Afghanistan:Japan’s Experiences Revisited

December 2008
Afghanistan Study Group Japan
Compiled under the auspices ofJapan Institute of International Affairs

CONTENTS

Summary Recommendations……………………………………………………………..1
Chapter 1

Afghanistan Nation Building, Six Years On………………………………7

Chapter 2

Three Different Layers of Discussion on the International Intervention in

Afghanistan…………………………………………………………………………………22
Chapter 3

Lessons Learned from the provision of Japanese Assistance toAfghanistan since ‘9/11’……………………………………………………………………27
Chapter 4

Principles for good international engagement with Afghanistan………43

Short CV: Members of Afghanistan Study Group Japan

Supported by the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), 'Afghanistan Study
Group Japan', whose membership has experience in assisting various sectors in
Afghanistan, was formed and conducted a series of discussions on the international
intervention in Afghanistan since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Under the auspices of the
JIIA, the ASGJ presents summary recommendations, which was made based on thegroup's discussions. The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily represent
those of the organizations with which the respective ASGJ members are affiliated.

Summary Recommendations

The state of Afghanistan remains fragile despite seven years of international
assistance. Since 11 September 2001, the international community has focused onstate-building and reconstruction in Afghanistan in the hopes of winning the “war on
terror”. However, in reality, anti-government forces have gained influence over thesouthern and eastern parts of the country, empowering the terrorist elements. The
people’s lives remain difficult, with weak government and rampant corruption. The
initial confidence and hopes that people had toward the government and theinternational community have drastically diminished, leading them instead to rely
reluctantly on anti-government forces for security and livelihood.
As a recent response, the international community signed the Afghanistan
Compact at the London Conference in January 2006, promising assistance as thegovernment progresses in the areas of governance, security and reconstruction. Theinternational community also reaffirmed its continued commitment to assisting thecountry at the NATO Conference in April 2008, recognizing that the improvement of
security in Afghanistan is the highest priority. However, despite the refocus on security
sector reform and talks about NATO force expansion, the security situation has yet to
improve.
The ASGJ contends that the international intervention efforts need to be
refocused on improving and securing the actual lives of the people. Much of the aid has
focused on a “top-down approach”, from the perspectives of donors and the Afghan
government, perhaps in haste to build the state. However, this has resulted in lesser
attention given to the actual needs and insecurity of the Afghan people in their1communities, and at times has created a vacuum exploited by destructive elements.
ASGJ thus calls to attention the following points:
1.

Importance of addressing the “human security” needs of the Afghan people incommunities as a matter of priority.
i)

The majority, if not all, Afghans live by distinctive rules and codes ofconduct established historically by communities with strong ties totheir ethnicity and tribes. The international intervention should focus
on strengthening and building up these communities, not destroying
them. Improving human security – protection, capacity building, anddevelopment -- in these communities to make them resistant toterrorism is the most effective way to counter terrorism.

ii)

The international community should readjust its assistance to ensure“Afghan ownership” with a view to improving relations between thegovernment and the people in communities. The government shouldbe empowered to directly provide protection for the livelihood anddignity of the people to enhance national solidarity.

2.

“Human security” can only be ensured through promoting reconciliation

amongst the population and establishing social order and sustainable livelihood inindividual communities.
i)

Restoring social order
While security sector reform remains one of the key requirements instabilizing the country, it has yet to produce satisfactory results. Many of thecurrent challenges should be readdressed from a “human security” perspective
centered on communities.
The immediate objective of the Afghan National Army (ANA) supported by theinternational forces is to fight terrorism. An army is not a tool to directly
provide security to people in communities. What is happening in reality is that
communities themselves are being destroyed as military operations combat
terrorists mixed amongst communities, resulting in further alienation of thepeople. This paradox should seriously be addressed and the rules ofengagement, along with the role of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs),
should be clarified and aligned.
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and Disarmament of2

Illegally Armed Groups (DIAG) have been intended to promote human security
in communities.

However, in reality, the continued lack of security andalternative livelihoods is hindering progress. The DIAG process in particular isstifled in the north, for example, as people in the south are rearmed to form an“auxiliary police” to fight terrorism alongside the ANA.
The establishment of the Afghan National Police (ANP) was thought to be
crucial in restoring law and order. However, the formation of the police has
been painfully slow and its mission remains ambiguous, especially in relation
to the auxiliary police.
These ambiguities in the functions of various security establishments-- ANA, ISAF, PRT, ANP and the auxiliary police – and the slow establishmentof the rule of law in communities feeds the distrust of the people toward thegovernment.
For these establishments to take roots, it is absolutely important topromote cooperation and coordination with leaders and representatives of local
communities.
ii)

Restoring relations and trust between people
Although a legitimate government has been established through theBonn process, the government still lacks the capacity to protect its citizens fromthreats to their survival and enable them to maintain their livelihoods anddignity.

While the government capacity must continue to be built with a“top-down” approach, efforts must also be made to strengthen self-sufficiency
and sustainability of communities with a “bottom-up” approach. These efforts
must be built on the existing system and the rules of Afghan society. In thissense, proposals and plans on security and order developed by local
communities should be respected and followed by the government.
“Ownership” requires giving choices to the Afghan government and its
people to rebuild their society in manners that are compatible with their waysof life. Values forced from the outside cannot take root. In order to encourage
Afghan “ownership”, it is important that donors improve their own ability toidentify Afghan capacity and to encourage and draw upon it. Current modes ofassistance need to be reviewed, and changes in “behavior” and “mentality”
made, by donors.
It is also important not to forget the coming generation of Afghans.
There are many youths who are understandably concerned about their3

country’s future. Empowering the next generation is a must for the long-term
stability of the nation.
Afghan state-building requires establishment of a social order basedon existing community-level rules and structures. It is therefore important toempower rural communities to enhance security and economic development.
The Community Development Council (CDC) established under the National
Solidarity Program (NSP) has been hailed as a success story in promoting ruraldevelopment. The program encourages community initiatives and ownership,
but also at times destroys the existing community order.

If reviewed andredesigned to respect communities’ ways of life, the program has the potential
not only to form a base for development activities but also to enhance security
in rural communities.
iii)

Providing alternative livelihoods
For counter-narcotics efforts, DIAG, reintegration of refugees andother activities to succeed, it is necessary to secure alternative livelihoods.
Counter-narcotics measures cannot be sustained by eradication alone anddisarmed men will need alternative sources of income and security.

The

international community and the government should establish a strategy not
only to create immediate jobs, but also to build an economic structural base tofacilitate the flow of goods in markets.
iv)

Promoting reconciliation
Having experienced 23 years of open violence between various
domestic factions, the Afghan people will eventually require ways to resolve
past injustices if they are to regain trust and form a solid nation. Amongst thediverse sources of animosity, the most crucial one to address is the Taliban issue.
The problems of security and disorder in the rural areas will never be solved if
the Taliban remain excluded.

With the above observations, ASGJ recommends the following:1.

Restore social order
The on-going international assistance in the security sector and other areas

should be reviewed with a focus on promoting human security. Practical suggestions

4

include:i)

ANA and NATO/ISAF need to clarify and strictly adhere to their rulesof engagement.

Various PRTs should also align their Terms ofReference and clarify their roles.
ii)

The roles of the national police as well as the auxiliary police should beclarified and promoted among the general public.

While central

authorities should continue to be trained in law enforcement, ruralcommunities

shouldbeempoweredtomaintainthenationally-established rule of law in their villages.
iii)

The existing rules and codes of conduct in rural communities should be
respected and strengthened. People in smaller communities should
also be made responsible not only for local development activities but
also for local governance and security.

iv)

A security plan developed by local leaders and some volunteers
utilizing local community networks that has recently been identified
by the ASGJ should be examined by the government and theinternational community, and be made a base for cooperation andcoordination

betweenlocal

peopleandthegovernment

andinternational community.
v)

International advisors should not functionally replace Afghan government
authorities, but instead should focus on training and capacity-building
the government. Donors should revisit Item 21 of the Co-chair's
Summary of Conclusions adopted at the Tokyo International
Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan dated 22
January 2002, and work to harmonize their operational practices
regarding the distortionary wage and rent inflation they have caused
that is undermining the government’s state-building efforts.

2.

Promote sustainable livelihood
To promote the human security of people in communities, economic structuralbases must be built to sustain alternative livelihoods. While working to establish a“top-down” economic infrastructure, local communities should also be empowered topromote “bottom-up” efforts to meet half-way in building a sustainable economy.
Examples of this are as follows:i)

The international community should support the Afghan governmentin establishing regional strategies for infrastructure, industrial and5market development.

The donors should then support theimplementation of the strategies, starting with those regions having
the most potential to succeed.
ii)

Review and redesign NSP initiatives to better promote human security
in communities.

With the continued support of donors, thecommunity-led initiatives should be eventually linked to othernational programs and sectors to expand their impact and ensuresustainability.
iv)

Multi-year training programs should be developed for both public andprivate sector personnel, as well as for youth.

3.

Promote reconciliation
A procedure should be established to incorporate the moderate Taliban andothers who were excluded from the Bonn process. The list of terrorists established by
the international community should be revised, with agreement by the Afghan
government, to drop those who have proven their genuine willingness to participate instate-building.
4.

Minimize external interference
While encouraging domestic solidarity and development, the international

community should also focus assistance on minimizing the impact of externalinterference. Practical areas include:i)

Promoting dialogue with Pakistan, Iran and other neighboring
countriesii)

Improving border control not only to stop the flow of drugs but also tofacilitate the flow of legal tradeiii)

Enforcing strict laws against drug-lords and traffickers, and notpunishing rural farmers who have no alternative source of livelihoodand security

6

Chapter 1
Afghanistan Nation-Building, Six Years On(*This paper was written in April 2008)
Maki Shinohara
On 11 September 2001, the world realized that peace and security in the 21st
century required not only defending state borders, but also fighting against elusive
enemies mixed amongst peoples, even far from home. 1 That fateful day thus changed thecourse of history of Afghanistan, which had for too long been ignored by the world.
International aid was mobilized for Afghanistan at an unprecedented speed -- in part outof shocking revelation that a forgotten country with people left in desperate violence andpoverty had become a launch pad for terrorists to strike at the heart of world power, andin part, of course, to show solidarity with the United States, which had suffered thehorrible event.

For whatever other reasons, the international intervention in

Afghanistan gained wide legitimacy in the context of the “War Against Terror” declaredby US President George W. Bush, however ambiguous the concept remained.
Yet, after six years of international intervention, Afghanistan’s future seems
more uncertain than ever. In fact, the initial euphoria of hope and optimism expressedby millions of Afghans returning throughout the country to reconstruct their lives is
rapidly turning into anxieties and doubts as violence increases in many parts of thecountry. Despite the international promises of a better life, many Afghans are losing
confidence, frustrated by corrupt authorities and the continued lack of stable
employment.

As a result, the democratically elected government is rapidly losing

popularity. Why is the situation unraveling and turning away from peace and stability,
despite the years of international efforts designed to improve the people’s lives? Why dodestructive forces continue to thrive unabated, even with the presence of international
troops? In an attempt to address similar questions, there have been many studies
published in recent months calling for a renewed strategy for Afghanistan, 2 but few
analyses go beyond military and security strategies.

1 See “The Utility of Force – the Art of War in the Modern World,” by Gen. Rupert Smith on the changing nature ofconflict.
2 See for example, “Revitalizing our efforts, Rethinking our Strategies,” Afghanistan Study Group report, 30

January 2008, Center for the Study of the Presidency; “Saving Afghanistan: An Appeal and Plan for Urgent Action,”Issue Brief, January 2008, Atlantic Council of the United States; “Afghanistan: The Need for International Resolve,”
Asia Report No.145, 6 February 2008, International Crisis Group.

