, 251, 318

32183_Grant.indd 396

Basic Education for Afghanistan Consortium (b eac on), 254, 259, 278, 318–19 Basic Package of Health Services (b phs), 202, 205, 211, 230, 277 basic state services, 50 Berry, Glyn, 27 bias, 11, 48, 91, 132, 326 Bonn Agreement Afghanistan Compact, 130; a na , 153; ­context of the, 102; deficiencies, 137; demilitarization, 127; expectations, 283; failures ­following the, 295; five-year plan, 99; isa f, 103, 286; lacking resources, 133; leader legitimacy, 282; population representation, 285, 292–3; purpose, 286–7, 293; time frame set by, 22 Bonn Conference: a np, 146; before the, 282; Canadian commitments, 22; conditional assistance, 22; context, 102, 125, 273, 283; corruption, 283; institution building, 21, 161, 180, 281; local ownership, 288, 293; purpose, 283, 285; rebuilding, 21; representation, 284–6, 293; second, 33; security sector reforms, 120, 271; shortcomings, 287; Taliban, 58; time frame, 21, 93, 109, 304 border: Afghanistan-Pakistan, 31, 114, 123, 208, 229, 277, 290; border-sharing, 289, 291, 344n14; Canada-US, 24, 105; cross-border, 208; crossing, 323n12; Iranian, 291; region, 284; security, 11; state border, 292; western and northern, 124; within its, 153, 291

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Index 397

Bosnia: declaration of independence, 42; ethnic armed conflict, 37, 41, 133; peacebuilding interventions, 40, 59; reconstruction of, 281; Republic of Yugoslavia, 42 b r ac . See Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee Brahimi, Lakhdar, 50, 97, 153, 283 Brahimi Report, 50 Cabinet committee, 30, 111 c a f. See Canadian Armed Forces Canada’s Afghanistan Development Program, 23, 135, 184, 303 Canada’s Afghanistan mission, 25 Canada’s Afghan mission: cost, 321n6; priorities, 229; transparency and accountability, 30; watershed moment, 21, 29; W oG approach, 113 Canada’s annual aid disbursements, 5 Canada’s development assistance, 9 Canada’s development engagements, 11, 22–3 Canada’s development programs and projects, 5, 11–13 Canada’s development role, 10 Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan: justification, 28; Manley Report, 247; military component, 24; multidimensional, 4; policy principles, 80; shift in, 10 Canada’s foreign aid programs, 17 Canada’s military contribution, 26, 98 Canada’s military engagements, 109 Canada’s Official Development Assistance (oda ), 5–6, 18, 66–7

32183_Grant.indd 397

Canada’s role: international ­commitments, 108; Manley Report, 112–13; official communications, 105; projects, 10; ­public dissatisfaction, 28 Canada-US, 24, 108 Canadian aid: c ida , 298; effectiveness of, 6; financial pledge, 111; goa , 281; Manley Panel, 10; priority areas, 22, 197; project success, 194, 198; reporting, 197; Western aid schema, 196 Canadian Armed Forces (c a f), 28; An Agenda for Peace, 39; deploying the, 29; members, 108; Operation athena, 110; operation time, 118; reputation, 115; security and logistics, 111 Canadian development disbursements, 6, 26 Canadian development programming: gender aspect, 166, 196, 234; intervening variables, 279; Manley Report, 299; outputs, 72; priority sectors, 93, 188, 196; unreliable data, 91 Canadian governmentability: to adapt, 304; advantages, 104; c a f, 29; concept definition, 89; failures, 116; focus shift, 33, 297; global terrorism threat, 105; informal networks, 307; long-term development investments, 23; mission termination, 33, 114; outcome tracking, 281; participation, 271, 304; principles, 171; priorities, 114–15, 166, 276; public speeches, 116, 165; signature projects, 10, 26, 115; spending, 5, 112, 166,

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398 Index

168; statebuilding, 52; W oG , 55, 113 Canadian mission in Afghanistan, 29, 251 Canadian officials, 31, 54 Canadian police forces, 141 Canadians: Afghanistan, 17; communications to, 8, 20, 30, 103, 171, 181, 196; investment returns, 9; involvement, 20, 81, 103, 109, 135, 166; Manley Panel, 10; nature of, 28; public opinion, 28, 112, 304; troops, 42, 103 Canadian taxpayers, 43, 122, 196, 298 Canadian troops, 24, 30, 105 Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (cw 4wa): Excelerate Teacher Training Project, 172, 182, 246, 251, 257, 312, 317–18 capacity-building, 26, 90, 278, 300 Capacity Building and Access to Medicines, 208, 221, 277, 314 c a r e Community Development Program, 249; Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance program, 169, 170, 172, 181, 187, 275, 312–13; n g os, 40; partnership, 254, 319; women’s rights, 169, 170; Vocational Training for Afghan Women, 248, 275, 312–13, 317 Casson, Rick, 109 child mortality: infant and, 200; maternal and, 206, 229, 232; reducing rates, 75, 222 China, 117, 289, 344n14 Chrétien, Jean, 20, 25, 103

32183_Grant.indd 398

Chrétien government, 25, 109, 322n10 ci da’s Afghanistan Program, 110, 243 civil society: engagement, 58; institutions and, 44; participation by, 74, 78; SSR , 121; women’s issues, 175 civil war: Afghanistan, 119, 129, 161, 286; Bonn Conference, 283; causes of, 43, 123; child soldiers, 126; ethnic tensions, 157, 273; ex-combatants, 162; fragile states, 38, 43, 328n21; Taliban, 123; periods of, 119, 164, 167, 274 cluster, 9, 10, 119, 210 clusters, 1–3, 9 coalition: America, 24, 104, 108, 296; a na , 154–6; complexity of development, 84; effort, 85; nato, 155; Western, 285–6 coherence: donor, 305; incoherence, 54; within national institutions, 53; policy, 52, 76; in statebuilding efforts 137, 274, 305; un’s operational, 329n28 coin. See counterinsurgency colonial legacies, 45 combatants: demobilization, 127, 132, 138, 273; disarming, 121, 127, 132, 273–4; ex-combatants, 121, 126, 132–4, 138, 160–2, 273; non-combatants, 132; recruition, 43; re-integration, 50, 132, 138, 160–2, 273–4; total number of, 274 combat mission: extending Canada’s, 113; termination, 33, 94, 114–15, 148; under US control, 24; watershed moment, 27

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Index 399

combat operations, 4, 28, 105, 114, 154 Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (cstc-a), 142, 145–6, 154–5, 337n37 Command Emergency Response Fund (c erf), 83 Community Based Education (c b e ): accessibility of, 254, 265; b e ac on , 278; ci da, 241; classes, 179, 255, 259, 278; developing, 249; education impact of, 265–6; funding, 240; policy on, 241, 266, 278, 300, 304; priorities, 240, 262, 265; strategy, 268; students, 193, 241; support for, 248, 252; teachers, 179, 252 Community-Based Girls’ Education project, 313, 319; attendance rates, 259; brac, 254; enrollment rates, 278; financial value, 179 Community Development Councils (c d s ), 130, 181, 272 Community Development Program, 249 community health practitioners, 205 comprehensive approach, 53, 55, 305 conditionality, 69, 80 conflict management, 38–9 Conservative government, 29, 32, 112, 116, 321n4 constitution adoption, 26, 175; a np, 142; drafting of the, 21, 102, 105, 329n30; of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 239; King Shah, 236–7; legitimacy, 327n17; limits, 40; reforming

