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© USIP 2013 • All rights reserved.

“ Rather than investing more 

effort in trying to fix and fine-tune 

the TMAF let alone add more 

benchmarks or revisit the respective “failures” of both sides, the 

Afghan government and its 

international partners need to 

clarify and manage their own and 

each other’s expectations. This will 

be particularly important in the 

immediate future while the 

challenges of elections and political 

transition as well as withdrawal of 

international combat troops 

dominate the landscape. ”

May 22, 2013

“We Pretend To Work, 

And They Pretend To Pay Us” 

Travails Of Mutual Accountability In Afghanistan

Summary

•	 Implementation oftheTokyo MutualAccountability Framework forAfghanistan (TMAF) is being

undermined by: (1) doubts aboutthe realism ofsomeAfghan government and international

community pledges; (2) intrusion of overriding short-term priorities; (3) emphasis on process at

expense ofsubstance; and (4) focus on theTMAF distracting from achieving results and outcomes.

•	 Rather than investing more effort in trying to fix and fine-tune the TMAF, the Afghan government and itsinternational partners need to manage their own and each other’s expectations.

•	 Both sides can responsibly pursue their respective, clearly-defined objectives, while staying realistic about overlaps and disconnects. The main objectives of Afghanistan and the international

community are interdependent and in many ways broadly consistent—provided they include a

broader, medium-term perspective rather than solely serving narrow and short-term interests.

•	 Key milestones ofthe current political and security transition include the 2014 presidential election

bringing into office a new government perceived as credible and legitimate, and completion ofthe

international military drawdown withAfghan nationalsecurity forces effectively taking over.

•	 Once these elements are successfully in place the TMAF, if tempered by realistic ambitions and

timeframes, may provide the basisfor a productive partnership between Afghanistan and the

international community over the medium term.

William Byrd

E-mail: wbyrd@usip.org

peaceBrieF148

TheTokyo MutualAccountability Framework (TMAF), agreed between theAfghan government and its

international partners atthe July 2012Tokyo international meeting onAfghanistan,started out with

high hopes. Donors pledged to provide civilian aid of $4 billion per yearthrough 2015 and to continue

significantlevels ofsupportthrough 2017 and beyond, while theAfghan government committed itselfto

governance improvements and politicaltransition. However, as noted atthe time,“The outcome atTokyo

exceeded expectations, but...implementing theTokyo mutual accountability framework will be a major

challenge.”1Serious obstacles are being encountered, and the processseemsincreasingly problematic. 

Indeed,the old adage about work in Soviet-era centrally-planned economic systems...“we pretend to

work, and they pretend to pay us”increasingly appearsto be applicable to implementation oftheTMAF,

which is being undermined by:

•	 Doubts aboutthe realism of some pledges made by both sides—the degree of genuine commitment by the Afghan government to improve governance and fight corruption, especially in its

final year in office, and the level of international funding that will actually materialize in the face of

donors’budget problems and disappointment over limited Afghan progress;
© USIP 2013 • All rights reserved.

“We Pretend To Work, And They Pretend To Pay Us”

page 2 • PB 148 • May 22, 2013

•	 Intrusion of overriding short-term priorities that may sideline TMAF—notably the

international community’s preoccupation with its military exit strategy, and the Afghan

government’s focus on political maneuvering in the run-up to the 2014 election; 

•	 Process—fulfilling the “letter of the law”of benchmarks and“checking the box”—being

emphasized at the expense of substance; and

•	 Focus on the TMAF distracting both sides from achieving actual results and positive

outcomes.

Moreover, there may be a risk that TMAF implementation will degenerate into a“blame game,”

with each side accusing the other of failure to live up to itsside of the“bargain”and using perceived failures asjustification for falling short on its own commitments. The Afghan government,

for example, may“check the box”on benchmarksit has committed to—even when substantively

they may have been only partly achieved at best—and then argue that the burden is on the

international community to fulfill itsfunding pledges. 2International partners may reduce funding,

or at least not make extraordinary effortsto fulfill commitmentsthat were considered“stretch

targets”at Tokyo, intended to reward strong Afghan government performance but not to be taken

for granted.

What Is Going Wrong

A few examplesillustrate these themes and highlight concerns about implementation of the TMAF.