7

This paper provides an introductory overview of achievements made in
Afghanistan since 2001, and outlines key issues as clues toward overcoming the current
concerns. It emphasizes the perspectives of the people, in the hopes of bringing theassistance debate to the community level so that the nature and progress of theinternational intervention as a whole may be reviewed with a refocus on humansecurity.

International intervention since 9/11
The swiftness with which governments have acted on Afghanistan following the
9/11 attacks is rather spectacular, if ambitious. The so-called Bonn process, establishedin December 2001, has guided the country through the adoption of a constitution as wellas presidential and parliamentary elections. Unlike previous post-conflict interventions
where

international

bodiestook

overadministrationincountries

such

as

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Cambodia and East Timor, the international intervention
in Afghanistan is characterized as “small footprint”, emphasizing the importance ofAfghan ownership and mindfully placing the UN peace-keeping mission (UNAMA) inthe back seat to assist the government in caring for its people. The international efforts
have focused on three main sectors -- security, governance and reconstruction – andresponsibilities for supporting government programs have been divided between donors
and aid agencies. In terms of aid policies, conscious efforts have been made to support a“seamless transition” from emergency humanitarian aid to development assistance,with a view to facilitating the early recovery of a self-sufficient state. The reconstructionof Afghanistan has thus begun, designed to create a “modern” state from what was left
in the remains of war.
Chronology 3
On 12 September 2001, UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1368
authorizes international intervention in Afghanistan to combat “threats to international
peace and security caused by terrorist acts.” On 7 October the US and the UK launch air
strikes against Afghanistan as the Taliban refuse to hand over Osama bin Laden, held
responsible for the 9/11 attacks. By mid-November, the coalition forces, aided by theAfghan Northern Alliance, oust the Taliban regime in Kabul and humanitarian aid
workers resume emergency assistance. On 5 December, Afghan leaders agree on theBonn peace process and Hamid Karzai heads the power-sharing arrangement. On 20
December, UNSCR 1386 authorizes the deployment of the International Security
3 Compiled from BBC, Reuters and UN documents.

8

Assistance Force (ISAF) to aid the interim authority. As the coalition forces drive the
Taliban from Kandahar, millions of refugees and internally displaced Afghans begin to
return.
Some sixty donor governments gather in Tokyo in January 2002, and pledge atotal of US$4.5 billion in reconstruction aid. ISAF begins to deploy, but only in Kabul.
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) continues hunting for Al Qaeda and Taliban
remnants in the southeast. In June, the Grand Council (Loya Jirga) confirms Hamid
Karzai as head of the Afghan Transitional Authority. By August 2003, NATO takes over
ISAF command. Outside the capital, however, terrorists attack aid workers as they areseen to be on the side of the Western-backed interim administration.
In January 2004, the Loya Jirga adopts a new constitution and, in April, donors
pledge US$8 billion in Berlin. Presidential elections are held in October, with a turnoutof nearly three-quarters of some 10 million registered voters. Hamid Karzai wins 55% of
the vote, well over the 16% gained by the runner-up, and is officially inaugurated in
December. By September 2005, the first parliamentary and provincial elections in morethan 30 years are held.
In February 2006, the Afghan Compact is launched in London outlining arenewed framework of cooperation between Afghanistan and the international
community.

Donors pledge over US$10 billion in reconstruction assistance for a

five-year period. In May, violent anti-US protests erupt in Kabul, following an incident
in which a US military vehicle crushed several Afghans.

The number of civilian

casualties continues to rise as OEF battles rage in the south. By July 2006, NATO takes
over military operations from the US-led coalition forces in the south and eventually theeast. Heavy fighting ensues in the southern provinces as the NATO and Afghan forces
combat the anti-government forces.
In May 2007, Afghan and Pakistani troops clash over border disputes. By
August, the UN reports a record yield in poppy cultivation, making the country theworld’s top producer of opium. In November, a suicide attack on a parliamentarydelegation kills 41 people in the north. On 15 January 2008, militants strike the Serena
Hotel in Kabul, killing 8 Afghans and foreigners.

9

Achievements to dateBy 2007, Afghanistan as a whole has achieved much progress, not the least on
the surface. Kabul has become a bustling city, with mobile phones and some spectacularconstructions fit for a modern world. The city boasts glitzy department stores withcustomers window-shopping in burkas. On the outskirts, what was once a dried-up dam
left in ruins by battle now contains plenty of water and floating gazebos, offering apeaceful weekend get-away for local families. In the vast plain of Shomali, north of thecapital, the long deserted and mine-infested landscape has become busy with villagers
and markets, steadily recovering as the region’s bread-basket.
On the human development scale, more than 5 million refugees and displaced
people have returned after years in exile and 6 million children are back to school,
including 2 million girls. The health sector has improved, with 82% of the population
covered by basic health-care services. 4 The abysmal infant mortality rate has steadily
declined by 18% since 2001 5 , and more mothers are being taught general hygiene tobetter protect their children. More than 132 million square meters of land have beencleared of mines and much of the ring-road highway has been restored, leaving a portion
under construction in the insecure south. 6
In terms of governance, the Bonn process has successfully led the state toassume a democratic structure, defying earlier doubts over the feasibility of theestablished timeline. Persistent fighting between warlords have been quelled with somelegally incorporated into the political structure, and over 60,000 former soldiers havedisarmed and demobilized. Disputed revenue from border customs has been
incorporated into the national budget and the rate of economic growth has steadily risenby 8 to 14% in the past two years. The daily lives of the majority of Afghans haveundoubtedly become more stable, save for occasional drought and other natural
disasters.
Challenges
Despite the progress, however, insurgent activities and terrorist violence are on
the rise. The UN reports a 20% increase in violent incidents between 2006 and 2007.

4 “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security,” Report of theSecretary-General to the General Assembly Sixty-second session, 21 September 2007.

5 “Afghanistan Health Sector Balanced Scorecard”, Round Three, Afghan Ministry of Public Health with Johns

Hopkins University & Indian Institute of Health, 2006.
6 Ibid.

10Over 100 suicide attacks are recorded annually and are now reaching Kabul and thenorth. Rural communities remain desperately poor but some are too dangerous for aid
to reach. Areas accessible to aid workers have fallen to 55% of the country, according to
the UN, and the fatal attack on the Serena Hotel in January 2008 is forcing
international aid workers to restrain their efforts further.

Meanwhile, open “waragainst terror” continues to rage in the south and the country seems to be moving
farther away from a “post-conflict” state.
The security situation naturally impacts also on the economy. The Afghan
Investment Support Agency reported a 50% decrease in business investment in 2007,
citing as factors the spread of insecurity and kidnapping, in addition to slow progress inprivate business reform and heavy bureaucracy. 7

Conversely, the illegal economy isbooming. In the absence of an agreement on effective counter-narcotics measures, poppy
cultivation and production continue to expand. According to a recent World Bank survey,
Afghanistan supplies more than 90% of the world’s opium, revenue from which accounts
for 30% of its GDP. 8 Uncontrolled drug production further stifles the restoration of law
and order, feeding corruption, extremists and organized crime abroad.

While theTaliban regime seemed to have managed the issue, the inability to effectively control
narcotics wins no points for the current government.

Lessons Learned
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the international community promptly
agreed on the need to intervene in Afghanistan with near unanimous approval. Six
years down the road, however, the initial enthusiasm has sadly declined as the country
disappears from the world headlines. By the end of 2007, the dissonance among theinternational community had become a public issue. The lack of coordination between
troop mandates and civilian assistance have come to the fore and disagreements
between the US and NATO countries over troop deployments have become an open
dispute. The relations between the Afghan government and major donors have soured
with the former’s rejection of a strong coordinator to oversee the international efforts.
On the ground, both civilian and military personnel engaged in assisting Afghanistan
have come to realize just how difficult it is in reality to build a “modern” state across avast and porous land that barely scores on the human development index.

Some

7 Figures and comments released by Afghan Investment Support Agency reported in the Financial Times, 29

January 2008.
8 “Afghanistan: Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production,” The World Bankand DFID, February 2008.

11

assistance programs have been effective but others have produced more problems,
however well-intentioned at the start. Looking back, the international intervention in
Afghanistan has suffered a series of teetering, if not confused, emphasis between
military objectives and civilian assistance goals.

To begin breaking the current

stalemate, it is perhaps useful to examine some of the developments from theperspective of Afghan communities.
Security
When the Taliban was driven out of Kabul, people were enthusiastic about the
future prospects for rebuilding their lives and country in peace. The organized brutalityof the Taliban rule was over, yet violence did not disappear from the country as a whole.
Kabul alone enjoyed relative security, with the arrival of ISAF to guard the capital, but
the south remained a war-zone as the coalition forces fought Al Qaeda and remnants ofthe belligerent Taliban. Warlords were still fighting in the north, west and southeast
and, as demobilization went underway, commanders of smaller groups roamed freely
harassing villagers in remote communities. Most of the warlords and commanders had
since disbanded, but the crime rate remained high in rural areas where there was avacuum of law and order and a prevailing culture of impunity. In the early years, manyof these sources of insecurity, affecting mainly rural communities, were left unaddressedso as not to destabilize the newly established interim authority and perhaps dampen theinternational commitment.

Even the Afghan authorities themselves did not takesecurity seriously at first, as they were more focused on absorbing the reconstruction
and development aid. It was not until 2003 that security issues surfaced openly in theinternational debate, after the killing of foreign aid workers in the southern provinces. 9
Meanwhile, as the “war against terror” gained an international consensus,
Operation Enduring Freedom was never in question. Its strategy and tactics were
military matters led by the US. The US above all was not interested initially inrebuilding Afghanistan, but only in capturing Osama bin Laden. Nor was the US eager
to deploy ISAF outside of Kabul, despite several requests made by President Karzai and
Mr. Brahimi, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan, foradditional troops to patrol the provinces. 10 By 2003, insecurity in the deeper south was
spreading and the US soldiers on the border were tasked with endless battles with
9 On 27 March 2003, Ricardo Mungia of ICRC was killed at a checkpoint in Kandahar. Mullah Dadullah, a Talibancommander responsible for ordering the killing and for the organization of numerous suicide attacks, was killed in a
NATO raid in May 2007. On 16 November 2003, Bettina Goilard of the UNHCR was killed in a fusillade of bullets
while driving in Ghazni.
10 “Afghanistan and Iraq: Failed States or Failed Wars?” Lakhdar Brahimi Lecture on Public Policy, Princeton
University, 28 March 2007.

12

insurgents crossing freely across the border. 11 Then came the US war on Iraq. The
newly opened frontline perhaps served to buy some security time for Afghanistan, as theforeign extremists rushed over to fight the Americans in Iraq. However, the Iraq
experience only seemed to have created a new generation of better–trained and morevicious rebel fighters who eventually returned to the Afghan border, and violence surged
in 2006.