32183_Grant.indd 399

the, 167; signing, 26; statebuilding, 50, 327n20 consultant, 22, 223 Consultative Group on Health and Nutrition, 202, 212 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (c edaw), 169 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, 128 Correctional Service of Canada, 54 corrections officers, 27, 110, 272 corrupt:government, 71, 281, 303; institutions, 21, 283; officials, 92, 159; police force, 143, 151, 272; political elites, 45; public belief, 63; statebuilding, 283 corruption: addressing, 301; characterized by, 21; control of, 148; effectiveness, 233; elites, 159; forms of, 147; government, 92, 143, 162, 269, 282, 293, 298–9; index, 147; institutions, 47, 58, 159, 283, 294; legitimacy, 273; outcomes, 72; police officers, 146, 154, 158–9; political, 38, 301; powerbrokers, 282; public grievances, 273; reducing, 76, 154, 158–9, 324n26; regime, 112; statebuilding, 301; threat to stability, 109; warlords, 282; widespread, 45, 58, 146, 154, 158, 162 counterinsurgency (c oin), 117, 141, 333n25; American-led, 117, 118, 141, 159; Canadian, 112; form of, 247

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400 Index

counterterrorism, 20, 98, 141–2, 286 crisis management, 36, 53, 306, 326n12, 329n28–9 cycle of poverty, 48 Dahla Dam, 10, 30, 130, 248, 311 Dahla Dam project, 10, 131, 135 database: an p personnel, 136; development projects, 7, 9, 11; electronic, 177; i los tat, 182; Nutrition Surveillance System, 220; o ecd, 84; open data instrument, 84 dataset: development projects, 3, 9, 270–1; foreign aid, 84; m oe, 266; principal themes, 9; public speeches, 116; studies, 70 d d r . See disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration debt crisis, 69 defeat, 21, 109, 117, 286 demilitarization, 58, 125, 127, 138 demobilization, 58, 61, 98, 126, 132–3, 138, 160, 273–4. See also disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration democracy: Bonn Conference, 21; development assistance, 83; façade of, 282; international community, 56, 116, 166; liberal, 40, 57, 61, 151; peacebuilding, 40; people’s, 238; principles of, 64, 280; promoting, 69, 171; sequentialism, 56 democratic state, 40, 267 democratization, 326n8; processes, 30, 56, 329n30; as a strategy, 64, 98 Deobandism, 123

32183_Grant.indd 400

Department of Finance, 55 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (dfa it), 8, 17, 53–4, 108, 111, 113, 281, 321n4 Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (dfatd), 8, 321n4 Department of Justice, 54–5 Department of National Defence (dnd), 25, 53–4, 113, 307 dependence: on coalition forces, 155; economic, 92; on foreign assistance, 45, 233, 293; on opium trade, 19 development policy: Canada’s, 5, 27; focus shift, 4, 68; officials, 17; trends in, 57 Development Program: c ida , 23; education, 262; goals, 178; implementing a, 301; international, 121; Summative Evaluation of Canada’s Afghanistan, 184, 303; prts, 33 development programs and projects: assessment of, 5, 13; Canadian, 12, 279; Canadian perspective, 11; capacity to run, 3; changing context, 281; ­funding, 34; reporting on, 8 development projects: ad hoc, 11, 299; assessment, 10, 12–13, 92, 270; Canadian, 3, 13, 271, 299; capacity, 83; conflict exacerbation, 302; coordination, 9; data, 3, 5, 7, 270; funding, 32, 115, 168–9, 240, 271; implementing, 81, 85–6; outcomes, 12, 87, 185, 249, 279, 299; outputs, 12, 87; political decisions, 279;

2021-06-09 10:33:20



Index 401

stakeholders, 86; Western, 185; women and girls, 168–9, 182, 206 d fa i t. See Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade d fat d . See Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Dili Declaration, 79–80 diplomacy: analysis and guidance for, 111; bilateral, 344n14; Canada’s involvement, 4; committed, 290; defence and, 4, 27, 53, 108; funding, 321n6; peacekeeping, 39; priority, 27, 30, 110, 113; programs in, 23; regional, 33, 94, 1 diplomats, 27, 54, 110 disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (ddr), 20, 179, 189, 403; an bp, 125–6; budget, 125–6, 132, 163; cida, 127, 271; demining, 128, 133, 135; government level, 162, 280; international community, 120, 126, 158, 163, 271; investments, 149; implementation level, 162; national ownership, 163; ­outputs, 132; short-term security, 161; strategy, 273–4, 287; reforms, 98, 118, 125, 134; role of, 121; ssr, 120–2, 130, 133, 158, 163, 274; structure, 132; sustainability, 138, 160. See also demobilization disarming, 160, 274. See also ­disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration disaster assistance, 41 Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups program, 138

32183_Grant.indd 401

disbursements: amounts, 22, 26, 33, 67; a na , 154; annual, 5, 7, 22, 33; cash, 131; channeling, 31; concentration of, 6; corruption, 143; total Canadian, 5, 6, 26, 127, 131, 204, 239, 311, 313, 316, 319, 321n7, 341n1; trust fund, 23 distributive conflict, 43 dnd. See Department of National Defence Dostum, Abdul Rashid, 99 drivers of conflicts, 32 DynCorp, 144, 146 Economic and Social Development, 35, 240, 335n16 economic growth: Afghanistan Compact, 32; development, 329n27; foreign aid, 66–8, 71; liberalizing the economy, 49; macro-, 52, 71; objectives, 22, 67, 165; poverty reduction, 69, 71; promote, 11, 44; sustainable, 36–7 economy: Afghan desires, 50; Canada’s involvement, 109; China’s involvement, 117; ­conditions, 73; corruption, 273; domestic, 48; exclusion from the, 63; fdi, 48; liberalizing the, 49; market-oriented, 40, 61; objectives, 180; political, 32, 302; reconstruction, 22; Taliban, 19; underground, 189; war, 125; women, 172, 250 Education Development Board, 240, 266 Education Management Information System, 245, 254, 266

2021-06-09 10:33:20

402 Index

Education Quality Improvement Program (equ i p), 252, 317; c i da , 244–5; Education Management Information System, 256, 266; mobilizing communities, 256, 265; monitoring and evaluation system, 256; objectives, 244, 256; priorities, 240; project management, 256; shortcomings, 256, 278, 304; sub-national componenet, 303; World Bank, 244, 255. See also Second Education Quality Improvement Project (equ i p-i i ) Eggleton, Art, 20, 24, 104 elections: 2005, 32; democratic processes, 31, 56; federal, 21, 53, 102; female candidates, 176–8, 185–6, 198; first, 105, 132; fiveyear plan, 21, 99, 272; former warlords, 282; key areas, 32; monitoring, 39, 177; presidential, 21, 26, 99, 105, 271, 281; priorities, 31; statebuilding, 47, 50, 329n30 Elections Canada, 54–5 electricity, 22, 38, 201, 263 Electronic Payroll System (eps ), 136, 272 elites: competition between, 43; corruption, 147, 159; legitimacy, 44, 56, 63; non-elites, 330n33; political, 45 Emergency Micronutrients Initiative, 210, 221, 225, 314 Emergency Services, 9 employment, 318; Commission on Human Security, 36; ­ex-­combatants, 132; “ghost” police officers, 143; Human

32183_Grant.indd 402

Development Report, 36; increased, 131; i­nitiatives, 160; institutions, 48; operational, 155; opportunities, 164, 167, 222, 343n9; outcomes, 249; self-, 188–9; short-term, 249; statebuilding, 50; types of, 248, 275; un-, 48, 68, 189, 276; women, 167, 177, 182, 190, 222, 248, 250, 274–6 endogenous process, 49, 291 Essential Package of Health Services (ephs), 202, 205, 230 ethnic tensions, 42, 161, 273 eu. See European Union eupol, 140–2, 144, 296 eu police officers, 140 European Common Foreign and Security Policy (c fsp), 141 Europeans, 153, 159, 160, 273; civilians, 144; forces, 103 European Union (eu), 19, 204, 296; a np, 140; donors, 129; funding, 141, 143; lack of legitimacy, 60; member states, 145; police reform efforts, 140, 145 Excel-erate Teacher Training Project, 275, 350, 363, 451, 513, 520 ex-combatants: a nb p, 126, 273; ddr , 121, 132, 161–2; Implementing Partners, 132, 134; micro-conditions, 162; post-­ conflict environments, 136; small businesses, 161; ssr , 160 executive, 21, 42, 60, 102, 288 Expanded Package of Hospital Services, 219 explanatory factors, 122, 158, 269 external assistance: Afghan development budget, 66; Afghan

