SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture

OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION

Actions Needed to Better Assess and Coordinate

Capacity-Building Efforts at the Ministry of Agriculture, 

Irrigation, and Livestock

October 20, 2011
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page i

OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION

October 20, 2011

Executive Departments and Agencies:

This report discusses the results of a performance audit by the Office of the Special Inspector General 

for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) of U.S. assistance to build the capacity of the Ministry of 

Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock. This report includes five recommendations to the U.S. 

Ambassador to Afghanistan to improve management and integration of U.S. capacity-building efforts to 

ensure the sustainment of U.S. agriculture assistance in Afghanistan.

A summary of this report is on page iii. When preparing the final report, we considered comments from

the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which are reproduced in appendix III of this report. The U.S. Embassy 

concurred with our recommendations and noted actions they are taking to address them. We

conducted this performance audit under the authority of Public Law No. 110-181, as amended, the 

Inspector General Act of 1978, and the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008. 

Steven J Trent

Acting Special Inspector General 

 for Afghanistan Reconstruction
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page ii

The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

The Honorable Leon Panetta

Secretary of Defense

The Honorable Thomas J. Vilsack

Secretary of Agriculture

General James N. Mattis

Commander, U.S. Central Command

The Honorable Ryan C. Crocker

U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan

General John R. Allen

Commander, U.S. Forces – Afghanistan, and 

Commander, International Security Assistance Force

General Craig R. McKinley

Chief, National Guard Bureau

Dr. Rajiv Shah

Administrator

U.S. Agency for International Development 

Dr. S. Ken Yamashita

USAID Mission Director for Afghanistan
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page iii

SIGAR

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction

SIGAR Audit-12-1 October 2011

Actions Needed to Better Assess and Coordinate 

Capacity-Building Efforts at the Ministry of 

Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock

What SIGAR Reviewed

Decades of conflict and neglect have devastated Afghanistan’s agriculture sector, yet between 65 to 80 percent of the 

Afghan population are dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. The United States has made rebuilding the Afghan 

agriculture sector one of its highest development priorities. Between fiscal years 2002 and 2010, the United States 

invested more than $1 billion to develop Afghanistan’s agriculture sector and plans to continue to invest in this sector.

To improve the long-term sustainability of U.S.-funded agriculture projects, U.S. agencies have provided $77 million to 

help build the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) to better serve farmers and 

promote private sector development. As part of this effort, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Agency 

for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense (DOD) have deployed agricultural advisors and 

agribusiness development teams throughout Afghanistan. This report assesses (1) the extent to which U.S. capacitybuilding programs and activities in agriculture are coordinated and integrated and (2) progress made in building MAIL’s 

capacity in Kabul and at its provincial offices. SIGAR interviewed officials from USDA, USAID, DOD, and U.S. Embassy 

Kabul, as well as Afghan government officials and implementing partners. SIGAR also reviewed U.S. strategies and plans,

program documents, budgets, and performance management plans. SIGAR conducted its work in Kabul, Balkh Province, 

and Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, and Washington, D.C., from October 2010 to September 2011 in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards.

What SIGAR Found

In accordance with the U.S. Government Agriculture Assistance Strategy for Afghanistan, the U.S. Embassy Kabul has 

taken steps to better coordinate and integrate U.S. agriculture assistance and capacity-building efforts, but 

coordination and integration problems among the national, provincial, and district levels continue to limit the 

effectiveness of the U.S effort. For example, U.S. personnel in the field were unaware of capacity-building activities at 

the ministry in Kabul and therefore could not ensure they were building the same capabilities in provinces and districts 

as those in Kabul. Several factors contribute to these coordination challenges, such as insufficient guidance to those 

implementing capacity-building activities, ineffective use of existing coordination mechanisms, and incomplete 

devolution of administrative and programmatic authority to USAID field program officers. Without effective 

coordination and integration of U.S. capacity-building efforts, U.S. agencies cannot assure their programs and activities 

are well aligned or mutually reinforcing in building the Afghans’ capacity to provide agriculture programs and services. 

To the extent that the Afghan government can develop the capacity to deliver agriculture services, the U.S. government 

and other donor countries can reduce the number of personnel (at an estimated cost of up to $570,998 per person per 

year) and program funds required to support agriculture needs in Afghanistan. 