The war on Iraq not only impacted Afghanistan security-wise but, more

importantly, it diverted attention and world resources.
Governance: threats to legitimacy and national solidarity
Despite the success of the presidential and parliamentary elections, people
have begun to express disappointments and doubts about their elected government. The
rush in international assistance has undoubtedly created expectations amongst the
war-affected population, perhaps at unrealistic levels. While schools and canals arebeing reconstructed with development assistance and many areas are free of generalviolence, many Afghans are still left without job security. Impressively large houses in
the city are built by the rich few, creating some jobs but only temporarily. Electricity
remains a problem, hindering industrial development, and corruption and generalcrimes are often left unaddressed, particularly in the rural communities. 12 Meanwhile,
Afghans see affluent internationals shuttling around in armored vehicles, rarely
communicating with ordinary people on the street. Whether or not they are justified,more Afghans are questioning the fairness or prospects of the current situation as
expressed in the local media.
Facing past criticisms for traveling too often abroad, President Karzai has been
touring throughout the country since 2007, meeting people directly. While his presenceis zealously welcomed by villagers, it is difficult to govern a country by personality alone.
His personal apologies are certainly appreciated by people affected by misguided NATOattacks 13 , for example, but what is alienating people are not just the occasional
misguided missiles but the frustration that the central government is incapable ofcaring for their lives, particularly in rural areas.
11 There were only speculations about the impossible fights against insurgents at the porous border until Frank
Gardner of the BBC produced a report in 2003.
12 Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabit tirelessly sees individuals who travel for days from all over the country toseek his audience and justice. While he impressively handles every claim on the spot with his legal texts and mobile
phones, one is left to wonder if this is an effective way to rule justice in a vast country with more than 30 million
people. (Taped and interviewed in May 2007)
13 On 16 May 2007, the President flew to Shindand to speak to some 600 villagers after 57 civilians had been killed

in a NATO airstrike between 25 and 27 April. The ICRC reported 173 houses had been destroyed and nearly 2,000
people left homeless by the attack.

13

Of course, building the state capacity is no easy task. As one government
official put it: “Afghans do not have the experience and do not know what a ‘democracy’
looks like, even for us in the government.” Combine that with the serious lack of
bureaucratic capacity to build a “modern” state, and it will still take years for public
systems to function satisfactorily throughout the country. Reality cannot wait, however.
Without effective measures to address corruption, insecurity and steady income, thegovernment cannot be expected to maintain credibility and the trust of its people. The
blame will continue to go to the most visible, Western-backed president.
Aid dilemma
As parts of Afghanistan are becoming insecure and civilian aid workers areseen as government-supporting “enemies” from the rebels’ perspective, civilian access to
those areas has lessened. However, desperate needs remain that require reaching thosepeople, lest the extremists get to them first, making the place even more hostile. There
have been endless debates over an aid dilemma: assistance is most needed to stabilize
insecure areas, but it cannot be delivered to insecure areas. Even humanitarian aid
agencies experienced in emergencies cannot be expected to run the gauntlet, and somestability is required for longer-term development assistance.

Civilian and military aid
Hence, provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) have been created to support aid
access as well as to build schools and bridges, technically in areas that civilian agencies
cannot reach. Nonetheless, this has also created much confusion. It is hardly possible
for Afghan villagers to distinguish between combat troops and those in PRTs assisting
communities, while such a distinction is simply moot for the rebels. Sometimes evencombat troops deliver assistance to villages and each PRT has a distinct mandate
assigned by the home country. NGOs have raised serious concerns over such military
engagement, claiming that it jeopardizes the neutrality of humanitarian aid . 14
As controversial as the PRTs may be, however, the need for assistance remains
large in remote, insecure areas. Without tangible benefits and protection from thecentral government, people are left without much choice but to obey the rebels’ rules.

14 Most aid activities in Afghanistan are clearly on the side of stability, supporting the government, than on that ofthe destabilizing rebels, yet agencies have legitimate concerns that the cross-over between military and civilian
activities will further compromise safety of their aid operations. For a study on the military-civilian debate, see forexample, “Fighting for Humanitarian Space: NGOs in Afghanistan,” Lara Olsen, Journal of Military and Strategic
Studies, Fall 2006, Vol 9, Issue 1.

14

Nevertheless, as Deputy Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development Asif
Rahimi said, “PRTs may be helpful in building schools in insecure areas, but they could
never substitute for the official development program nor cover the whole country.” 15 To
begin addressing this civilian-military dilemma, it would be useful if, on the one hand,
the military mandate would be clarified and coordinated and, on the other,humanitarian and development agencies would find ways to reach areas that may not be
100% secure. The latter, of course, requires deeper understanding of communities andthe cooperation of the Afghan people.

Humanitarian relief and development aid
One of the objectives in assisting Afghanistan has been to bridge the gap as
quickly as possible between emergency humanitarian aid and development assistance.
Since their engagement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, humanitarian agencies such as UNHCR
have been addressing the existence of an unavoidable time gap between the two types ofaid. For communities to become stable and self-sustainable, people must at some pointcease to depend on humanitarian aid. Development assistance then becomes importantin providing people with tools and skills to take charge of their livelihood but, as mostdevelopment agencies have limited experience operating in unstable conditions,humanitarian requirements tend to lag. In the Afghanistan experience, the government
itself provides the crucial missing link between humanitarian and development actors.
Supporting the authorities and enhancing their capacity, therefore, has become the corerequirement for effective delivery of international assistance.
The efforts to fill this “transition gap” have been a continuous challenge inpractice, however. While many development agencies managed to engage relatively
early, they have had to learn on the job to deliver under unpredictable situations.
Meanwhile, Afghan capacity has to be built to absorb the assistance schemes. The
so-called “transition gap” in assistance may be due also to the inevitable difference infunding bases. The bulk of humanitarian aid is delivered by multilateral agencies suchas the UN. As requirements shift to development needs, larger development projects aredelivered directly by governments. Bilateral aid by nature tends to be more rigid in its
delivery requirements, as it comes under closer domestic scrutiny by the donor country.
As such, development programs take more time before implementation, requiring more
careful planning and agreements between the donor government and the recipient
government. The gradual diversification and decentralization of international
15 Interviewed on 22 May 2007 in Kabul.

15

assistance may be due partly to this shift in the nature of assistance. Yet, the burden of
improving the delivery system still lies with the donor community.

Rethinking “ownership”
To enhance Afghan ownership, the Afghan government led by then Minister ofFinance Ashraf Ghani established a Consultative Group (CG) for each sector, withvarious donors and international agencies signing up to support the line ministries. CGs
offer an innovative structure to coordinate international assistance under the Afghan
national

budget,officially

executableasgovernment

strategy.

Theactualimplementation, however, has been more than a challenge, as international actors havefound a gaping lack of bureaucratic capacity in the Afghan government to absorb aid.
Those who can communicate in English are precious few among the ministries and thosehaving college degrees even fewer. What the international workers are facing is a sad
result of the violent past that has over 23 years created a “lost generation”. Educatedyounger Afghans returning from abroad, on the other hand, tend to seek higher-paying
jobs with international agencies, which understandably angers the Afghan authorities.
In such circumstances, “placing Afghans in the driving seat” or respecting “ownership”
inevitably has been more on paper, or in spirit at best, than in reality, when in fact tasksneeded to get done yesterday. If “ownership” is to be seriously addressed, there needs tobe a refocus on building Afghan capacity from a longer-term multi-generational
perspective beyond the current focus on secondary school education.
If securing a stable Afghanistan is a requirement for global security, theinternational community may need to refocus its strategy for building Afghan capacity.
Afghan “ownership” by definition requires sufficient level of delegation of authority to
the nascent government, however clumsy it may seem. It remains the responsibility ofdonors to ensure that a given program actually supports the will of the Afghans and torefrain from donor-driven assistance as much as possible.

Should Western-style“democracy” be hastily enforced beyond their capacity, for example, the efforts are boundto fail.
Way Forward
Human security
In reviewing the international intervention in Afghanistan to date, its
effectiveness must be evaluated against the progress in enhancing human security. 16 In

16 For a comprehensive study on human security, see “Human Security Now”, Report of the UN Commission on
Human Security, May 2003.

16

Afghanistan, state security itself remains fragile, but military efforts to improve state
security should not come at the expense of human security, nor should the responsibilityof ensuring human security be left with the military alone. Military intervention may be
a tool to improve state security, which is important, but it only partially serves the
security needs of the civilian population in communities.

People require a morecomprehensive sense of security -- including physical welfare, employment, education,etc. – in order to exercise their rights in all aspects of human life. To put it in thesimplest terms, what the majority of Afghan citizens long for as basic guarantees are
security (no more conflict), law and order (no arbitrary harassments in theircommunities) and sustainable livelihoods.

If for whatever reason people see thegovernment as unable or unwilling to fulfill these expectations, discontent will grow andin turn feed the destabilizing forces. As the government capacity is low, all the more
attention must be paid to raising the level of self-sufficiency of rural communities, toeventually tie in with the central administration.
In this respect, the establishment of the Community Development Council(CDC) under the National Solidarity Program is an interesting initiative designed tohave communities work together through the reestablishment of communal
structures. 17 It is an ambitious national program designed eventually to reach all areas.
The on-going experiment illustrates the difficulties of working in communities thatmerit further studies and modifications. One report recommends that the program
diversify projects to include income-generation activities for future sustainability andwarns that, once people are mobilized, the results of unfulfilled expectations can beharmful. 18 While building roads or waterways is no doubt beneficial to the communities,
what the people need are jobs to sustain their livelihood and to be able to build on suchinitiatives and take charge of their own communities.
To enhance security and the rule of law in communities, the US and Germany
revamped in 2007 a program to train up to 82,000 Afghan national police. It may yet be
effective to have a civilian police force to guard the communities, but the policing systemitself is rather a foreign concept to the Afghans. 19 In fact, Afghans have had their own
ways of regulating conduct in communities, often enforced by village leaders or mullahs
and deeply engrained in their tribal base. Years of conflict certainly have eroded

17 See various reports produced by ACTED, which implements CDC projects.
18 “Transition Strategy and Cycle 2+ Communities” A Study of NSP, ACTED.
19 Commander of the Police Academy, Lt. General Sayed Mohammad Qudossi, interviewed in May 2007.

17

communal structures, but the basic values and principles still exist among the people.
Building on them, not destroying them, is crucial especially at a time when theextremists seem to be taking advantage of the vacuum created while attempting toestablish “modern” societal structures.
Seen from a human security perspective, some of the challenges have common
problems. Returning refugees, demobilized soldiers and poppy-growing farmers, forexample, all have the same need to find viable means to support their families. As
Rubin and Sherman importantly point out in their recent study on narcotics, 20 it is not
the poppy-growing that makes the places insecure. Rather, it is the insecurity that forces
people with no choice but to grow poppies or engage in other illegal activities for survival.
The vast majority of Afghans hope to engage in peaceful, legal livelihoods, finds thereport. If so, there could be more attempts to create jobs and markets, however small, toreach people in remote communities. Currently, aid agencies are shut out from insecureareas, but even the most insecure areas have pockets and moments of peace. Theinternational community must find ways to reach those communities, with deeper
understanding and cooperation from the local population. In terms of Afghan capacity, it
should not be forgotten that the Afghan people have much more experience negotiating
their ways through troubles than foreigners, precisely because they understand thehuman relations in the communities. For aid agencies to gain better understanding,more expertise could be shared also between humanitarian and development agencies,
as many local partners working for years with humanitarian agencies have gained much
experience reaching out to communities throughout Afghanistan.
Since employment is key to self-sufficiency and sustainable livelihood, more
attention could be paid to helping private businesses create jobs and markets. A young
Afghan businessman who returned from the West says that, while a couple of hundred
young Afghan entrepreneurs returned to Afghanistan in 2002, many have since left as
the security situation and commercial environment made it too difficult for smaller
businesses to thrive. The lack of facilities and regulations stifled exports, he says, andfruits, for example, were left to rot at customs as suspected drugs. In addition topromoting long-term training and higher education, more could be done to help nascentcompanies gain access to markets and facilitate distribution. Delays in government
regulations to facilitate commerce feed the discontent of aspiring youths, many of whom

20 “Counter-narcotics to Stabilize Afghanistan: The False Promise of Crop Eradication,” Barnett R. Rubin and Jake
Sherman, Center on International Cooperation, February 2008.