2021-06-09 10:33:21



Index 403

government, 32; local population, 52; rebuilding, 102, 297; W oG, 53 factionalism, 64 Fahim, Mohammed, 128 failed state(s): Canadian involvement, 109; constitution, 50; definition, 325n8, 326n9; discourse, 59; improper/no institutional ­processes, 45; international statebuilders, 42, 55; pre 9/11, 17; threat to security, 38 Family Health Houses project, 220, 223–4, 301, 315 farmers, 18–19, 172, 243 farming, 134, 182, 243 female health practitioners, 200, 232 female parliamentarians, 178 fiscal year: an a, 158; Canadian contribution, 126, 334n9; decrease in aid, 33; increase in aid, 5, 26; US contribution, 335n12 food security, 22, 36, 181, 275, 297 forced marriages, 165, 274 foreign aid: Afghan dependance, 45, 66, 293; aid fatigue, 69; c i da , 17; conditional, 82; corruption, 92; cycle of poverty, 48; data, 84; decrease in, 268; effectiveness, 82, 84, 92; financial commitment, 28, 76, 112, 281, 323n8; government accountability, 45, 293; impact of, 83–4; returns of, 72, 126; role of, 69; stategies, 92 fragile and conflict-affected states: aid effectiveness, 82, 92;

32183_Grant.indd 403

Canadian activities, 270, 302; characteristics, 41–2; Commission on Human Security, 325n3; policy, 36, 42, 55; above the project level, 303; security, 307; ssr and ddr , 163 fragile conditions, 41 fragile state(s): 3D approach, 53, 108; Canadian capacity, 3, 307; characteristics, 38, 41–2, 49, 151, 325n8; Dili Declaration, 80; external intervenors, 57, 163; fdi, 48; insecurity, 47; institutional capacity, 44; international crisis manager, 37; multi-­ dimensional approach, 40; ­policy, 48–9, 331n1; post-conflict period, 35; poverty variable, 43; results-based evaluation, 91–2; security-development nexus, 47; statebuilding, 47, 307 fragility conceptualization, 46, 328n24; conditions of, 64; ddr and ssr , 158; development contexts, 83–4; Dili Declaration, 80; gender analysis, 178; ownership, 74; policy, 48–9, 55, 58; roots of, 55; social contract, 65; state, 41–3, 45, 55, 63, 82; statebuilding, 51, 64, 326n13 freedom, 116, 139, 166, 171, 237 freedom from fear, 36–7, 70 freedom from want, 36–7, 70 freedoms, 40, 42, 104, 167 free market economy, 40 G7, 82 G 8, 34, 125, 205–6, 287 gap: budget, 231–2; education, 256, 260, 301; fiscal, 157; gender,

2021-06-09 10:33:21

404 Index

197, 262; governance, 21, 93, 99, 303; in government, 22; health care, 221, 230; knowledge, 302; in literature, 4; in reporting, 8, 197; between the rich and poor, 76; savings-investment, 68; ­service, 200 Garden Gate program, 172, 181, 275 gd p : a na, 158; bribes, 337n38; foreign aid, 66; growth, 47; ­output, 47; poverty line, 324n24; violence, 48; women, 164 gender: advisors, 184; analysis, 178, 341n24; capacity building, 183; data, 84, 212, 234, 276; in education, 191, 246, 250, 252–4, 262, 266, 318; empowerment, 222; evaluation, 184, 196, 199; expertise, 179; funding, 122, 168; gbv, 169, 173; health services, 178, 194, 212–13, 215–16, 225, 276, 300; labour market, 197; legal education, 136, 175; mainstreaming, 179, 180, 184, 341n23; m i s fa, 181; one-sizefits-all approach, 184; perspective, 169, 177; priority sector, 93, 168, 196; role of, 231; strategies, 179, 197, 258; traditional beliefs, 197 gender equality: Accra Agenda, 80; Canadian priority, 168, 178, 171–2; ci da, 183; constitution reform, 167; corruption, 269; international community, 168; maternal health, 194; m dg s, 75; men’s behaviour, 184, 198; Responsive Fund for the Advancement of Women, 183; results, 179; sustainable progress, 199; un Women, 176 genealogy of peacemaking, 60

32183_Grant.indd 404

General Petraeus, 103 Generation of Aid, 67–9 Germany: aid disbursements, 67, 129, 143; a np, 139, 140; Bonn, 99; donor tensions, 144; ­education, 236, 240; Operation Enduring Freedom, 100; troops, 105–6, 337n27 Ghani, Ashraf, 41, 260 Girls Primary Education Project, 173, 246, 254, 275, 278 Global Affairs Canada (gac ): aid disbursements, 179, 313; ­monitoring and evaluation, 91, 223; restructuring, 8, 321n4 global fight against terrorism, 46 Global Polio Eradication Initiative (gpei), 206, 208, 213, 222, 228 g np, 67–8, 71, 92 Government of Afghanistan: access to education, 191, 239; ana, 152; a rtf, 23, 294, 336n23; bilateral donors, 6, 294; capacity building, 11, 222; fiscal sustainability, 293; policies, 167; priorities, 191, 231 Government of Canada: aid disbursements, 131, 206, 270; aid effectiveness, 84; data, 7, 12; development projects, 7, 271; education programming, 243; knowledge gap, 302; priorities, 31; results-based evaluation, 88, 90, 92; unmas, 134 Graham, Bill, 196 grievance: addressing, 157; corruption, 273; elites, 43; ethnic, 157; existing, 159; historical, 43; inequalities, 43; military ­intervention, 287; process, 45; regional dimension, 116; r­udimentary, 333n28; social, 42

2021-06-09 10:33:21



Index 405

Group of Eight. See G8 guerrilla war, 18 harmonization: aid delivery, 74, 294; aid effectiveness, 71, 74–5, 92; education programming, 267, 269; ownership and, 74–5, 85, 93; procedures, 77, 294; Rome Forum on Harmonization, 74, 76 Harper, Stephen: Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan, 28, 34, 109, 115, 165; government, 27, 29, 32, 109, 112, 332n10; as prime ­minister, 297 Hazara, 157 Health Donor Forum, 231, 305 health facility: access to a, 200, 225; conditions, 200, 219; improving, 217; patients, 217; polio, 205; rural and urban, 225; staff, 210, 217, 219, 220 health indicators, 200–2 Health Partners International of Canada (hpi c), 208, 212, 221, 314 health sector: Canadian involvement, 204, 230–1, 233; ci da, 204, 217; conflict, 231; dependency on aid, 232, 276, 303; donor ­collaboration, 230; immunization, 277; improvement, 200, 202, 230, 232–3, 276, 301; mo p h , 203, 212, 300; positive outcome, 299, 300; rebuilding, 202; s h arp, 277; sustainability, 231–3; systemic issues, 225, 232 hearts and minds, 83, 247 heavy weapons, 126–7, 132, 272 High-Level Forums on Aid Effectiveness, 75, 80 historical understanding, 17