The U.S. Embassy has not been able to determine how much progress has been made to date in building ministry 

capacity because it did not have sufficient or complete data. The Agriculture Campaign Assessment does not include 

USDA and DOD agricultural advisors’ capacity-building activities, and the performance data that agencies collect is not 

consistent, thereby making it difficult for the U.S. Embassy to incorporate them into its assessment. Moreover, the 

Agriculture Campaign Assessment does not have performance baselines and targets for all of its performance 

indicators, and it largely measures the products of capacity-building efforts, rather than the results achieved. Without a 

mechanism that can sufficiently and reliably assess and report on progress made in building MAIL’s capacity, the U.S. 

Embassy is not able to evaluate whether the strategy is working and resources are properly aligned. Without being able 

to assess progress, these agencies cannot identify what changes are needed to improve the effectiveness of their 

programs and ensure sustainable results.

What SIGAR Recommends

SIGAR is making five recommendations to the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan to improve the management and 

integration of U.S. capacity-building programs for MAIL and better ensure the long-term sustainability of U.S.-funded 

agriculture projects. These recommendations address the need to improve the integration and coordination of 

U.S capacity-building efforts, more closely integrate DOD’s agribusiness development team capacity-building activities 

with those of civilian agencies, and more accurately and consistently measure civilian-military progress made in building 

MAIL’s capacity in Kabul and in the provinces. In commenting on a draft of this report, the U.S. Embassy Kabul 

concurred with the recommendations and noted steps it will take to address them.

For more information contact: SIGAR Public Affairs at (703) 602-8742 or PublicAffairs@sigar.mil
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background ...................................................................................................................................................2

Coordination In Kabul Has Improved But Several Factors Continue To Hamper 

Integration of U.S. Capacity-Building Efforts..........................................................................................5

The U.S. Embassy Faces Difficulty Assessing Progress In Building MAIL’s Capacity .....................................9

Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................13

Recommendations......................................................................................................................................13

Comments...................................................................................................................................................14

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology.........................................................................................................15

Appendix II: USAID Agricultural Programs That Contribute to Building MAIL’s 

Capacity ................................................................................................................................................17

Appendix III: Comments from the U.S. Embassy Kabul .............................................................................19

TABLES

Table I: USAID Agricultural Programs with Capacity-Building Objectives in Fiscal 

Year 2010..............................................................................................................................................17
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page v

ACRONYMS

ADT Agribusiness Development Team

CDDEA Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs

DAIL Directorate of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock

DOD Department of Defense 

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

MAIL Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock

SIGAR Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction

USAID U.S. Agency for International Development

USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 1

Actions Needed to Better Assess and Coordinate Capacity-Building Efforts at the 

Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock

Through fiscal year 2010, U.S. agencies had obligated more than $1 billion in agricultural assistance. 

After focusing primarily on humanitarian and stabilization activities, U.S. agencies are adjusting their 

program portfolios to make fundamental investments in the development of Afghanistan’s agriculture 

sector. The long-term success and sustainability of this investment depends on the ability of the Afghan 

Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL) to perform its core functions—restoring 

Afghanistan’s licit agricultural economy by delivering services to farmers and supporting private sector 

market development—but the ministry faces serious capacity limitations after decades of conflict and 

neglect. Consequently, in 2010, the U.S. Embassy Kabul made building MAIL’s capacity a high priority for 

U.S. agricultural assistance. 

Three U.S. agencies—the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense (DOD)—have a significant role in building MAIL’s 

capacity in Kabul and in Afghanistan’s provinces and districts. USDA and USAID have already provided 

$77 million for capacity-building activities in their agricultural programs that were active in fiscal years 

2010 and 2011, and they plan to obligate significant funding for capacity building in agricultural 

programs in the near future.

This report assesses the (1) extent to which U.S. capacity-building programs and activities in agriculture 

are coordinated and integrated and (2) progress made in building MAIL’s capacity in Kabul and at its 

provincial offices.