18

are still willing to take risks for the future of their country.
The Taliban question
Perhaps the most difficult challenge in the Afghan nation-building process isthe issue of the Taliban, who are mainly ethnic Pashtuns with links to the south. The
Bonn Agreement effectively excluded the Taliban from the political process, casting
shadows over the country’s stability. Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, the former UN Secretary
General’s Special Representative heading UNAMA, recognizes that including thedefeated “enemy” in the talks was impossible at a time when the US-led coalition forces
had ousted the Taliban with the help of the rival Northern Alliance of mainly ethnic
Tajik and Uzbek origin.

Driven by the importance of inclusion, Mr. Brahimi had

attempted to reach out to the moderate Taliban, but the idea hardly gained any support
in international fora. 21 For the most part, the Taliban issue was also thought to havedisappeared at the end of 2001, until violence resurged by 2006.
The issue is further complicated by the widespread international use of theterm “Taliban”. The term is applied to militant foreigners, jihadists, boys in madrassas
who may or may not be taught the extremist philosophy and even villagers who simply
disagree with what they see as Western disrespect of their communities.
Broad-brushing with the term “Taliban” leads to more tragedies. If villagers affected by
missiles reject the international troops, they are too easily labeled Taliban and termed alegitimate target. Collateral damage may not be avoided completely in an open war, but
this is hardly the way to win the “hearts and minds” of the people.
When asked about how Afghan suicide-bombers have emerged, a government
official said in private, “If a family were killed by US forces and a boy left an orphan withnothing, he might seriously consider a suicide mission to avenge their honor…” Without
distinguishing the real “enemy” and reaching out to the rest, the problem of the“Taliban” is likely to continue, if not multiply.

As President Karzai said in 2006,“Taliban are also children of Afghanistan”; the issue can no longer be ignored if thecountry is to become a whole. Reconciliation and justice for past violence eventuallyneed to be addressed also, in ways that would allow communities to move forward. 22

21 “Afghanistan and Iraq: Failed States or Failed Wars?” Lakhdar Brahimi Lecture on Public Policy, Princeton
University, 28 March 2007.
22 The Amnesty Law was passed in March 2007, generating much controversy.

19Regional security
Of all the assistance necessary, that which requires more international
attentionisregional

security.

International

agenciesand embassies

country-specific mandates, so cross-border issues tend to fall from their agenda. 23

have
Yet

stability in Afghanistan cannot be gained in isolation from developments in neighboring
countries. Should Pakistan become unstable, it would surely impact security in
Afghanistan. Uncontrolled escalation of the confrontation between the US and Iran, forexample, would surely be a recipe for failure in Afghanistan.
The world is recognizing that the sources of instability in the southern andeastern provinces derive mainly from the tribal areas of Pakistan. Having to hold thesouthern front with an ever-broadening mandate, NATO is also starting to recognizethat the current military strategy alone is insufficient to secure the country. 24 Yet NATO
being the military wing of the international intervention, its ability is limited whenengaging in political or aid discussions with surrounding countries, which is sorely
required to secure the border areas. However, as current world politics do not seem toallow major powers to engage officially, no effective regional forum exists to address
imminent issues. Ways to encourage dialogue between countries in the region should befound to ensure the stability not only of Afghanistan but the region as a whole.
Advocacy
Finally, the international community requires a stronger reasoning to sustain
the commitment to Afghanistan. Six years after the 9/11 terror attacks, the public
opinion trend in Western countries as well as in Japan is that of increasing indifferenceor frustration toward the issues of Afghanistan. 25 If a stable Afghanistan is deemed arequirement for global security, governments need to better present the case forcontinued assistance to Afghanistan and regain support of their domestic constituencies.
It is no longer sufficient and perhaps inaccurate to continue referring to abstract terms
as “the war on terror”, as the required commitment goes well beyond securing the
deployment of military troops. The goals to be achieved and the consequences of failure
23 UNHCR is one of the few agencies that routinely engage in cross-border dialogue, to ensure the protection andorderly return of some 2.14 million refugees remaining in Pakistan and 910,000 in Iran. The agency has hosted
tri-partite meetings regularly since 2002 to facilitate discussions on refugee matters between Afghanistan and thetwo governments.
24 A Lecture by Jamie Shea, NATOs Director for Policy, during the NATO delegation’s visit to Tokyo in December

2007.
25 NATO officials deplore the increasing public opinion pressure in Canada and the Netherlands, for example, towithdraw their troops. In Japan, the political debate on assistance to Afghanistan is entangled with Iraq and thecontroversy over the deployment of Self-Defense Forces for a refueling mission in the Gulf.

20

could be better articulated by having the global community refocus on issues such as
those outlined above. Effective stories may differ from country to country on how the
well-being of the people of Afghanistan relates to that of other citizens, but if
Afghanistan were to return to its violent past, its effects would surely be felt again
around the world.

21

Chapter 2
Three Different Layers of Discussion
on the international intervention in Afghanistan
Yoshiyuki Yamamoto
Several meetings of this study group clearly showed that we cannot even agree
to disagree to the extent to which the international community’s intervention to
Afghanistan has succeeded.

It has been evident from the literature and from thepersonal contact that there are some people who applaud the success of theinternational community in Afghanistan while there are others who are appalled by the
failure. It is not just because we might tend to be disproportionately influenced by our
personal experience; we might be incapable of establishing a common denominator tomeasure the diversity of indicators thrown in front of us, or we might be too cautious,
being aware of the limited information available to us. However, it is because each of us
often looks at Afghanistan in a totally different context that we have identified the needto establish at least three different layers of discussion: the first is the global politicalenvironment, the second the international assistance regime specific to Afghanistan,and the third the local populace in Afghanistan.
Global Political Environment
There are multiple theories on the reason why the "coalition of the willing"
decided to topple the Taliban regime and continue military operations to this day. Thereis, however, no doubt that these military operations can be positioned in the Global War
on Terror (GWOT) as Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan (OEF – A). Therefore,
in this context the success/failure of post-9/11 Afghanistan is measured by the degree ofachievement and progress of the GWOT. One could argue that, on the one hand, it is notevident to what extent OEF-A has made or could make a positive impact on the GWOT
and, on the other hand, it is evident that the security situation in Afghanistan has
rapidly worsened recently.
As is often the case with any war, though, the discourse surrounding the war ismotivated more by political considerations than the facts; in the context of the GWOT
one would find it hard to paint the Afghan situation as unsuccessful to the same extent it
is hard to be pro-terrorism.

22

Therefore from this standpoint, Afghanistan can hardly escape from being analmost definitive success case. The commentator in this sense is not talking about
Afghanistan, but about the global political scene.
International Assistance
Secondly there is more country-specific discussion about Afghanistan in thearea of international assistance. Briefly looking at it now, one might point out once againthat the discussion is not about Afghanistan, or not particularly about the Afghan people,
but about the regime of international assistance in Afghanistan.
Starting from Security Council Resolution 1368 of 12 Sep 2001, theinternational community, represented by the UN, based its decision to intervene in
Afghan affairs on "threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts".
Security Council Resolution 1386 of 20 Dec 01 authorized the deployment ofpeacekeepers as an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and Security
Council Resolution 1401 of 28 Mar 2008 authorized the establishment of a PKO mission,
the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA).
The mandate of UNAMA is vast, including virtually all sectors, categories ofassistance and buzzwords: education, health, agriculture, returnee assistance,
infrastructure, mine removal, security sector reform (national army, police, DDR,
counter-narcotics, justice), rule of law, democratization, elections, governance,
humanitarian assistance, post-conflict operations, reconstruction, development, humansecurity, peace-building, etc.
There are a certain number of issues that make a difference in evaluating thesituation in Afghanistan, among which are:i) The ISAF authorized by the UN Security Council is different in nature fromOEF-A in that it aims to maintain security, not to combat a particular group as OEF-A
does. However, distinguishing between the two military operations has been difficult, if
not impossible, for ordinary Afghans from the outset and has become increasingly vague,
particularly since NATO took over the whole ISAF.
ii) As international assistance is modeled on the modern Western state/systemwith rare exceptions, UNAMA is essentially mandated to build a modern state from23

scratch, or destined to engage in a huge enterprise that might mean the "external
modernization" of Afghanistan.
iii) There existed a coordination mechanism for Afghanistan in the pre-9/11
period, which served as a leading case of UN coordination in the context of UN reform.
After a few months’ vacuum period, a PKO mission (UNAMA) was established to takeover the coordinator's role. However, it took UNAMA a long time to build up functional
capacity, particularly for Pillar II (Assistance), and during this time Afghans started toquestion the UN's role as coordinator.
vi) With UN coordination functions incapacitated on the one hand andcontributions flagging among donor countries due to bilateralization and/or competitionon the other, Afghans had a limited opportunity to gain a sense of ownership of thewhole endeavor of reconstructing their own country.
v) While discussions on the structure and menu of the assistance regime menu
were underway, the international community as a whole suffered from limited access tothe indigenous knowledge about Afghanistan needed to make its intervention more
effective. It can be hardly be blamed for applying templates.
Discussing such issues as the above could well lead to a different set ofassessments of the Afghan situation from that one can get from the standpoint of the
global political environment.
Community
Lastly there are those people whose assessment of the situation in Afghanistan
is based neither on global politics nor the international assistance regime, but on
Afghanistan and the Afghan people. Images and anecdotes of Afghan people in plightare extensively used as resources in the media, which in effect helped build animpression of Afghans as passive receivers of aid rather than active players in statebuilding.
However, these people are facing challenges; security restrictions on the
movements of aid workers prevent them from understanding and learning about
Afghans in the rural areas, where the majority of Afghans reside. As the OEF has mostly
fought out of sight of large cities, Afghan communities caught in the battle are beyond
the reach of aid organizations and can hardly gain access to any relief.

24Lack of understanding or biased understanding of ordinary Afghans in therural areas was compensated for by community ideal types, on which the assistanceprojects were largely based. The convenience of aid organizations rather than the needsof Afghans served as the criteria for assistance provision, enlarging the development gap
between urban dwellers and Afghans in traditional communities.
There have been many “community assistance projects” solely intended to reach
the Afghan people. They often result in the creation of a new or artificial community
despite the presence of a traditional community, as any assistance project attracts
people who seek to benefit from it. It is not rare for aid workers engaged in community
projects to be frustrated by the fact that the community itself does not keep to the agreed
courses of action.
Even if such a newly made or rather artificial community largely overlaps the
traditional community already in place, there remains on the one hand some part of theartificial community that is not part of the traditional one, and on the other some part of
the traditional community that is not part of the artificial one. The former can be a
spoiler as it does not belong to the real traditional community and hence seeks only
short-term gain, while the latter can be a protestor as it naturally objects to the artificial
community created by the external intervention.
The end result, despite the good intentions of the project, could be devastating:the creation of tensions or, worse, conflicts among Afghans within and around thecommunity.
Not only simple disillusion on the part of Afghans caused by the lack ofperceptible benefits from the international community but also such factors as the above
causing tensions among Afghans have given rise to greater tolerance of outside
insurgents among Afghan communities, which has worsened the overall security
situation.
Concluding Remarks
We have seen three different layers of discussion about the situation in
Afghanistan; the first is the global political environment, the second the international
assistance regime, and the third Afghan communities. Each of them has its own merits
in assessing the situation in Afghanistan. However, we find it not very productive to25present a view without identifying the layer that such view is addressing.
We are not charged to express a political opinion, and therefore we will notfurther address the global political environment. However, we need to be alert to its
inevitable influence on views even when we discuss the other two layers. As to thesecond layer, the international assistance regime, we have identified some of its
inherent issues, but perhaps the more fundamental issue is the fact that its funding is
also highly dependent on the global political environment. It is fair to say that there has
been increasing attention to local communities, to which we refer as the third layer here.
It is partly because of the realization that, without community well-being, the stabilityof Afghanistan cannot be secured, and thus the global political goal would not be
achieved. Therefore, from the first and second to the third layer, and then back to thefirst layer, they are interconnected in a circular relationship.