32183_Grant.indd 405

holistically, 290 horizontal inequalities, 43 hospital: Bamyan, 223; children’s, 209; China, 344n14; district, 207; ephs, 202, 219; hpic , 221; medical supplies, 209, 221; partner, 209; provincial, 219, 231; Taliban, 201; women, 201 House of Commons: aid spending, 166; c a f, 29; communications in the, 25, 27, 104; strategy ­justification, 171; vote, 111, 113 human capital, 200, 327n16 Human Development Report, 36 humanitarian agencies, 12 humanitarian assistance: Canadian involvement, 104; 116, 166, 333n3; discourse analysis, 165–6; health, 202, 204–5, 208–9; output goals, 114; priority, 11, 30–1, 33, 94, 114–15, 169, 333n3; prt, 105; spending, 6, 125, 130, 166, 323n8; W oG, 53 humanitarian coordination, 210 humanitarian crisis, 46, 119 humanitarian emergencies, 41 humanitarian intervention, 46 Humanitarianism, 124 humanitarian relief, 23, 39 humanitarian space, 210 human resources: a np, 142, 146; Canadian engagement, 4; c ida , 204, 297; inputs and activities, 87; insufficient, 280; moph, 203; US strategy, 280 human rights: anp, 142; assessment, 83; basic, 164–5, 187; Canadian priorities, 33, 110, 115, 166, 171; disregard for, 282–3; ­education on, 173, 188; key areas, 32, 168, 180, 335n16; peacebuilding, 39;

2021-06-09 10:33:21

406 Index

policies, 80; promote, 169; respect for, 152, 299; strategies, 26, 116, 171; Taliban, 19; violations, 36, 179; women, 168–9, 170–2, 187–8, 197 human security, 326n12; agenda, 36; concept, 36–7, 70, 325n3; debate, 46, 70; definition, 36–7; focus shift, 36; hdr, 36; paradigm, 47; policy approach, 37; risks, 119 Human Security Network, 36, 325n3 hybrid: approaches, 61–2, 110; models of governance, 62, 346n17; peace, 330n33; perspective, 62; policies, 60; security model, 139 hybrid peace- and statebuilding, 62 hybrid peacebuilding, 63–4, 288, 330n33 immunization: campaigns, 205, 207, 209, 211, 221–2, 224, 228, 277; coverage, 201–2, 217; health focus, 206, 208; outputs, 207; polio, 208, 224, 228–9; rates, 229, 230, 232, 276; strategies, 205 immunizations, 206–8, 224, 228–9 impact of aid, 71 impacts: assessing, 12, 92, 120, 163, 183, 281; Canadian, 5, 198, 230, 271, 340n22; external factors, 233; long-term, 13, 72, 117, 223, 234, 243, 246, 270, 301; negative, 62; positive, 197, 202; reporting, 196; results-based evaluation, 85, 87; short-term, 32, 199; sustainable, 231; women, 165, 197 Improving Nutrition for Mothers, Newborns and Children in Afghanistan, 204, 218, 223, 315

32183_Grant.indd 406

improvised explosive device (ied), 29 Independent Commission on Human Security (chs), 36, 325n3 Independent Directorate of Local Governance (idlg), 137 Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan, 30 India, 119, 124 individual rights, 40 ineffectiveness, 38, 48 infant mortality 338n3; aid, 71; health indicators, 201, 225; rate, 228; reducing, 76, 200 Institute for Media Policy and Civil Society, 170, 180 institutional capacity, 44, 140, 173, 256 institutional failure, 44 institution-building, 58 insurgency: Afghan support, 113, 273; a na , 156; a np, 142, 144; anti-soviet, 344n14; Pakistan, 290; priority, 31, 130; ssr , 149; Taliban, 27, 97, 99, 103, 109, 112, 117, 130, 141, 143–4, 155, 159, 285, 289, 290; violence, 184; women, 198 Interim Administration, 21, 102 Interim Authority, 21–2, 102, 127, 200 interim head of state, 21, 102 internal displacement, 119 International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan, 22 International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, 169 international development: agencies, 72; community, 85; field of, 9;

2021-06-09 10:33:21



Index 407

goals, 75; policies, 82; problems, 81; projects/programs, 12, 81, 121, 176, 185, 193, 276 International Development Law Organization (i dlo), 136 international donor community: Afghan reconstruction process, 22, 110; collaboration, 230; ­corruption, 162; demining ­projects, 272; peace- and statebuilding, 169; political and financial support, 39, 293; resources, 126, 146, 274 international financial institutions, 31, 40 International Harmonization Agenda, 75 International Labour Office (i lo), 68–9 International Labour Organization, 188–9 International Network on Conflict and Fragility (i n caf), 82 international organizations: Canada’s engagement, 4, 8, 110, 196, 305; cash disbursements, 131; coordination of, 52; dependance on, 232; effectiveness, 300; funding through, 7, 163, 270–1, 298; intervening variable, 279; outputs, 12; response, 19; statebuilding, 40, 305 international policy statement, 27 International Policy Statement (ips), 53–4, 108 International Rescue Committee, 254, 319 International Security Assistance Force (i saf), 22, 97, 103, 286; Afghan forces, 109; Bonn Agreement, 286; Canada, 24,

32183_Grant.indd 407

105, 109, 110; focus, 103, 295; mission, 25, 103–4; nato, 105, 108; Operation Medusa, 112; Operation Mentor Liaison Team, 155; prt, 105; reports, 112; troop, 106, 109, 153; un force, 103, 286, 296 international statebuilders: authority of, 307; ethnic grievances, 157, 285; ownership, 73; priority, 117; reconstruction by, 42; ssr , 153 interview, 8, 178, 258 investment: Afghan government, 143, 233, 335n14; a np, 143, 151, 273; Canada’s engagements, 4, 136, 181, 217, 240, 244, 249, 277; in cross-border polio eradication, 208; development, 5, 23, 68, 186; in education, 244, 246, 251, 254, 265; failed, 148; foreign direct, 48; in health services, 210–11, 222, 232; injection of, 68; judicial infrastructure, 141; long-term, 47, 232; private sector, 76; returns, 9, 199; savings-, 68; security, 58; ssr /ddr , 149 Iraq: Canadian engagement, 25, 323n13; Canadian public opinion, 28; cerf funds, 83; as a conflictaffected state, 41; peacebuilding missions, 64; US invasion, 25, 28, 112, 141, 280–1, 292, 297; war, 83 irrigation system, 30, 248 i sa f. See International Security Assistance Force i sil, 41 Islam, 18–19, 174 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, 123

2021-06-09 10:33:21

408 Index

Islamic ideology, 19, 124 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 22, 50, 200, 239 Islamic state, 19, 43 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, 41 Islamist groups, 28, 123 jobs: generating, 10, 46, 49; output goals, 114; priorities, 30–1; selfemployment, 188; women, 19, 182 Joint Task Force Afghanistan, 110 judges, 130, 136, 272 judicial: branches of government, 21, 102; ineffectiveness, 38; infrastructure, 141; reform, 61, 125, 141, 287; systems, 120 justice: access to, 50; an a and a np, 114; Canadian priorities, 31, 173; disregard for, 283; ­disruptive, 125; gender, 136; institutions, 141; juvenile, 136; military, 154; policies, 49; reforms, 163; state capacity for, 44, 48; system, 50, 130, 150, 163; for terrorist attacks, 331n10; transitional, 61, 163, 282–3, 343n2 justifications, 27–8, 116, 165 Kabul Widows Humanitarian Assistance programme: care, 181, 312–13; ci da, 172; financial self-reliance, 169, 187; ­success story, 275 Kandahar: an p, 141; Canada’s funding, 5, 130; Canada’s projects, 12, 25–6, 105, 333n3; German Armed Forces, 139;