Recent developmentsin the Kabul Bank crisisillustrate how focusing on process—meeting“the

letter of the law”—may distract both sidesfrom achieving important resultsthat are in the best

interest of Afghanistan and itsinternational partners. The convictions ofseveral Kabul Bank

employees and others were presented by the Afghan government asfulfilling its commitments

regarding Kabul Bank, whereasthere has been a perception internationally that the verdicts were

too lenient.3But the practical point isthat, with the principals of Kabul Bank not having been

convicted on money-laundering charges, the government cannot initiate formal international

proceduresto seize the stolen assets already identified in other countries. Hence the opportunity

for the Afghan state to recover hundreds of millions of dollars has been lost—an adverse outcome

irrespective of whether TMAF benchmarks were met or not. 

Some efforts by donorsto move aid“on-budget”4 highlight problems associated with trying

to meet TMAF commitmentsfor their own sake. It wasrecently announced, for example, that

completion of the installation of the third turbine at the Kajaki hydroelectric plant (in a conflictridden part of Helmand province) would be turned over to the Afghan government, despite the

international community’sinability to complete this project during half a decade. It is questionable whether the government willsucceed where massive international effortsfailed.5

The Afghan government has not made much progresstoward prioritizing a set of core programs

and projects within a realistic overall resource envelope. High funding requests and unprioritized

“wish-lists”of projects have been a chronic problem. Nearly five years after promulgation of the

Afghanistan National Development Strategy in 2008, Afghanistan has not yet approved all 22

National Priority Programs(NPPs). A costed national public sector development program, based

on the NPPs and fitting within the resource envelope of the Tokyo pledge, does not exist. It is

widely recognized that insufficient funding is available to meet the needs of all NPPs, and in the

meantime donors continue to“cherry-pick”the programsthey prefer at the expense of an Afghanled national development program.

Intruding short-term priorities can trump making mutual accountability work. On the internationalside, the imperative of withdrawing foreign combat forcesin a timely and smooth way may
© USIP 2013 • All rights reserved.

“We Pretend To Work, And They Pretend To Pay Us”

page 3 • PB 148 • May 22, 2013

be interfering with effortsto hold the Afghan government accountable for its performance. For

example, international pressure for action on Kabul Bank has greatly eased during the past two

years. It also appearsthat the IMF-supported macroeconomic program islikely to remain officially

“on-track,”even if the government’s performance fallsshort of targets(for example in the crucial

area of domestic revenue),since no one wantsto deal with the consequences of going off-track.6

On the Afghan side,short-term political considerationsin the run-up to the 2014 presidential

election are sidelining and distorting TMAF implementation. Expectationsthat the current

government will take politically-sensitive actionsto improve governance, especially against highlevel corruption, will become all the more unrealistic as elections approach. There are also signs

of possible manipulation ofsome TMAF benchmarksfor narrow political purposes. For example,

the Afghan government hasstrongly advocated that 100 percent of international funding for

the 2014/15 elections be“on-budget”—but without appropriate safeguardsto preserve the

independence of electoral authorities, this may increase their vulnerability or at least undermine

confidence in the elections.7

There are uncertainties about to what extent and how (i.e. how much on-budget) the Tokyo

pledge of civilian aid will be delivered. Based on experience in Afghanistan and elsewhere, actual

aid commonly fallsshort of pledgesfor a variety of reasons, and it would be surprising if the Tokyo

pledge turned out to be an exception to this general pattern. Moreover, given that the pledge

wasslightly above even the high-end scenario (“accelerating progress”) in the World Bank study

Afghanistan in Transition: Looking Beyond 2014, itseems clear that donorssaw this as a“stretch

target”—to be striven for only if there isstrong progress by the government in improving governance and fighting corruption, prospectsfor which are doubtful in the short run.

The TMAF is generating substantial paperwork, which may further distract from substance. 

The government’s“anti-corruption decree”of July 2012 contained more than 150 specific action

points/benchmarks, called for a large amount of reporting, and would be no small task to monitor.8

Subsequently a 22-page concept paper, a 30-page progressreport, and other documents have

been prepared, including matrixes and templates which will generate further paperwork. 