26

Chapter 3
Lessons learned from the provision ofJapanese assistance to Afghanistan since ‘9/11’
Nobutaka Miyahara

Introduction
Winning popular support
After seven years since the world started to intervene in the country’s
nation-building, we still find Afghanistan unstable, insecure, and undeveloped. The
Bonn process, which was designed to bring the Afghan people reconciliation and toestablish a basis for reconstruction and development, was completed successfully. Theinternational

community

repeatedly

madepledgestoassistAfghanistan’snation-building: US$4.5 billion in Tokyo in 2002, US$8.2 billion in Berlin in 2004,
US$10.5 billion in London in 2006, and US$20.0 billion in Paris this year.

The

International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was formed under the authority of the
UN Security Council, deployed at first in the capital and environs but later throughout
the country, and increased in size. Despite such tremendous efforts by the international
community, the government is weak, controlling only limited parts of the population andthe country; reconstruction has made little or only partial progress; and security has
deteriorated to the extent that one half of the country is controlled or at least under thestrong influence of the insurgents.
What has brought about this result? This author argued three years ago(*1)
that winning popular support was the key to peace and stability in Afghanistan andwarned of two threats: the slow pace of reconstruction, especially in provincial areas,
and the continuous fighting with insurgents, such as Taliban and Al-Qaeda activists,even while dealing with fierce opposition and resistance from warlords.
This argument seems still valid at the present moment. It is because the people
cannot get security from the government or the international community that theyextend their support or at least approval to the control of the southern and eastern partsof Afghanistan by the insurgents. In terms of who has brought the most security to thelives of people in rural areas, especially in the southern and eastern areas, the drug

27

lords and insurgents have better records than the government and international
community. They have given money and employment to the people, especially to theyouth in rural areas.
This article seeks to elaborate on the causes, policies and programs forJapanese assistance to Afghanistan and to argue how the Afghan government and theinternational community could win popular support by showing the lessons learned
from Japanese experiences and introducing the efforts of the local people to secure theirown livelihoods.

These lessons come mainly from security problems faced in

implementing assistance projects, respect for the ownership of development by theAfghans and the lack of capacity of the Afghan authorities. One of the most importantlessons learned is that winning popular support was a key to securing our roadrehabilitation and other assistance projects in rural areas.

In contacts with ruralcommunities to secure our projects, we found it essential to bring residents security to
win popular support.

Japanese assistance to Afghanistan
Japan has enjoyed an entirely friendly relationship with Afghanistan since the1930s. Japan has provided sizable development assistance during this short history,
especially in the 1970s, and augmented its humanitarian assistance during the civil war
in the 1990s.
However, the tragedy of September 11 totally changed the meaning andposition of Japan’s humanitarian and development assistance in its foreign policy.
Firstly, Japanese assistance to Afghanistan has become one of the main pillars for theJapanese contribution to the global war on terror (GWOT). Prime Minister Koizumi
Junichiro clearly expressed this posture at the International Conference for Afghanistan
Reconstruction (the Tokyo Conference), saying, “In order to eradicate terrorism, we musteliminate the conditions that allow terrorism to take root. To do so, it is essential that apeaceful and stable Afghanistan be built.” (*2)
Secondly, based on the notion that peace be built on reconstruction, Japan
attached great importance to the reconstruction of Afghanistan, playing a significant
role in creating a reconstruction process and holding the Tokyo Conference. Japan
assumed that, in the framework of GWOT, it should play a leading role in the28

reconstruction of Afghanistan while contributing to the creation of better conditions forcombating terrorism domestically and internationally.
The conditions enabling Japan to concentrate on Afghanistan reconstruction in
the context of GWOT were in place by the end of 2001. Immediately after the September
11 terrorist attacks, Japan declared itself ready to work with other nations to fightterrorism and urged others to do the same. Prime Minister Koizumi sent letters anddispatched high-level special envoys to the heads of state of Islamic countries, including
Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The government of Japan
took the necessary measures to freeze the funds and other financial assets of individuals
and entities, most prominently the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and those associated with them,in accordance with UNSCR 1267, 1333, 1373, and 1390. The Japanese Diet passed theAnti-Terrorism Special Measures Law (ATSML), which allowed the government toprovide logistical support for the coalition forces combating terrorism in Afghanistan
and to use the Self-Defense Forces to extend humanitarian aid to Afghan refugees inneighboring countries. The Japanese government made large financial contributions to
the governments of Afghanistan’s neighbors, especially Pakistan, to enable them to give
support to the international anti-terrorism effort.
At the Tokyo conference, over sixty countries of the international community
pledged a total of US$4.5 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction. Japan made a pledge of
US$500 million over two and a half years.

Since then, Japan has maintained an

assistance level of US$200 million per year.
To use the pledged funds, Japan called for assistance to flow seamlessly fromrelief to development and set priorities for its aid based on a report by Ogata Sadako,
Special Representative of the Prime Minister (SRPM) for Assistance to Afghanistan.
These priorities were selected from the viewpoint of “human security”.
Attaching great importance to the ideas of the seamless transition of assistanceand “human security”, Japan instituted several primary programs: a “Register for
Peace” campaign to promote disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR),
later integrated into Afghanistan’s New Beginning Program; the “Ogata Initiative (OI),”a program aimed at filling the gap between relief and development assistance andachieving

comprehensive

area

development;

andrehabilitation

of

the

Kabul-Kandahar-Herat trunk road. In addition to these programs, Japan took a variety
of measures to help the Afghan government in financing its administration and in29

capacity and institution building for education, health and medical care, masscommunications, agriculture, landmine removal, and other areas.
After the assistance strategy was formulated as described above, domestic
interest and attention on Afghanistan and Japanese assistance there decreased inJapan, dropping sharply after the Iraq war.
Against this backdrop, Japan’s assistance strategy towards Afghanistan was
pursued at the official level.

Some of the original programs disappeared and sometransformed into other programs. Yet, the assistance policy itself has continued in thesame line as the first stage. DDR was successfully completed but the urgent need for the
disbandment of illegal armed groups (DIAG) led Japan continually to assist the ANBP,
which was in charge of this effort. The OI itself ceased to function as funds from Japan
dried up but other new programs inherited the idea of comprehensive area developmentfrom the OI. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) promoted thecomprehensive development of rural areas by conducting several projects. JICA also
continued to concentrate its efforts on capacity and institution development to address
medical care and health, education, transportation, and gender issues. Furthermore, it
newly took up urban development, supporting the construction of infrastructure in the
Kabul metropolitan area.
As the security situation in Afghanistan worsened, more assistance to improvesecurity was required. In early 2007, Japan made the decision to start cooperating with
NATO provincial reconstruction teams (PRT). As NATO took over command of the ISAF,
which was deployed all over Afghanistan, it asked Japan for support in the hopes thatJapan would provide military support or send a PRT. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo
responded to this request by providing funds for assistance projects found by PRTs.

Lessons learned from implementation of Japanese assistance projects
Japan designed numerous projects to help eliminate the conditions that allow
terrorism to take root, as mentioned in Chapter 2, understanding that one suchcondition was the underdevelopment of rural areas.

Japan thus targeted thecomprehensive development of rural areas, created the OI and began rehabilitation
work on trunk roads.
Through implementation of these programs we learned several important30

lessons for participation in nation-building assistance. First, a project that benefits local
people is welcomed by them, as is support extended in security and other areas.
Secondly, foreign assistance may harm the ownership and capacity building of local
authorities.

Thirdly, the involvement of local officials and people in development

activities is a key to project success.
Japan learned these lessons when it faced serious challenges and difficulties inpursuing reconstruction efforts amidst poor security as well as conflicts with Afghan
authorities over ownership.
Security
The deteriorating security situation has been the largest threat toreconstruction assistance.

The Japanese government is extremely cautious about

security for its rehabilitation projects.

Japan does not have its own intelligenceapparatus to judge the security situation in a country such as Afghanistan but tends torely on intelligence reports provided by allied or friendly countries. The final judgmenton the security situation for a reconstruction project is made by Tokyo, although the local
Japanese embassy can express its own views. No security casualties, whether humanbeings or property, are acceptable during implementation of a reconstruction project.
Road rehabilitation is one of the most unfortunate victims of bad security.
Responding to a request from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Japan, with the UnitedStates and Saudi Arabia, promised to rehabilitate the Kabul-Kandahar-Herat trunk
road in August 2002 and took charge of paving a 150km stretch northeast from
Kandahar. In November 2002, word of a threat to the Japanese research team working
on this project came from an allied country, prompting an immediate withdrawal of theteam and a three-month suspension of the project.

This resulted in reducing theplanned 150km section to 50km and in assigning to Japan an additional 115km of roadrehabilitation westward from Kanadahar. Moreover, direct attacks on the road work
equipment in March 2005 that resulted in no human casualties nevertheless led to asuspension of road rehabilitation work for more than two years.

The latter

rehabilitation had still not been completed as of the end of June 2008.
JICA is an important apparatus for Japan to expand its reconstruction
activities to rural areas.

As the security situation has worsened, however, JICA’s

31

assistance activities have been limited to the large cities in the northern and central
regions of the country.

JICA developed its own security codes for its staff and experts

working in Afghanistan that still follow the general direction on security indicated by
the foreign ministry. Now (*as of the end of June 2008) JICA does not allow its morethan 60 experts, including experts on agriculture in Afghanistan, to work in rural areas,and conducts trainers’ training in Kabul, sending Afghan trainees to Japan even as it
looks for ways to provide assistance.
In deteriorating security circumstances, the Japanese Embassy in Afghanistan
could not help but develop its own security measures. The main reason for opening the
Embassy was to promote and implement Japanese assistance programs and projects.
First, the Embassy tried to get security by United States forces for road rehabilitation
projects in areas remote from the cities. In response to an unofficial request from theJapanese Embassy right after the withdrawal of the road project research team in
November 2002, the American Embassy suggested Japan send a PRT or an expert to a
PRT. At that time, deployment of PRTs was under serious consideration inside theAmerican government. The Japanese Embassy took up this suggestion and asked theheadquarters to consider sending a JICA expert to the team. The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs turned down the request, saying that JICA did not want to send experts to amilitary organization.
In the end, the Embassy developed security measures for the roadrehabilitation project before work started in August 2003. These measures covered
information gathering and analysis; protection by the local police and private security,and the patrol and emergency evacuation plans of the US forces within the coalition
force; and efforts to win the support of local people for the projects.