32183_Grant.indd 408

kprt, 27, 33, 54; Manley Report, 248, 281; priorities, 30, 113; Taliban, 27, 105 Kandahar Model Police Project, 141 Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (k prt), 10, 13, 111; achieving objectives, 33, 115; Canada led, 54, 93, 206, 243; Canadian police forces, 141; education, 248; insurgency, 27; US-led, 94, 251, 269; WoG, 54 Karzai, Hamid, 21, 26, 102–3, 285 Kosovo, 40, 48, 60, 126 kprt. See Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team labour force, 182, 188–9, 197, 340n21 lack of state functions, 50 Landmine Impact Survey, 135 Law and Order Trust Fund (lotfa ), 136 law enforcement, 110, 121, 138 legislative, 21, 102, 121, 288, 328 legitimacy: Afghan government, 11, 45, 54, 102, 148, 244, 273, 286. 292, 297; Bonn Agreement, 282, 293; definition, 44, 166, 345n16; elites, 56, 63; fragile state, 166; government, 42, 44, 55, 57, 232, 292; indigenous state, 163, 292; institutions, 56–7, 149, 151, 288; local, 45, 58, 60, 63, 302; militias, 162; peace- and statebuilding, 57; peacebuilding, 64; political, 57; of promoting liberal democracy, 57; social contract, 44; sources of, 327n17; statebuilding, 42, 44–5, 49, 51, 58, 64,

2021-06-09 10:33:21



Index 409

133, 166, 282, 291, 302, 307; state collapse, 44, 64, 328n24; traditional, 288, 293 lessons learned, 306; applying, 269; deriving, 3, 4; evidence-based, 266; incorporation of, 86; for policy makers and academics, 13, 270; processes, 270; reports, 305; sector-specific, 94; sharing, 301, 304; study, 162 liberal democracy, 40, 57, 61, 151, 299 Liberal government, 53, 321n4, 322n10 liberal peace, 60, 330n30 liberal peacebuilding: an p reform, 139; approach, 40, 56, 64; democracy, 40; liberal remedies, 61; paradigm, 55, 139; securitization of, 161; as a system of governance, 40 light footprint, 24, 139, 281, 295 light weapons, 132, 334n5, 343n2 literacy: adult, 197; an s f forces, 337n37; basic, 259; program, 242, 249; student, 278; training, 251, 260; women’s, 164, 166–7, 173, 274 literature: on aid, 67–8, 71; on aid effectiveness, 67, 75, 81, 83; Canadian deployed, 24; contradictions, 186; debates, 325n7, 326n9, 329n27; education, 235, 237; fragile-states, 166, 331n1; gap, 4, 5; grey, 279, 280; ­monograph, 5; relevant, 35; ­terminology, 18 living standards, 19 local context(s): differences in, 81; peace-as-governance approach,

32183_Grant.indd 409

60; policies, 81; responsiveness to, 184; strategies, 161; understanding, 32, 288 local legitimacy, 45, 58 local ownership, 338n48; Afghan critique of, 289; aid, 81; and control, 288; partnership approach, 74; peacebuilding ­paradigm, 288; strategy, 233, 294; weakened, 324n26; Western donors, 294 local population: assistance to, 26, 52, 58, 105; defend the, 18; engaging with, 63, 141, 302, 330n33; identity, 292; support for anti-government elements, 83; trust among the, 149 local turn, 64 logistics, 111, 115, 154–5, 277 London Conference, 32, 97 London Conference on Afghanistan, 32, 109, 295 long-term development, 23, 51–2, 139, 294, 333n3 lost decade of development, 69 Loya Jirga, 21–2, 102 MacKay, Peter, 114 madrasas, 18, 123–4, 235 major powers, 105 malnutrition: acute, 219, 223; child, 170, 219, 224; education on, 224–5; reduction of, 170, 275; sha r p, 215; vulnerable communities, 219 Manley, John, 10, 112 Manley Report: bureaucracy, 10, 116; development activities, 25, 204, 281; poor planning, 11, 304; post publication, 116, 131,

2021-06-09 10:33:21

410 Index

204, 268, 299; priority shift, 25, 30–1, 207, 240, 303; recommendations, 30, 93, 112, 190, 247–8, 304 ma pa . See Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan Martin, Paul: Canadian troops, 105, 108–9; government, 105, 108; i p s, 53; n ato, 25; p rt s , 26, 109 Master Plan for Integrated Development in Bamyan, 243 maternal health, 75, 166, 194, 219, 231 maternal health services, 164, 194, 206–7 maternal mortality, 202, 206 maternal mortality rate, 201, 227; high, 166, 195, 200, 225, 231; performance measurement framework, 225; reduce, 221; reduction in, 223, 226 Maternal Waiting Home: ci da, 312, 314, 316; funding, 178; Increasing Access to Maternal and Child Health, 206; infrastructure project, 206; purpose, 221 Mazar-e-Sharif: an bp, 125–6, 310; non-Pashtun militia headquarters, 99; security responsibility, 115; un Women’s program, 176 McCallum, John, 25 m d g s. See Millennium Development Goals measles, 200, 209, 229, 342n5 mediation, 38, 124 Mennonite Development Associates of Canada, 172, 181, 275, 312 methods, 38, 71, 258

32183_Grant.indd 410

microfinance, 171, 173, 181, 187, 250 Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (mifsa): absorbative capacity, 187; Afghan economic development, 170, 181; a rtf, 129, 272; c ida , 170, 312; financial accountability, 8; gender dimension of, 181, 185, 187; independent financial institutions, 181; reports, 8; rural livelihoods and social protection, 244, 275; training, 181 micro-level aid programming, 72 Micronutrient Initiative, 210, 314 middle power, 5, 305 military tools, 31 militia commanders, 133, 274 Millennium Development Goals (mdgs), 75, 80, 205, 241 Millennium Summit, 75 Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan (ma pa ), 128, 131, 134–5, 310–11 Mine Risk Education (mr e), 128, 134–6, 272 mines: anti-tank, 133–5; area ­contaminated by, 135, 272; ­disabled by, 134; education on dangers of, 128, 135, 272; land, 119, 130–1, 133–5, 272; roads without, 111; removing, 128, 130, 134–5, 136; Soviet War, 119 ministerial meetings, 26 Ministry of Defence, 222, 223, 225, 226, 228, 430, 439 Ministry of Education (MoE , Afghanistan), 174, 257–8; access to education, 252–3; Canadian

2021-06-09 10:33:21



Index 411

education priorities, 169, 242, 266; capacity building, 240, 259, 266–7; Education for All, 251; effectiveness, 174, 301; policy on community-based education, 241, 266, 278; pupil-teacher ratio, 260; Review Report, 263; reports, 265, 269; technical a­dvisors, 240, 256–7; training, 254, 258 Ministry of Education’s e fa Review Report, 263 Ministry of Public Health (m oph): b p h s , 202; capacity building, 203, 224, 229, 300; data, 224, 226; external support, 203, 277; financing gap, 232; high-level delegation, 223–4; hm i s , 220; logic framework for health ­outputs and outcomes, 212–13; maternal health, 207; medicines, 208–9; prioritized effort, 219, 276; s e hat, 230; stewardship, 230; strategic plan, 202–3, 211; Taliban, 200, 202 Ministry of Women’s Affairs, 180 mi s fa . See Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan monitoring: an p, 141; of construction sites, 256; definition, 86; elections, 39, 176–7; and evaluation, 8, 11, 54, 77, 79, 85–6, 90–1, 211, 222–3, 234, 243–4, 246, 256, 258, 265, 268–9, 276, 278, 299, 301, 304; frameworks for, 79; harmonisation, 78; longterm, 206; poor, 281; project, 8, 234; public, 293; results-based, 85–6

32183_Grant.indd 411

monitoring and reporting, 8, 78 monopoly on the legitimate use of force, 41 mr e. See Mine Risk Education mujahedeen: demobilization, 153; factions, 123; guerilla force, 123; madrases, 123; police infrastructure, 98; President Karzai, 282; Soviet Army, 18; Taliban, 123 mullahs, 124 Muskoka Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Initiative, 219 narcotics: a na and a np, 159; counter-, 125, 287, 295; trade, 112, 159, 160, 298, 311; ­trafficking, 22; warlords, 103 National Assembly, 21, 109 national capacities, 39 National Democratic Institute (ndi), 177, 179, 313 National Development Framework (ndf), 23 National Education Strategic Plan I (nesp-i): Canadian priorities, 240–2, 278; capacity building, 266; Economic and Social Development, 240, 244; ­education strategies, 250, 278; funding, 251; priority alignment, 241, 269 National Emergency Action Plan (nea p), 211 national healing, 30 national health, 204 National Health Priority Program Health for All Afghans (ha a ), 202 nationalism, 41 National Quality Control Lab, 221

