Afghanistan: Rethinking
Humanitarian Assistance
M. Ashraf Haidari
March 1, 2011
About 8 million Afghans, or more than one out of every four residents of the
war-torn country, are in acute need of humanitarian assistance. The best way to
meet this tremendous demand is through long-term investment in Afghanistan’s
sustainable development.
Right now humanitarian aid efforts in Afghanistan feature a multitude of
competing foreign aid organizations, bypassing the Afghan government, trying to
find more trucks and safer routes to deliver more food rations or drinking water
to an ever increasing number of destitute people. This method is neither
desirable nor sustainable. The strategic solution to humanitarian access is
prevention through institutional capacity building, and the investment of a
greater share of foreign aid resources in Afghanistan’s socio-economic
development.
Through many international conferences on Afghanistan—from the Tokyo
Conference in 2002 to the Kabul Conference last July—the Afghan government has
appealed to the donor community to comply with the objectives of its own
need-based development strategy, an integral part of which is properly sequenced
development and humanitarian aid to ensure the effective management of crises
when they occur. The country continues to call on its nation-partners to deliver
on a pledge made at the Kabul Conference to channel at least 50 percent of their
aid resources through the Afghan state, while ensuring that their independent
aid efforts comply with the priorities of Afghanistan ’s National Development
Strategy.
While present obstacles to humanitarian access must be overcome, durable
solutions based on the Afghan development strategy must be assessed and given
priority attention. In other words, helping the Afghan government design
targeted and prioritized reconstruction and development projects geared towards
prevention and management of natural or man-made disasters will go a long way
toward lifting up 8 million Afghans out of abject poverty.
Representatives of the international community are quick to point to the
issue of corruption in explaining their hesitancy to give greater authority to
Afghan authorities and citizens in determining their own fate. But the doubters
should keep in mind that there are existing programs that are producing results.
One prime example of success is Afghanistan ’s National Solidarity Program.
Utilizing block grants, people in over 20,000 villages across Afghanistan have
organized in community development councils to identify their own local needs,
and, working with an implementing non-governmental organization, either local or
international, to address those needs. This process is helping to slowly build
the capacity of poor Afghan villagers. It is also promoting gender equity in
decision-making, and is facilitating humanitarian access to communities where
insecurity often makes it hard for international aid organizations to deliver
assistance.
Although existing insecurity is a major factor fueling humanitarian needs in
Afghanistan, warfare is not the sole source of distress. The country is
landlocked and features a rough, arid and inaccessible terrain. Even during
peaceful times, Afghanistan was vulnerable to humanitarian crises, created by
frequent natural disasters, including droughts, earthquakes and disease.
Even when peace finally returns to Afghanistan , the threat of humanitarian
emergencies will not recede. Afghanistan needs to be prepared for a normal
future.
M Ashraf Haidari is an international security and development analyst who
works with Afghanistan ’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He formerly served as the
chargé d'affaires and political counselor of the Embassy of Afghanistan in
Washington, DC.
The above article originally appeared in
Eurasianet.org. Reprinted here with permission from the author.
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