For security

information gathering and analysis, the Embassy developed a network to collect security
information from locals. The Embassy asked the national and local police to protect the
project and its experts and workers on the one hand, and suggested that the projectcontractor hire armed guards from a private security company on the other. Lastly, theEmbassy staff visited a shura (council) in the district through which the target trunk
road ran and asked the shura elders to support and protect the road rehabilitation workby offering assistance to the district.
During the rehabilitation of the 50km road east from Kandahar, all themeasures worked well but the key was support by the local people. In the American part32

of the road rehabilitation, the rehabilitation work sites were often attacked and experts
kidnapped while in the Japanese part no attack or kidnapping occurred.
The local people benefited greatly in employment and improvement of socialand economic facilities from the road rehabilitation and small projects for the district.
They extended their support to the Japanese projects to protect their interests. As the
Embassy’s contacts with district shuras increased, so did the information on thesituation of rural areas and the way of thinking of local people.
Afghan ownership and lack of capacity of Afghan authorities“Lack of capacity”
Following successful completion of urgent rehabilitation projects such as the
UNICEF ‘Back to School Campaign’ financed by Japan, the UNDP ‘Recovery and
Employment Afghanistan Program (REAP)’ financed by Japan and the JICA ‘Urgent
Rehabilitation Support Program (URSP)’, Japan, in accordance with the requests madeof donors by the Afghan authorities, came to conduct its assistance within theframework of the Consultative Group (CG) system. Japan worked as a focal point for thetransportation CG and the DDR CG and participated in other CGs such as those forhealth/medical care and education.
Japan performed well as a focal point in the DDR CG and until mid-2004 in thetransportation CG, but it did not seem to have made a significant contribution to otherCGs as a participant. One reason for this was Japan’s lack of capacity to participate injoint approaches to tackling issues. The other reason lies in the government and theinternational community. Not all the ministries had sufficient capacity to make the CG
system workable, which resulted in the creation of ministries run by foreign experts andfinancially supported by the main donors, keeping those ministries’ capacity to deliver
governmental services undeveloped. In this circumstance, Japan listened to what theministers and foreign experts decided before the CG meeting while it conducted its
assistance program that it bilaterally arranged in consultation with a group of ministers(sometimes deputy ministers) and foreign experts.
In the meantime, JICA quietly took up the responsibility of training the staff ofministries and their branch offices in medical care and health, education, job training,

33

and transportation issues and helped them develop administration systems. These
efforts have gradually been producing concrete results (*3).
“Ownership and capacity building”
The concept of the OI is to bring about comprehensive area-based development
based on the results of humanitarian and urgent rehabilitation assistance.

Japanassumed that, for improvement of “human security” in rural communities, developmentof the entire area around targeted communities would be essential. To implement thisconcept, it was necessary for Japan to consult local authorities and share its vision forthe development of the targeted areas. Japan chose three areas as targets for the OI:
Kandahar; Nangarhar; and the northern five provinces.
When the Japanese Embassy informed Ashuraf Ghani, Minister of Finance, ofthe second funding of the OI of around US$42 million in October 2002, however, herefused permission for direct contact with local authorities, that is, provincial
governments. According to him, the government had created the national development
programs (NDP), including those for rural development, and the donors should talk withthe relevant ministries about assistance. In addition, he harshly criticized Japan for
opening a pipeline other than the government to provide funds to local people.
By the end of 2002, the Japanese Embassy had asked the Ministry of Rural
Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), which was thought to have much to do with
the OI, to jointly hold an OI coordination meeting. The purposes of the meeting werefirstly to involve MRRD in the OI and secondly to coordinate between NDPs and the OI.
Since the OI was implemented by international agencies such as the UNHCR, WFP, andUNICEF, another purpose was to get the officers at those agencies to understand theconcept of the OI and to urge them to coordinate their work with each other and with thecentral and local governments.
The joint coordination meeting by the MRRD, the Japanese embassy and UN
agencies produced a program for the third funding of the OI. As information came inthrough contacts with UN officers and local governments, however, it was discoveredthat efforts to coordinate and share visions on development at the local level werelacking, with a few exceptions(*4). The joint coordination meeting then held a workshop
on the OI, inviting local government officials and UN officers to work out their own

34

projects.
The workshop created a comprehensive program for the fourth funding. It
attached great importance to the centrality of the NDPs and thought out a way for the
OI to complement the NDPs in comprehensive area development. If Japan had funded
this planned program in a timely fashion, the OI would have proven very successful indemonstrating administration capacity on development. Unfortunately, it failed to do so.
The humanitarian part of the program was funded but the preparatory part of the
program for development missed out on funding due to Japan’s failure to create abudgetary item for this purpose(*5).

Winning popular support
The conclusion of the lessons mentioned above is that, for comprehensive ruraldevelopment, you need local people’s support/initiative and empowered local authorities.
Japan (or we at the field level) discovered this reality by gradually relying on local
people for security of its assistance projects and people. Furthermore, we were given
insights into the realities and wishes of local communities and their people.
Confidence building between Japanese and local people
As mentioned in Chapter 2, the Japanese Embassy in Afghanistan developed
three security measures for the road rehabilitation project in 2003 and it was found that,of the three measures, the key was winning the support of local people for the projects.
To win such support, we first needed the confidence of the local people in us, and to gainsuch confidence, we needed to take definite actions.
At the first meeting with the shura of the district in which the trunk road to berehabilitated ran, some of the elders said that many foreigners had promised help butthat none of them had kept their promises. The embassy staff patiently listened to theirgrievances and offered them rehabilitation projects through the Grass Root Grant Aid
scheme. The contractor for the road rehabilitation also went to the shura every week
and nurtured a close friendship with its members.
From June 2003 to the end of that year, the projects we promised to the shuraelders took shape month by month. In July, the embassy official in charge of the Grant

35

Aid for Grass-root Project (GAGP) appeared at the shura meeting and began discussing
concrete projects such as digging a well and constructing a culvert. In August, the trunk
road rehabilitation project started with the hiring of 500 local employees. In December,the first GAGP, a well was constructed while the first phase of the road rehabilitation
project was completed.
In the following year, we were welcomed everywhere in Kandahar province.
With the good reputation among the citizens enjoyed by JICA’s URSP projects and theJapan-funded UNDP REAP projects implemented in the city of Kandahar, the Japanese
assistance outside the city was highly appreciated. More requests by local people forassistance came to the embassy. The embassy tried to respond to them as much as
possible by making use of GAGP and by persuading the Japanese Foreign Ministry toapprove projects for rehabilitating secondary roads in the province. In July 2004, when
the people of the province learned of Ambassador Komano’s imminent departure, theelders sent him a letter thanking Japan for all its assistance.
Information on community circumstances and realities
As our good relationships with local communities and tribes grew, considerable
information on community circumstances poured into our communication network.
Three features were observed from this information: a rapid increase in anti-American
feelings and distrust of the government, the need for livelihood alternatives to poppy
cultivation, and a generation gap between the young and old.
“Anti-American feelings and distrust of the government”
In late March 2004, one of the local Afghans approached this author, thendeputy chief of mission at the Embassy, and requested that Japan support communities
in Zabul Province. This Afghan came from the influential tribal leader’s family and wasrespected by the whole tribe. He said, “I talked with the elders of the tribe. They said
that they were hit on the right cheek by the Taliban and on the left cheek by theAmericans. Their villages were destroyed. They asked Japan to help them rebuild theircommunities. I guarantee your safety and request that you come with me. I will escortyou.” This author, in consultation with the head of the mission, declined to visit Zabul
and suggested he cooperate with the PRT stationed there and the government. He
declined to cooperate with the PRT but later he arranged meetings with the government.

36

It was Minister of Finance Ashraf Ghani who met the representatives of Zabul
communities. According to him, however, the meetings did not produce any concrete
agreement. Minister Ghani asked them to cooperate with the PRT but they refused. He
said, “I met Ashraf two times. At the beginning he said I came from Kuchi. Since his
attitude was so arrogant, I told him that, if you are a Kuchi, you should wear nomadic
clothes, live and work in a tent.”
A high-ranking official in the government was concerned about the treatment of
the local people by the coalition soldiers in August 2004. He said, “Recently, the coalition
troops came to a village house in Helmand at 5:00 in the morning, and woke up and took
all the family members out of the house. The family members were divided into twogroups, men and women, and separately investigated.

No man could observe thewomen’s group. Even the Russians did not do this type of investigation. President
Karzai raised this issue with the supreme commander of the coalition forces but fellsilent after the commander declined by saying that American soldiers bleed for
Afghanistan”. This high-ranking official also said, “This is tremendously serious. I
ought to speak loudly about it if I consider the impact on Afghanistan in five years’
time.”In July 2004, this author went to the Panjway district of Kandahar Province toinform the shura of the Japanese decision to pave the 22km road connecting KandaharCity and its district center. The meeting room was full of elders who welcomed theJapanese delegation. Less than 10 minutes after the meeting started, however, coalition
troops came by in military jeeps and entered the meeting room without permission andwithout taking off their shoes (all the attendants, including the Japanese delegates, hadtaken off their shoes and sandals before entering the meeting room). The commander of
the troops said, “We are patrolling near here by permission of Provincial Governor
Pashutoon. Our only purpose is to help reconstruct this country.” The elders gathering
there were dumbfounded and the atmosphere of the meeting was marred. This author
at the time thought the commander was a good guy but believed that the elders saw him
and his troops as alien and unwelcome.
“Poppy cultivation”
In April 2004, a Japanese delegation going from Kandahar City to Gereshuk inHelmand Province took the trunk road connecting the two cities (*6). Most striking to37

them were the blooming poppy fields they saw from the car windows on both sides of theroad.

The delegation visited several district shuras, announced the planned roadrehabilitation and asked for support for the project while offering assistance incommunity development as usual as in any district shura. At meetings, none of thedelegation mentioned the poppy cultivation; however, the elders of the shuras said, in
effect, “We know poppy cultivation is bad. But we have no choice. We have to growpoppies because we have no ability to grow alternative crops and sell them at the market.
We really need help from you to undertake other kinds of agriculture.”
After this visit, the interpreter said, “You are now safe. Since you did notsuggest anything to accuse them of poppy cultivation but offered assistance tocommunity development, the elders told the young people at the service in the mosque
not to attack the Japanese and their projects.” The late Mulla Nagibullah, who wasmade wealthy by the revenue from his fruit fields and oil business, sympathized withpoor farmers, saying that they knew poppy cultivation was bad but could not survive
without it.
“Generation gap”
The Afghan notable from Zabul, mentioned earlier in this section, once
complained that young people had forgotten to respect their elders and did not follow the
instructions of the community elders. He said, “In a community, a lot of young people
lived in poverty without proper jobs. The elders are losing the power to instruct young
people. Young people tend to be attracted by the parties employing them, whoever theyare.” The elders of the three districts of Kandahar whom the Japanese delegation met in
April 2004 came up with ideas during the meeting on influencing young people. In thecase of the Daman district where the 50km trunk road rehabilitation took place, theJapanese road construction company gave job opportunities through the elders to young
people in the community. Thus the elders took back the old order of the community,
including respect for elders.
After withdrawal of Japanese assistance from the south“Ideas for situation change from the Afghans”
In the southern provinces no Japanese assistance projects are ongoing, except

38the 115km trunk road rehabilitation project and the nursing school project run by an
Afghan NGO and financed by JICA, due to the deterioration of the security situation.
No Japanese personnel officially live in the south. Thus, the communication network
once developed for collecting community information has disappeared.
However, the struggle of elders for community survival continues. In December
2006, this author visited Kabul and met the Afghan notable mentioned above. He madetwo points. One was “Don’t use a device again that failed once.’ He meant that, as
former commanders had shown their inability to rule as governors and security chiefs,
they should not be posted to the same positions.
The other was an idea for community survival and development. According to him,
this idea was not his but the conclusion of discussions by community elders in the south.
The contents of the idea are as follows:a) A proposal by the government to entrust a community with internal governance,
security and reconstruction/development;b) A third party, who knows the community, is necessary to help the community form
its organization and is expected to conduct research on living conditions in thecommunity and to inform the government of the results;c) The government, responding to the research report, should provide necessary
materials and fund for the community; andd) Two to three years later, the government could provide able personnel fordevelopment of the community.
In the same trip by this author, Prof. Naderi, Special Advisor to the President,
stressed the importance of planning a strategy for the people. A proposal from thecommunity viewpoint emerged when the government realized the need for a strategy forthe people.