To accomplish these objectives, we reviewed U.S. and Afghan government strategies and campaign 

plans; agricultural program contracts and agreements, work plans, and USAID’s performance 

management plan; and performance reports and assessments. We also interviewed officials from the 

U.S. Embassy, USDA, USAID, DOD’s Agribusiness Development Teams (ADT), as well as MAIL officials in 

Kabul and in the provinces, implementing partners, and the International Security Assistance Force

(ISAF). We attended an Agriculture Conference in November 2010 and an ADT Conference in March 

2011. We conducted our work in Kabul, Balkh Province, and Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, and 

Washington, D.C., from October 2010 to September 2011, in accordance with generally accepted 

government auditing standards. Appendix I includes a more detailed discussion of our scope and 

methodology.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 2

BACKGROUND

The agriculture sector is integral to Afghanistan’s long-term political and economic stability. It accounts 

for more than a third of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product (excluding the illicit opium economy), and 

an estimated 65 to 80 percent of Afghans depend on it for their livelihoods.1

U.S. Agriculture Assistance Strategy and Organization

Decades of conflict, 

frequent droughts, and environmental degradation have decimated the sector. Farmers have limited 

access to quality agricultural inputs and credit, suffer from pre- and post-harvest loss, and struggle to 

transport their products to markets that often provide only limited returns. Additionally, the lack of 

strong public services for farmers inhibits agriculture sector growth. Meanwhile, the higher profit 

margins and wages that can be earned from cultivating poppies for illicit opium production can lure 

many farmers into activities that feed instability, support the insurgency, and undermine the 

government.

Since fiscal year 2002, the U.S. government has provided agricultural assistance to Afghanistan. The 

focus of this assistance has changed from providing emergency food assistance in 2002 and 2003 and

counternarcotics-related alternative development programs from 2004 through 2008 to countering the 

insurgency and developing the agriculture sector since 2009. In October 2009, the U.S. Embassy issued 

the USG Agriculture Assistance Strategy for Afghanistan (U.S. agriculture strategy) to bring greater 

coherency to U.S. government efforts to rebuild Afghanistan’s agriculture sector. The strategy identifies 

two goals for U.S. assistance to the agriculture sector. The first is to increase agriculture-related jobs 

and incomes. The second is to increase the confidence that Afghans have in their government. To 

accomplish these goals, U.S. agriculture assistance seeks to (1) increase agricultural productivity, 

(2) regenerate agribusiness, (3) rehabilitate watersheds and improve irrigation infrastructure, and 

(4) increase MAIL’s capacity to deliver services to rural farmers and herders and promote the private 

sector and farmer associations. The Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy and the 

United States Government Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan

reiterated these goals and objectives in 2010 and 2011.

2

In the summer of 2010, the U.S. Embassy’s Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs

(CDDEA) raised concerns that U.S. agriculture assistance was not well coordinated and was not achieving 

its strategic objectives despite the substantial U.S. investment in the agriculture sector. As a result, the 

U.S. Embassy took several steps to address these problems.3

 1 According to United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, the farm-gate value of opium was 9 percent of 

Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, or $1.4 billion, in 2011. See United Nations Office of Drugs and 

Crime/Afghanistan Ministry of Counter Narcotics, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2011 Summary Findings, October 

2011

First, in November 2010, the U.S. 

Ambassador appointed a Senior Agriculture Coordinator with responsibility for developing and directing 

U.S. agriculture policy and oversight of all U.S. agriculture-related personnel and programs. Second, the 

Ambassador established a Senior Agriculture Policy Committee and restructured the existing Agriculture 

Working Group, whose membership includes representatives from the U.S. Embassy; USDA; USAID; ISAF 

headquarters; the Department of State’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement 

Affairs; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and agricultural advisors at the regional, provincial, and 

2 The U.S. goals and objectives are also consistent with the Afghan government’s National Agriculture 

Development Framework.

3 The ambassadorial-level Coordinating Director for Development and Economic Affairs coordinates the activities 

of sections and agencies focused on development and economic affairs in Afghanistan.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 3

district levels. Third, CDDEA conducted a comprehensive review of U.S. agriculture assistance and made 

20 recommendations to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of U.S. agriculture assistance.4

Building MAIL’s Capacity Is a U.S. Priority

In 2010, the U.S. Embassy Kabul made building MAIL’s capacity a high priority for U.S. agricultural 

assistance for several reasons. First, establishing institutions that can adequately perform their core 

functions is necessary for the Afghan government to take over lead responsibility for security in 2014, in 

accordance with the Lisbon Summit Declaration.5

MAIL faces a significant capacity deficit after decades of conflict and neglect. According to a 2010 

compilation of six organizational assessments prepared by Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance,

 In addition, the United States and international 

donors committed to channeling at least 50 percent of development assistance through the Afghan 

government by 2012, and MAIL is expected to play a significant role in fulfilling this commitment. 