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412 Index

National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment, 225 National Solidarity Program (n s p), 129, 241, 244, 272 nato : a na, 155; Article 5, 20, 24, 104; burden-sharing, 297; coordinating body, 158, 290; forces, 108, 115; i saf, 25, 105, 108, 286; leadership, 116; Manley Report, 116; members, 105, 110, 163; mission mandate, 142; ­mission termination, 148; ­perspective, 25; Post 9/11, 20; p rt s, 26, 105, 332n14; reliance on, 109; Resolute Support ­mission, 154–5; US, 114 n ato allies, 8, 98, 117, 280, 286 nato Training Mission Afghanistan (nt m- a ), 33, 115, 142, 154 natural resources, 43, 117, 243 nd f. See National Development Framework nd p, 29 negotiation, 38, 88, 153, 169, 285 newborn health, 205 New Wars, 36–7 ngo : aid provided by, 72; bottomup approach, 70; caf, 118; Canada’s engagement, 4, 7, 196, 270–1; c i da-contracted, 193, 266, 304; consultation with, 32; data, 12; education sector, 239, 262, 265, 301; faith-based, 307; financial management, 180, 275; gender strategy, 179; health care, 201–2, 205, 232, 276; i dlo, 136; increase in, 26, 31, 200; international community, 22, 52, 74; local, 90, 110, 234; partnerships with, 52; program delivery

32183_Grant.indd 412

by, 232, 239; reliance on, 303; reporting, 265, 269; Rights and Democracy, 170; War Child Canada, 173 non-governmental organizations, 7, 40, 170, 305 non-governmental partners, 8 norms, 44, 185, 288, 308 North Atlantic Treaty Organization. See nato Northern Alliance: Bonn Conference, 285; composition, 99; control of Afghanistan, 283; disarmament, 127; Mohammed Fahim, 128; Taliban, 19; tribes, 285; US-led military campaign, 99, 285 Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, 255 n s p. See National Solidarity Program nutrition: activities, 219; Canadian programming, 225, 276; consultative group on health and, 212; health and, 202, 223; improve, 220, 277; for mothers, newborns, and children, 204, 207, 210, 218–19, 223, 315; practices, 217; services, 219, 223; sha r p, 215; support, 173; training, 219, 225 Nutrition Surveillance System in Afghanistan, 220, 223–5 oda . See Canada’s Official Development Assistance Oda, Bev, 181 oec d-dac , 32, 50, 87, 89 oef. See Operation Enduring Freedom

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Index 413

Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (ocha), 119 Office of the Inspector General, 141 open data, 84 operating expenditure, 66 Operational Guide to the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (i d d rs ), 120 Operational Mentor Liaison Team (o mlt ), 155–6 Operation Apollo, 103 Operation athen a, 28, 105, 110–11 Operation atten ti on , 33, 115 Operation Enduring Freedom (o e f ), 20, 100, 102, 285, 322n10; Canadian support, 20, 24, 103; military contributions, 100; strategy, 20; Taliban, 98–9, 286; US-led, 98, 103, 286 Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, 323n6 Operation Resolute Support, 155 opium, 19 opium producer, 19 opium trade, 19 opposition, 18, 273, 285 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (o e c d), 11 Osama Bin Laden, 98 Ottawa Treaty, 128 ownership: absence of, 58, 71–2, 74, 289; aid effectiveness, 71, 73–5, 92; capabilites, 73; development policies, 73, 294; ­government, 73–4, 77, 137; and harmonization, 74–5, 81, 85, 93;

32183_Grant.indd 413

local, 60, 74, 81, 233, 288–9, 294; outcome, 73, 324n26; Paris Declaration, 78, 79, 81, 85, 294; partner countries, 78–9; political, 74; of security, 115; statebuilding, 58, 73 Oxfam, 7, 40 Pakistani refugee camps, 18 paramilitary force, 120, 138, 159 Paris Conference on Afghanistan, 32 Paris Declaration: Accra Agenda for Action, 79; aid effectiveness, 67, 75, 77, 81–2, 85, 92–3, 294; commitments, 78; creation, 67, 75–7, 93; fragility and conflict, 80; influence of, 67; limitations, 81; mdgs, 75; monitoring and evaluation, 77, 79, 93; principles, 294 parliamentary vote, 29 partnership: commitments, 77; donors and recipients, 33, 73, 76, 93; global, 75; with locals, 233; with ngos, 52; ownership, 73; strategy, 87 Pashtun: alienation, 284; a na , 157; Bonn Conference, 284–6; ethnic, 157, 237, 284, 289; ­ethnic tensions, 285; madrasas, 123–4; non-, 99, 237; opium, 19; population, 284, 290; Taliban, 19, 123–4; US, 287 patient, 201, 207, 217 patrols: a np, 138, 140, 142; Canadian police forces, 141; prt s, 27; street, 144–5 patronage: institutions, 58; militia, 133, 138, 274; networks, 138, 160, 198, 293

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414 Index

peace- and statebuilding: Canada’s role, 4, 35, 64, 98, 116, 302, 306; criticism, 64; ddr and S S R, 126, 138, 162, 271; effectiveness, 52, 56, 65, 80, 280, 302; in a fragile or conflict-affected state, 9, 302, 306; hybrid approach, 62; inclusivity in, 60, 63; legitimacy, 57, 65, 302; model, 61; objectives, 169; paradigm, 62; practices, 59, 270; policy, 35, 60, 270; recipients, 63–4; strategies, 98, 118; sustainable, 301, 305; trends, 58; u n operations, 35; US-led operations, 280 peacebuilder, 61, 99, 117 peacebuilding: activities, 61; An Agenda for Peace, 38; Canadian involvement, 103, 117, 168; ­criticism of, 56–7; definition, 35, 39, 40, 49, 51, 61, 328n26; interventions, 40; liberal, 40, 55–6, 61, 64, 139, 161; local, 64; ­mission, 64; objectives, 82; ownership, 58; post-conflict, 120–1; role of women in, 169, 173; structures, 61; Western, 58, 60 Peacebuilding Commission, 52 Peacebuilding Fund, 52 peacekeeping: budget for, 37, 39; Canadian, 103, 108; definition, 326n10; international 121; mission, 27, 109; traditional, 27, 38, 53; role of women in, 169; u n , 38–9 Pettigrew, Pierre, 27 police officers: Afghan, 145; an p, 143; corruption, 146–7, 151; deaths of, 145; eu, 140; frontline, 151; ghost, 143, 272; international, 138–9, 146, 148; kprt,

32183_Grant.indd 414

27; local, 143; non-US, 140; payment mechanism, 139; police academy, 140; US-trained, 145 police services, 30, 98, 121, 144 Police Staff College, 141 policy makers: advice for, 35; lessons learned, 13; peacebuilding operations, 121; US, 24, 105; women’s rights, 168 polio, 209; campaign, 208, 210, 222, 224, 277; decrease in, 200, 277; endemic to Afghanistan, 206, 208, 222, 220; eradicating, 10, 31, 204–6, 208, 211, 217, 222, 228–9, 231–2, 248, 314–16; polio-free, 208; immunizations, 208; outbreak, 229, 304; surveillance systems, 205; wild, 211, 229 Polio Eradication Signature Project, 208, 211, 314 Polio vaccination, 208, 229 political instability: comparison, 149; continuous, 21; gdp output, 47; hindrance to development, 167; internal, 123; overall security and stability, 109; school enrollment, 237 political settlements, 50, 327n20 post-Cold War era, 35–6, 38, 40, 70 post-conflict: ddr and ssr , 121, 138; governance, 62; legitimacy, 60; local ownership, 60; ngo, 180; peace-and statebuilding, 62–3; peacebuilding, 120, 169, 329n26; peacekeeping, 326n10; rehabilitation, 70; statebuilding, 35, 58, 121, 288; states, 56; WoG, 55; women, 199 poverty: aid to alleviate, 67–9, 70; Canadian involvement, 28;