Without community survival and support for the government and theinternational community, it has become obvious that the situation cannot be reversed for
improvement. It seems that the time may have come for the international community tosupport this.
“Security Plan”
In May 2008, the Afghan notable communicated a security plan by local
Afghans to this author. This security plan was developed by local people (*7) in thesouthwest (*8) and sought to destroy the camps of the insurgents and drug mafias and39

drug factories, to arrest all the members of the drug mafias involved in business andproduction, and to identify local Taliban commanders and communications with theoutside of Afghanistan in southwest Afghanistan. This plan has already identified
camps and factories near the borders. It includes hiring local intelligence services,
consulting with local elders and mullahs and cooperating with all the forces (ISAF,
Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police and Afghan intelligence forces). The
notable added that this plan was secretly supported by all the communities.
This is a local initiative coming from the need to secure livelihoods, and iscompatible with the direction of international assistance recently agreed upon in a G8
official level meeting. Local people want to restore security by destroying the facilities ofdrug mafias and insurgents.

A combination of these arguments means that theinternational community and the government of Afghanistan now have an opportunity
to gain the support of local people.

Observation
In August 2003, then Governor of Kandahar Province Eng. Pashutun (*9) said,“Fifty percent of the reason for bad security in the south is neglect of rural areas by thegovernment, and the other 50 percent is Pakistan’s willingness to let the Taliban
regroup and infiltrate into Afghanistan. If the government succeeds in reconstruction in
the rural areas, half of the reason for bad security will disappear and the influence of the
Taliban will be reduced to 10 to 20 percent.”
Although the security situation has dramatically worsened over the past five
years, the words of Eng. Pashutun are still valid. The government together with theinternational community has failed in reconstruction in the rural areas, that is, inreconstruction of rural communities.
Japan started its assistance to Afghanistan in the context of contributing to the
GWOT, and formulated a number of projects for assistance to reconstruction propping
up peace and stability.

In order to realize the purposes of these projects, Japan

participated in a coordination mechanism respecting Afghan ownership and tried toensure security for the project works. In implementation, however, Japan, at least at
the field level, found that without community support, the projects would not succeed.
Furthermore, as Japan attached importance to community development, a trade item40

for community support of the projects, it came to realize the reality of communities. This
reality comprises poverty, psychological and physical damage due to the coalition’s
military actions, anti-government feelings, and the collapse of the old order and security.
The points communicated by the Afghan notable suggest that the international
community and the government of Afghanistan still have an opportunity to work
together with local people for a common purpose that the local community wants andthat is compatible with the direction of international assistance. This in turn offers thehope of winning popular support, absolutely necessary for winning the fight against
terrorism.
[Notes]*1: Gaiko Forum Spring 2005, “Winning Popular Support: The Key to Peace andStability in Afghanistan” (Miyahara Nobutaka)*2: Opening Statement by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the Tokyo conference,
January 21, 2002
*3: For example, in medical care, a school and education system for midwives in
Kandahar as well as the tuberculosis center and its education system*4: The OI in Balkh province produced a unit supporting the provincial government andachieved partial success.
*5: In July 2005, Japan created another program in cooperation with the UNDP for
comprehensive rural development.
*6: The delegation consisted of the Embassy staff and personnel from the consultant andcontractor companies for the trunk road rehabilitation.
*7: According to the information, ‘the tribe leaders and powerful people from theAfghan-Pakistan and Afghan-Iranian border areas’ and ‘12 people staying near theenemy’s camps and movement routes’ were involved in drafting this security plan.
*8: The provinces of Kanadahar, Helmand, Zabul, Urzgan, Nemroz and Farah41

*9: Presently he serves in the post of Minister of Urban Development and Housing.

42

Chapter 4
Principles for good international engagement with Afghanistan
Yukimasa Fukuda“Don’t bypass us!”That was the fervent and persistent call of Afghan officials from the moment
the international community suddenly expanded its presence in Afghanistan after theouster of the Taliban. The reason for their persistence needs to be examined within an
Afghan context. The donor community, including NGOs, had played a significant role inservice delivery to the Afghan population as subsequent governments gradually ceased
to function, especially from 1992 when armed conflict started among the mujahideens.
As a result, though out of necessity, donors took over the core state function of service
delivery from the government. Now that the Taliban were gone, it was only natural thatthe new Afghan government wanted to demonstrate to its people and the international
community that it had restored its sovereignty by reclaiming the service delivery
function from the international donor community. For the Afghans, this was a serious
matter of legitimacy for the responsible government they had longed to establish, andthey urged donors to change their deeply ingrained behavior and mentality of the past,and not to bypass the new government thoughtlessly. Donors on the other hand were
not fully sensitive to this background and, because many maintained their old habit of
bypassing the government, the relationship between the new Afghan government anddonors experienced occasional discord.
Afghans did not stop simply at balking at donors’ indifference. They tried tomake sure that the Afghan government coordinated donors before being coordinated andmade a plaything by donors in the name of aid effectiveness, coordination, andharmonization. Afghans insisted from a very early stage, as early as the time of theTokyo Conference in January 2002, that Afghan-led aid coordination mechanisms
should be established in Kabul; the Consultative Group (CG) mechanism had been up
and running already since October of that year (2002).
Consultative Group (CG) mechanism: a vital tool for state-building
The outlook of the Kabul-based CG mechanism was not too different from the43mechanism applied in other developing countries. Sector-wise CGs, a dozen of themaltogether, were established. In each CG, the minister of that sector chaired meetings
together with active donors of that sector as members. A Focal Point was nominatedamong these donors in the sector to help serve as a bridge between the minister/ministry
and the donors in the CG, aiming for effective coordination among them.
The major difference between the Afghan CG mechanism and those of otherdeveloping countries may be that the Kabul-based CG was not intended just for
coordination among the recipient government and the donor community but was
intentionally designed by the Afghan government to be an integral part of their budget
system from the beginning. The budget in the case of Afghanistan meant mostly foreignassistance funds, as a matter of course, but Afghans emphasized that the budget was thecore institution for their state building from the start, and they intended to have fullcontrol of it by demanding that donors place all their aid funds under the Afghan budget
system, allowing no off-budget, no bypass. This was a matter of legitimacy to be taken
seriously. Afghans wanted to establish a real government completely in control of its
own budget. The budget process involves planning, execution, supervision, evaluation ofoutcomes, and feedback into the process.

Actually going through that process, step bystep, with real funds in their hands, they intended to build their policy-making andadministrative capacity and ultimately to become a full-fledged functioning government
in total control of its budget, including the collection of local taxes and revenues, whichis the key to breaking free of aid dependency. Moreover, in the Afghan context, theestablishment of a strong central budgetary system that firms up a consolidated‘national’ budget was especially important to secure the unity of the cabinet, thegovernment, and the country as a whole because still some cabinet members werepowerful former warlords and the risk of the country becoming fragmented again was
high. A national budget finalized in the name of the cabinet was expected to solidify andensure coherence of the government as a whole.
That is also the reason the Afghan government strongly demanded, almost
obsessively, direct budgetary support from donors so that the Afghan government could
utilize the funds directly and could demonstrate to the Afghan people that this timearound it is the government that is delivering, not foreign donors or NGOs.
Such was the idea behind the Kabul-based CG mechanism. However, it isquite questionable whether the very intentions and aspirations of the government were44

fully recognized by the donor community as a whole. It is also a question whether theAfghan side itself fully and truly digested, owned, and shared the concept and thesignificance of the CG and the budget, a core facility of state building, during the rapidly
evolving early stage of the reconstruction. Furthermore, the existence of many foreign
experts and budget advisors in the government isolated working-level Afghan officials
from the policy making process. At the same time, some ministers/ministries werereceiving more attention and a corresponding number of foreign experts than otherministers/ministries, causing not only uneven development in government capacity but
also distrust among ministers/ministers and officials, harming the very cohesion of thegovernment both Afghans and the donor community had aimed to establish.
With hindsight, if the donor community were more mindful of the frustrationof Afghans, and if the energy of both sides were concentrated on project implementation
to deliver rather than on Afghans’ almost obsessive arguments about the budget -- core
or not -- things could have been different today. As for the frustration of Afghans, what
they wanted donors to do was to fully consult with Afghans on a day-to-day basis andshare with Afghans information on donor-assisted aid programs and projects. If thatexercise had become a habit of donors -- and this is the very process of capacity
development -- there should have been no room for argument about whether certain
donor-assisted projects fell under the core budget or not. To add to the confusion, somedonors insisted that all aid volume from the donor community as a whole should bedirected to budget support. On the other hand, especially larger donors who had the will
and capacity to extend larger volumes of assistance to Afghanistan could offer a varietyof aid modalities according to the real needs of Afghanistan. The discord between those
two ideas among the donor community and with the Afghan government was not vitallynecessary, for in the eyes of ordinary Afghan people the actual delivery of basic services
was what they expected very much to see.
One other aspect of the Kabul-based CG mechanism was that it was conductedin an extremely intensive English-speaking environment. The donor community withoverwhelming capacity took that for granted, and any contentious participants could
make their influence felt.

That was not only too much for ordinary officials of theconvalescent Afghan government but also for some donors who had a number of realprojects to which to attend. The transaction costs of coordination began to be perceived
as excessive.

45

Eventually, the CG mechanism, though generally accepted initially, lost its
spirit as a whole along the way, and became a mere shell except in a few core sectors. To
revive this CG mechanism the Joint Coordination Monitoring Board (JCMB) composedof the Afghan side and donors (21 countries and organizations) was established during
the London Conference in January 2006. Nevertheless, a drastic improvement of the CG
mechanism has yet to be confirmed.
In Afghanistan, delivery of basic services should be the first priority. With
that in mind, donors should work closely with their Afghan counterparts as a matter of
habit and intentionally incorporate capacity-development components in pursuing
effective delivery, not bypassing their Afghan counterparts. On the other hand, theAfghan government in turn should at least work to facilitate donor efforts so that donors
can operate smoothly in Afghanistan, and work with donors to intentionally absorb
capacity from them, not waiting for donors to come forward. Furthermore, since all aid
is supposed to be extended upon formal request to donors from the Afghan government
and upon formal agreement between the two, there should not be any off-budget cases
from the outset. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Afghan government to keep
track of the implementation of those agreements. At the same time, donors should sharenecessary information, including disbursement data, with their Afghan counterparts sothat project progress can be mutually monitored and so that the information can becompiled and reflected in budget execution reporting and also in planning. This is how
the balance between capacity development and service delivery can be achieved
practically.
The aid coordination CG setup is already in place, now monitored by JCMB
by both the Afghan government and donors. However, the Afghan government anddonor community may have already exhausted themselves over the coordination
mechanism. Nevertheless, it is not too late to reconfirm the very aim of our efforts: todeliver. We are still too far away from satisfying the basic needs of Afghan people to becoordinated.
In any event, the current CG aid coordination mechanism can be useful inpractically addressing major obstacles to state building and service delivery in
Afghanistan by focusing on “do no harm”. That would include, first and foremost,parallel structures.