Overall, the larger goalsthat animated Tokyo and the promise of the TMAF are being undermined during implementation. Thisis not unexpected given experience with conditionality,

benchmarks, and similar arrangementsin other countries as well asin Afghanistan’s own recent

history. In particular,such mechanisms do not work well in the absence of a reform constituency

in the country that can leverage conditions and push reforms, if objectives and targets are overly

ambitious or multitudinous, and if a medium-term perspective islacking or is dominated by shortterm priorities. 

How To Move Forward 

Rather than investing more effort in trying to fix and fine-tune the TMAF let alone add more

benchmarks or revisit the respective“failures”of both sides, the Afghan government and its

international partners need to clarify and manage their own and each other’s expectations. This

will be particularly important in the immediate future while the challenges of elections and political transition as well as withdrawal of international combat troops dominate the landscape. There

is also a need to recognize the profoundly political nature of transition and mutual accountability,

rather than getting mired in technical aspects.

Both sides can responsibly pursue their respective, clearly-defined objectives, keeping realistic

about overlaps and disconnects. Progress would be facilitated by clear and honest communications. The main objectives of Afghanistan and the international community are interdependent
© USIP 2013 • All rights reserved.

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“We Pretend To Work, And They Pretend To Pay Us”

page 4 • PB 148 • May 22, 2013

About This Brief

William Byrd is a development 

economist and has worked on 

Afghanistan in various capacities 

over the past decade and longer. 

During 2002–2006, he was stationed 

in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he 

served as the World Bank’s country 

manager for Afghanistan and then 

as economic advisor. He is currently 

an Afghanistan senior expert at the 

U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). This 

Peace Brief builds on his earlier 

analysis of the July 2012 Tokyo 

international meeting on Afghanistan and the mutual accountability 

framework agreed there, as well as 

a note on the subsequent Afghan 

government decree that put forward 

implementation benchmarks. The 

views expressed in this brief do not 

necessarily reflect the views of USIP, 

which does not take policy positions.

and in many ways broadly consistent—provided they are responsibly pursued, and include a

broader, medium-term perspective rather than solely serving narrow and short-term interests. The

international community’s key short-run priority isto withdraw most foreign combat troops by the

end of 2014 and achieve a smooth security hand-over. To be sustainable thisrequires achievement

of key Afghan national objectives: a successful presidential election and political transition resulting

in an effective new government administration and (later) parliament perceived to be legitimate

internally and externally.

Once these key milestones of the current political and security transition are successfully achieved,

the TMAF, if tempered by realistic ambitions and timeframes, may provide the basisfor a productive

partnership between Afghanistan and the international community over the medium term.

Notes

1.	 William Byrd,“Mutual Accountability: Lessons and Prospects Post-Tokyo”(USIP PeaceBrief,

No. 132, August 2012).

2.	 The Ministry of Finance recently called outseveral donorsfor not meeting their Tokyo pledges

(TOLO News, April 7, 2013); more such criticisms can be expected in the future.

3.	 See Scott Smith,“Kabul Bankrupt? Verdict Portends Broad Consequencesfor Afghanistan,”

USIP Olive Branch Post, March 11, 2013.

4.	 “On-budget”financing meansthat donors provide fundsto the Afghan government for disbursement by the Ministry of Finance through the government’s national budget and administrative mechanisms. The Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) isthe largest on-budget

instrument. Currently most donor funding is“off-budget,”channeled through bilateral mechanisms. Donors committed at Tokyo to increase on-budget aid to at least 50 percent of the total.

5.	 See The Washington Post, March 4, 2013. For further background see Noah Arjomand,“Eagle’s

Summit Revisited: Decision-Making in the Kajaki Dam Refurbishment Project”(Afghanistan

Analysts Network Thematic Report, January 2013).

6.	 As occurred during the Kabul Bank crisis, going off the IMF program would result in loss of not

only the relatively small resourcesfrom the IMF but also the macroeconomic certification of the

IMF, which in turn would block much larger resourcesfrom the ARTF and direct budgetsupport

by some donors and international agencies, whose standard proceduresrequire the IMF’s“seal

of approval”to release funds. Thisin turn would precipitate a budget crisis.

7.	 I am grateful to Scott Smith for making this point.

8.	 See William Byrd and Attaullah Nasib,“Afghanistan’s Post-Tokyo Presidential Decree: Both More

and Lessthan Meetsthe Eye?”(USIP News Feature, August 16, 2012).