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Index 415

chronic, 38; The Compact, 32; cycle of, 48; development problem, 68; to explain conflict, 43; extreme forms of, 43; fragile states, 38, 43; increasing levels of, 67; line, 222, 324n24; m dg s, 75; Paris Declaration, 77; ­reduction, 46–7, 49, 69, 70–1, 250, 294; women, 165, 183 poverty reduction. See poverty Pratt, David, 108 presidential election: first, 132; fiveyear plan, 21, 99; funding, 26, 105; participation, 185; Western intervention, 281 President Karzai: an a, 153; an ap, 142; Afghanistan Constitution, 26; Bonn Agreement, 282; i saf, 109; program delivery, 137. See also Karzai, Hamid president of Afghanistan, 26 prevention, 39, 121, 169, 212, 214 prime minister: Blair, 280; Chrétien, 20, 25, 103; deputy, 186; Harper, 34, 109, 111, 115, 165, 297; Martin, 25–6, 105; Mohammed Daud Khan, 167; speeches on Afghanistan, 165 private–military companies (pm cs), 121 private sector: activities, 181; ands, 32, 324n26; impact of aid, 71; investments, 76; partnership, 74, 78 prosecutors, 201, 265 Provincial Reconstruction Team, 6, 27 p rt : Canada, 10, 12, 30, 109, 263, 302, 333n3; composition, 27; counterinsurgency, 247; i saf, 97, 105, 108; n ato, 26, 105;

32183_Grant.indd 415

objectives, 26; phasing out, 33; WoG , 26, 105, 110; US, 263, 303 public administration(s), 32, 45, 47, 256 public goods: capacity to deliver, 22, 26, 38, 44, 47, 54, 141, 291; dependance on aid, 293; duty to provide, 41, 51, 153; priorities, 30; prt s, 27; statebuilding, 52, 54, 291; state stability, 44 Public Health Strategic Plan, 202–3 Public opinion, 112 Public Safety Canada, 55 qualitative, 9, 12, 82, 87 Quality Primary Education in Southern Afghanistan, 250, 257, 317 quantitative: aid effectiveness, 81; analysis, 12, 132; Canadian development assistance, 9; indicators, 5, 267; outcomes, 90; reporting, 87 rc mp, 55, 143. See Royal Canadian Mounted Police reconciliation: nationbuilding, 55, 63; political, 11, 31, 282; process, 30, 40 reconstruction: Afghan responsibility, 32, 114; allies, 281, 290; Canada’s engagement, 24, 30, 93, 113–14, 122, 247, 297, 299, 304; The Compact, 32; donor coordination, 305; effort, 9, 23, 290, 292, 295, 300, 304; funding, 23, 110, 122, 280–1, 294, 323n8, 334n9, 335n12, 341n26; international effort, 295, 298; post-conflict, 63, 121, 169, 199; priority areas, 22–3; programs,

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416 Index

299; and stabilization, 299; state, 298; statebuilding, 292, 298, 300, 302; WoG, 55, 110; women, 199 refugee camps, 18, 26, 123, 326n12 refugees: as a priority, 11, 31, 114; return and reintegration program, 119, 310; returned, 323n7; timeframe, 26, 119; women, 248–9, 275 rehabilitation: of Afghanistan, 32, 110; agriculture, 297; Dahla Dam, 10; education, 242, 244, 247, 249; post-conflict, 60, 62, 70; s harp, 231; signature project, 31 reintegrating combatants, 50, 160–2 reintegration, 134, 274; assistance, 127, 132; combatant’s past, 162; economic, 134; package, 134, 161; process sustainability, 138, 160; refugee return and, 119. See also disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration Representative of Canada (rock), 30, 111 Republic of Yugoslavia, 42 Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, 169, 172 responsibility of the Afghan government, 146, 155, 239; for an p and a na , 140, 155; dm c, 128; donors, 125, 137; of the eu, 145; Ministry of Defence, 153; Muslim, 123; Paris Declaration, 81; primary, 114, 126, 137, 154–5; for reconstruction 32; for security, 30, 33, 114, 146, 287; shared, 90; state, 236–7; for­ territory, 27 Responsive Fund for the Advancement of Women (r faw), 175, 183, 313, 317

32183_Grant.indd 416

Results-Based Evaluation Concepts and Definitions, 86 Results-Based Evaluations: concept, 85, 87; framework, 13, 93; limitations, 90; methodology, 91, 94; purpose of, 85; third-party, 87 Rights in Practice – Women’s Rights and Family Law Reform, 174, 313 roads, 22, 48, 111, 129, 165 root causes, 35, 38, 47–8, 282 root causes of conflicts, 36, 325n3 Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 54 rule of law: Afghan consultation, 116; a np, 140, 142, 145, 147, 152, 273; belief in 166, 171, 282; development, 46; domestic situation, 82; objective area, 110, 180; peace-and statebuilding, 64; peacebuilding, 40; priority, 30, 33, 115, 150, 243, 297, 335n16; reliance on the US, 280; ssr , 121, 149, 163; statebuilding, 44, 50, 56; strenghtening the, 130, 150; weak, 72 rural development, 23 rural livelihoods, 170, 205, 243–4, 275, 297 Rural Livelihoods and Social Protection program, 240, 243–4 Rwanda, 37, 39, 41 salary, 147, 158, 249, 257, 303 sanctions, 24, 104, 324n13 sanitation: health and, 22; hygiene and, 170, 216, 225, 243; facilities, 263; Water and, 243 Saudi Arabia: in Afghanistan, 238; engagement with, 117; mujahedeen guerilla forces, 122–3; Taliban, 99, 239; Wahhabism, 18

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Index 417

Save the Children Canada, 218, 223 Save the Children Netherlands, 257, 317 school teachers, 174, 242, 246, 251–2, 255 Second Education Quality Improvement Project (equ i p i i ), 255–6 Security Council: The Compact, 295; i saf, 22; mandate, 42; Resolution 1325, 169; Resolution 1368, 20, 331n10; Resolution 1386, 103, 286; resolutions, 20; una m a, 23; u n peacekeeping interventions, 39; US, 327n15 security environment, 153–4 Security Sector Reform (s s r): ­centralized process, 145; issue area, 9; justice sector reforms, 162–3; long-term, 161; peacebuilding, 61; statebuilding, 51–2 security-development nexus: definition, 46–7; international donors, 32; isaf, 97; statebuilding, 31, 51 separatist movements, 43 Shah, Mohammed Zahir, 167, 237, 285 Sharia law, 19 sigar. See Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction signature projects: analysis, 9; Canada’s role, 10; education, 263, 278; Manley Report, 204, 240; polio, 204, 208; three, 10–13, 26, 30–1, 114–15, 130, 247–8 small- and medium-enterprise (sme), 171 social contract, 65, 327n20; breach of, 44–5, 281; emergence of a, 44; mutual agreement, 44; peaceand statebuilding, 52; resilience, 46; statebuilding, 51