46

Parallel structures
The international community’s efforts were very destructive to the building ofgovernance capability in Afghanistan because they simply headhunted the best people
from the government and hired them as local staff, though many of them ended up doing
menial work at donors’ outposts. These officials were working for US$30 to US$50 per
month as civil servants when, all the sudden, donors rushed in and scrambled for
personnel, especially English-speaking Afghans, offering them up to US$5,000 a month.
The result was an abrupt brain drain from the government to the donor community. The
Afghan bureaucracy is said to have had more capability in 2001 and early 2002 without
foreign aid than today. The rhetoric of the international aid system is that it is supposed
to be building capabilities of recipient countries, but it is actually draining capability
from the weak governments it is supposed to help. 26

The last day of the Tokyo

International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan (January 22,2002) saw the presentation of a Co-chairs’ Summary of Conclusions 27 comprising 22
points, the penultimate of which states, “The Conference noted the UNDP proposal for a
Code of Conduct to avoid distortionary wage and rent inflation caused by theinternational presence, and urged the IG to work further on the proposal.” In spite ofthis stipulation in the Co-chairs’ Summary of Conclusions, the proposition has been
ignored to date. 28 Now there are approximately 280,000 civil servants working in thegovernment receiving an average of US$50 per month, while approximately 50,000
Afghan nationals are working for NGOs, the UN and bilateral and multilateral agencies,
where they can earn US$1,000 per month or more. 29 Today, many students graduatingfrom Kabul University end up as drivers in the UN system because a job in thegovernment pays US$50 while UN drivers get US$400 per month. Hence, officials,
doctors, lawyers, engineers, and university graduates become drivers. 30
In this way, meagerly surviving local capacity at ministries was scooped out
overnight by donors, effectively undermining the very aim of capacity building of public
institutions that Afghans and donors both initially intended to pursue, and effectively

26 A remark by Dr. Ashraf Ghani at the JBIC Seminar “A Comparative Perspective on State-Building in

Post-Conflict Conditions: Afghanistan, Lebanon, Nepal, and Sudan,” January 21, 2007, Tokyo
27 http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/middle_e/afghanistan/min0201/summary.pdf
28 As of June, 2008, the issue has been addressed at the OECD/DAC, e.g., Fragile States Group.
29 Ghani, Lockhart (2008)”Fixing Failed States”, pp.100
30 A remark by Dr. Ashraf Ghani at the JBIC Seminar “A Comparative Perspective on State-Building in
Post-Conflict Conditions: Afghanistan, Lebanon, Nepal, and Sudan,” January 21, 2007, Tokyo47

creating parallel structures, with Afghan public servants and public institutions
increasingly becoming prone to corruption on the one hand, and the donor community
with its overwhelming capacities employing highly-paid local Afghan staffers on theother. This caused very rapid income gaps among Afghans and consequently aggravateddiscontent among Afghans, even raising hostility against donors.
One prominent Afghan ex-official did not hide his anger when spitting out, “Iwould close down all the UN agencies in Afghanistan overnight, and create a structure
within the government that hires these people!” 31 The principle of ‘do no harm’ should
be seriously addressed in that regard.
DAC’s principles for good international engagement with fragile states and situations
As has been pointed out above, there was a serious mismatch between the
Afghan government and the donor community in the process of Afghan state-building.
However, the major problem seems to be with donors rather than the Afghans. First andforemost, the behavior and, moreover, mentality of donors have to change.
Nevertheless, there is good news for Afghanistan.

Reflecting actual hardexperience in getting difficult jobs done in a difficult country like Afghanistan, donors
compiled and adopted at DAC in Paris ‘Principles for Good International Engagement in
Fragile States & Situations’ in April 2007. 32 “The long-term vision for international
engagement in fragile states is to help national reformers to build effective, legitimate,
and resilient state institutions, capable of engaging productively with their people topromote sustained development,” as the Principles’ preamble declares, and to realize
this objective, the following ten principles, or ten commandments, were adopted.
1. Take context as the starting point
2. Do no harm
3. Focus on state-building as the objective
4. Prioritize prevention
5. Recognize the links between political, security and development objectives
6. Promote non-discrimination as the basis for inclusive and stable societies
31 A remark by Dr. Ashraf Ghani at the JBIC Seminar “A Comparative Perspective on State-Building in
Post-Conflict Conditions: Afghanistan, Lebanon, Nepal, and Sudan,” January 21, 2007, Tokyo
32 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/45/38368714.pdf

48

7. Align with local priorities in different ways in different contexts
8. Agree on practical coordination mechanisms between international actors
9. Act fast…but stay engaged long enough to give success a chance
10. Avoid pockets of exclusion (“aid orphans”)
DAC donors will go through peer reviews among themselves, including ofactual implementation of these principles. At the same time, Afghanistan and all otherdeveloping countries, especially those labeled as “fragile states”, should be encouraged
to hold all donors accountable to what donors themselves had unanimously adopted as
their principles of behavioral change, to make sure that donors really own up to theseprinciples.
In Paris on June 12, 2008, the International Conference in Support of
Afghanistan was held and the international community pledged more than $21 billion
for Afghanistan. All participants adopted the Final Declaration 33 of the Conference,
which included a sentence -- “We also agree to focus on state building efforts and avoid
parallel structures.” -- Very much in line with the DAC principles mentioned above. Thisis a welcome development, a sign at last that the international community is reallyembracing the DAC principles. If the Afghan government and international community
are genuinely serious about state building in Afghanistan, they cannot disregard the
problem of parallel structures, and the core of the issue is distortionary wages and rents
caused by the international presence, as referred before, which also cannot be bypassed.
Is Afghanistan a “failed state”?
Not to be wedded to the current grim state of affairs in Afghanistan, it would
be worthwhile to revisit some of the major achievements in state building by Afghans
themselves.
There is still a persistently prevailing image of Afghanistan as a “failed33

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files_156/afghanistan_498/international-conference-in-support-of-afghani
stan-paris-12th-june-2008_6366/ministerial-conference-june-12-2008_6370/final-declaration_6375/declaration-of-the-international-conference-in-support-of-afghanistan-issued-under-the-authority-of-the-three-co-chairs-president-s
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state”. However, without its enormous indigenous capacity, how could a failed stateachieve the political Bonn Process almost on schedule, introduce a new currency in justthree months, carry through the collection of duties/taxes from governors (in otherwords, warlords) controlling the borders, set forth a donor coordination mechanism andbuild it into the budgetary process before being coordinated by contentious donors, asmentioned before?

Donors tend to treat countries like Afghanistan as if they

undoubtedly have no capabilities. However, as Afghanistan has demonstrated, it hasenormous capabilities. Before labeling Afghanistan a failed state, donors should havethe sense and capacity to identify the surviving and functioning indigenous capacities
that Afghans and their communities already possess, and donors should intentionallyand tenaciously work to strengthen these with encouragement and, as an extension ofthat, donors should support Afghans’ own designs attuned to the Afghan context, notimposing donors’ .
If donors are really serious about respecting and fostering the ownership of
Afghans so that they can stand on their own feet someday, donors may as well abandon
micromanagement of their funds. However, the question is whether donors can bepatient enough with the pace of Afghan development.

After all, development is adifficult and lengthy national enterprise that requires national ownership, and for it totake root it must be homegrown. Donors should also be modest enough to admit thatwhat they can do is limited because it is Afghans, not outside donors, who know theircontext better than anybody else and who will have to bear the consequences of thedecisions they make.
Emerging champions
In 2006 and 2007, there were two important elections for Afghans that were
not elections in Afghanistan, although both involved a particular Afghan individual.
The one in 2006 was the election of Kofi Annan’s successor as UN-Secretary General.
The other in 2007 was for the nomination of the President of the World Bank to replace
Paul Wolfowitz. In both cases, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, former Afghan Finance Minister, waslisted as a prospective candidate. Afghans were profoundly excited at the news that Dr.
Ghani might be elected as the head of either of these prominent world organs. However,that feverish mood began to change around the time of the nomination of the WorldBank’s President. Of course Afghans wished Dr. Ghani to become the head of the World
Bank, but at the same time they were also anxious about the possible loss of Dr. Ghani to50

Washington when Afghanistan needed him most. Since Dr. Ghani, the architect of the
CG mechanism and most of the major reconstruction policies, had left the cabinet at theend of 2004, Afghanistan had begun to drift. Then a certain segment of younger Afghanssuddenly realized their over-dependency on a strong personality such as Dr. Ghani.
They began to realize that it is they who have to act to carve out their own futures.
Time is not static. During the six years or so since the new government camein, the younger generations of Afghanistan have seen a lot and, profoundly frustrated
about the present state of affairs, they began to emerge as a new force.
One such promising movement is the Center for Policy Priorities (CFPP),
34 which emerged sometime in late 2007 as an independent think-tank comprising agroup of dedicated young Afghan professionals. Their aim is to support the efforts of thegovernment and the international community across a wide range of policy reforms
through concrete research, to generate healthy debates among citizens in formulating
public opinion, and to provide capacity development for future leadership positions inboth the public and private sectors. Currently they are involved in basic training forparliamentarians on legislation, among other projects. In November 2007, CFPP held a‘First Young Afghan Professional Summit’ in Kabul attended by more than 100 young
Afghan professionals from all over the country and from abroad as well, essentially thelaunch of CFPP.
CFPP has only just begun operating, and it might be too early to judge its
future prospects. However, such a development is encouraging, especially when thepresent state of affairs in Afghanistan is being excessively characterized as increasingly
overshadowed by uncertainties. At last an Afghan version of the Young Turks, real
patriots, may be in the making. Such a movement should be watched and encouraged
as it grows. One need not be too pessimistic about the future of Afghanistan, after all,because there are always new generations taking over from the older ones.

34 http://www.cfpp.org.af/

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Short CV
Maki Shinohara has served as UNHCR Spokesperson in Afghanistan, 2001-2003.

She

worked extensively in former Yugoslavia, and was the special assistant to Mrs. Sadako
Ogata, President of Japan International Cooperation Agency, former UN HighCommissioner for Refugees and former Japanese Prime Minister's Representative
Envoy for Afghanistan. She is currently leading emergency teams in Iraq and othercomplex humanitarian situations, as UNHCR's Senior Emergency Preparedness andResponse Officer. Prior to joining UNHCR in 1992, she was a staff writer for a major US
newspaper.
Yoshiyuki Yamamoto has worked as Programme Coordinator, United Nations Office for
Humanitarian Coordinator's Office for Afghanistan (1998-1999), Officer-in-Charge,
Sub-office, Kabul (2000-2001) and Senior Reintegration Officer, Office of Chief ofMission in Afghanistan (2002), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR). He served as Associate Professor, Graduate School of Law, Nagoya
University for a year (2002-2003), and served as Head of Programme Section, United
Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (2004-2007). He is currently working as
Portfolio Manager, North America Office, United Nations Office for Project Services(UNOPS).
Nobutaka Miyahara has served as deputy chief of mission, Embassy of Japan in
Afghanistan from August 2002 to August 2004 after he, as director of the second Middle
East division of the Foreign Ministry of Japan, participated in planning post-9.11
Japanese policy towards Afghanistan. He quit the foreign ministry in July 2005 after
having worked for it for more than 22 years. He is currently a professor at the Faculty of
Literature, Kurume University and a senior associate fellow at the Japan Institute ofInternational Affairs (JIIA).
Yukimasa Fukuda is currently Senior Economist, Institute for International Monetary
Affairs (IIMA), Tokyo. Prior to IIMA, he served extensively in the field of Japan’s official
development assistance at the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan (OECF)
and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

While at OECF/JBIC, hisoverseas posts included OECF Washington Office (USA), OECF Cairo Office (Egypt),
Resident Director for the Transition Team of the Middle East and North Africa
Development Bank (Cairo), and JICA expert as an advisor to the government of
Afghanistan; Afghanistan Aid Coordination Authority and Ministry of Finance.

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