32183_Grant.indd 417

social dislocation, 47 social mobility, 43 social protection, 205, 243–4, 297 social services, 44, 297 soldiers: allies, 116; a na , 153, 156; a nb p, 127–8, 133; Canadian, 11, 27, 29, 33, 117; child, 126; ddr , 134; death toll, 29; effectiveness, 117–18; ex-soldiers, 134; ghost, 59, 156, 272; Northern Alliance, 128; prt s, 27; state, 37; traditional 37 Somalia, 37, 39, 41, 302, 325n8 Sopko, John, 3, 146, 159, 272 Southern Afghanistan: combat ­mission in, 24; education in, 250, 257, 317; health programming in, 206, 221, 314; polio in, 208, 315; security situation in, 111; Taliban, 18; troops in, 114 Soviet Army, 18 Soviets, 122–4, 238 Soviet Union, 18, 282 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (siga r ), 3, 143, 146, 156, 162, 263, 272 stabilization: Canada’s engagement, 25, 104; centres, 223; de-, 69; funding, 281; future ­missions, 298–9; indigenous mechanisms for, 57; international community’s efforts, 32, 103; as a key objective, 69, 244; operations, 280; statebuilding, 51, 171, 197 Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (sta rt), 108 Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, 20

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418 Index

Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, 104 statebuilding phase, 25, 93, 122, 297 State Fragility: capacity to predict, 55; debates about, 82; overcoming, 41, 326n13; pathway to, 41–3, 45, 63 state-society relations, 46, 49, 328n20 state weakness, 47 strategy for Afghanistan, 7, 297 Strengthening Health Activities for the Rural Poor (s harp), 315; c i da programming, 204, 231; data, 226; funding, 211, 222; gender empowerment, 222; ­outputs and outcomes, 212–16, 222; role, 211, 276 suicide bomb attack, 27 Sunni, 18–19, 99, 237 Support to the Development of Free Media in Afghanistan, 170, 180, 275, 312 sustainable development: aw c , 173; education projects, 247; long-term outcome, 209, 249; partnerships, 73; peacebuilding, 40; security, 298; unsustainable development, 73 Sustainable Development Goals, 80 Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, 258 systematic oppression against women, 201 System Enhancement for Health Action in Transition (s ehat), 230, 316 Tajik, 99, 157, 285

32183_Grant.indd 418

Taliban regime: China, 344n14; Iran support, 291; Kandahar, 54; Northern Alliance, 99; oef, 20, 99, 286; Pakistan, 124; police infrastructure, 98; post-, 36, 152; security engagement, 97; ­warlords, 282 Taraki, Nur Mohammad, 18 Teacher Certification and Accreditation of Teacher Education, 253, 258, 319 Teacher Credentialling System, 254 Teacher Education Management Information System, 254 technical assistance: absorbing, 324n26; education programs, 248; equip, 256; gender ­capacity building, 183; German police reform, 144; goa, 281; moe, 253, 267; nesp-i, 266; peaceand statebuilding, 62; ssr, 151; teacher-training accreditation, 254 telecommunications, 22, 141 terrorism: Bonn Conderence, 22; Canada’s engagement, 24, 28, 105; international, 28, 331n4; likelihood comparison, 149; Resolution 1368, 20; Saddam Hussein, 280; threat of, 104–5; war on, 20, 46, 273 theory, 4, 9, 47, 50, 55 Tokyo Conference, 22–3, 103, 125, 273 trade: Canada-US border closure, 24, 105, 323n12; international, 76; narcotics, 112, 146–7, 149, 159, 273, 298; -off management, 64, 138, 291; markets, 291; opium, 19; training, 248–9; weapons, 37, 103

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Index 419

training mission: an a, 154; an p, 148, 336n25; Canada’s commitment, 115, 322n10; Operation at t e nti on , 33 transitional government, 22–3, 102, 202, 329n30 transition phase, 33, 93, 122 transparency and accountability, 30, 294; Canadian aid, 197, 321n1; development strategy, 323n9; strengthening, 84 tribal: Bonn Conference, 286; ­customs, 194; governance, 292; law, 19; leaders, 32, 286; Pashtun, 123; relations, 288; rivalries, 285; structures, 145; Taliban, 124 troops: American, 291; an a, 153, 156, 158; Canadian, 20, 24–5, 28, 30, 104–5, 108, 115, 178, 286; contributing countries, 6, 114, 280, 323n10; domestic ­support, 117; international, 33; i sa f, 105–7, 109; militia, 127; n ato, 108; peacekeeping, 42; restrictions on, 117; statebuilding, 295; withdrawal, 268 Trudeau, Justin, 322n10 trusteeship council, 187 Turkomens, 231 un Assistance Mission (u n am a), 103, 127, 142; coordinating body, 23, 333n3; creation, 23, 103; funding, 24, 127, 273; ­operating entities, 103; programs supported, 142, 310; report, 175 und p : anti-personnel mine destruction program, 128; channelling funds through, 273; ci da

32183_Grant.indd 419

partnership, 127, 183; development effectiveness, 294; development trajectory model, 161; disbursement decisions, 23, 335n14; programs, 310–11, 317 unicef: anbp, 126; cida funded, 189, 194; education, 251–3, 258, 341n29; moe, 266; polio, 205, 208, 211, 217, 222, 229; programs, 213, 312–15, 318–19 unic ef’s Maternal Waiting Home, 178, 206 United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, 322n3 United Kingdom, 20, 129, 287 United Nations (un), 7, 23, 28, 290, 328n24; agencies, 76, 84; An Agenda for Peace, 38; channelling funds, 31, 110, 132; ­cluster approach, 210; envoy, 283; force, 103, 286; funding, 24; integrated mission approach, 53; mediation, 124; member state, 75; peacebuilding, 40, 169, 328n28; peace interventions, 37, 39; peacekeepers, 38, 42; trusteeship, 48; women, 176–7, 313 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. See un Assistance Mission United Nations Children’s Fund, 205 United States: Canadian support, 20, 104; corruption, 146–7; as a donor, 129, 335n12; Iraq ­intervention, 112; reconstruction effort, 290; Soviets, 122; strategy, 287. See also Afghan National Army; Operation Enduring Freedom

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420 Index

un Mine Action Services (u n m as ), 131, 134–5, 310–11 un peacekeepers, 38 unp ro f or, 42 un Resource Center for Women in Politics (rcw p), 176 un trusteeship, 48 un Trust Fund for Human Security, 36, 325n3 usa i d , 73, 204, 335n12, 336n24 US defence policy, 28 US Department of Defence, 155–6 US Government Accountability Office (g ao), 155, 158 US invasion of Iraq, 25, 28 US Office of Military CooperationAfghanistan (om c-a), 154 US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. See Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction US war against terror, 24, 104 Uzbeks, 99, 157 variables: controlling, 343n9; ­influence on Canada’s Afghanistan programming, 13, 198; intervening, 279; poverty, 43; state fragility, 43 Vocational Training for Afghan Women: ci da, 312–13; 317; funding, 248–9; initiative, 175; purpose, 249, 275; 312–13, 317 Wahhabism, 18 War Child Canada, 173, 250, 313, 318 war on terrorism, 20 war-torn societies, 51

32183_Grant.indd 420

Washington: 9/11, 17, 41, 98; ­perception of Canada, 24, 105; support by, 157; US administration, 287 Weberian: conception, 148; nations, 287; state, 41, 61, 138, 287, 293; understanding, 153 whole-of-government approach, 26, 105, 305 wire, 27, 30 W oG approach: Canada’s, 54, 113, 268, 305; development of a, 54; doctrine, 53; goa, 211; national, 53; polities, 55; prts, 26; 53–5, 113, 211, 268, 305 W oG concept, 53 Wolfensohn, James, 70 women parliamentarians, 178. See female parliamentarians women’s rights: Canadian obligation, 166; dialogue on, 175; efforts to advance, 167, 179, 184; gender strategy, 168; in Islam, 174; mowa , 180; negative impact, 168, 232; perspective, 174; project failure, 275; promote, 165, 174, 176; respect for, 299; at risk, 184; supporting, 168, 174, 198; training, 173; ­violations of, 185 Women’s Rights in Afghanistan Fund (wr fa ), 170, 180, 312 World Employment Programme, 68 World Health Organization (who), 205 World Trade Center, 17 World University Service of Canada (c a r e-wusc ), 248–9, 254, 275, 313, 317, 319

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