Implementing programs directly through MAIL rather than through contractors would have longerlasting effects and be less expensive in the long term. Providing assistance through the Afghan 

government is dependent upon MAIL’s ability to demonstrate the capacity to handle the assistance. 

Furthermore, the success and sustainability of U.S. agriculture programs depends on MAIL’s ability to 

maintain and sustain the results or benefits of those programs in the future. 

6

more than 55 percent of MAIL’s technical staff did not meet the basic skill requirement for their 

positions, 40 percent of districts did not have an agriculture office and existing offices often lacked the 

personnel and technical skills for even basic services, and MAIL’s procurement processes were very 

complicated—exceeding 60 steps—which slowed down business functions. In addition, MAIL’s budget 

execution rate was low with MAIL only executing 30 percent of its solar year 1388 budget due to 

insufficient program design and implementation capacity.7

 A June 2010 USAID assessment found that 

MAIL was not ready to independently manage USAID funds with sufficient accountability and 

implementation capacity without significant improvement in all core functional areas including finance, 

procurement, internal audit, human resources, project formulation and management. In July 2010, the 

Government Accountability Office reported that MAIL lacked the capacity to maintain and sustain the 

agricultural programs put in place by donors.8

MAIL is charged with restoring Afghanistan’s licit agricultural economy. Its primary functions include 

agricultural research and extension, livestock and animal health, land management, natural resource 

management, irrigation and infrastructure, and program implementation and coordination. It has a 

presence in all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces through its provincial Directorates of Agriculture, Irrigation, 

and Livestock (DAIL), which are the primary link between the Ministry in Kabul and farmers and herders 

in the provinces.

 

 4 U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, USG Agricultural Assistance to Afghanistan: A Review (March 21, 2011). The 

review’s recommendations addressed program alignment; performance reporting; transition to Afghan authority; 

budget actions; clarity of mission; agency coordination; program procurement and execution; provincial 

agriculture development strategies; field staffing; and international collaboration.

5 On November 20, 2010, the heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic 

Council in Lisbon proclaimed, “Looking to the end of 2014, Afghan forces will be assuming full responsibility for 

security across the whole of Afghanistan.”

6 The Alliance based its analysis on organizational assessments conducted by USAID, Afghanistan’s Ministry of 

Finance, GRM International (a development management company), Deloitte, MAIL, and The Asia Foundation. 7 Solar year 1388 is the Afghan government’s fiscal year from approximately March 22, 2009, to March 21, 2010. 8 See GAO, Afghanistan Development: Enhancements to Performance Management and Evaluation Efforts Could 

Improve USAID’s Agriculture Programs, GAO-10-368 (Washington, DC: July 14, 2010).
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 4

U.S. Agriculture Capacity Building Programs

According to the U.S. Agriculture Strategy, USDA, USAID, and DOD’s ADTs have responsibility for building 

MAIL’s capacity to deliver services and promote the private sector.9 USDA and USAID have committed 

$77 million for capacity-building activities in their agricultural programs from fiscal years 2010 and 2011

appropriations. USDA oversees the U.S. government’s principal program for building MAIL’s capacity—

the 3-year, $36 million Capacity Building Change Management Program.10 The program aims to 

(1) develop the capacity of MAIL to manage donor and Afghan government funds and its human and 

physical capital and (2) design and implement a program of change management to build the technical 

capacity of MAIL. Nine of USAID’s 18 active agricultural programs in fiscal year 2010 have at least a 

small capacity-building component; more than half of these expire in fiscal year 2011. USAID estimates 

these capacity-building activities cost $41 million, or 4 percent, of total agricultural programming.11

• Agricultural Credit Enhancement

 

Described in more detail in appendix II, these programs are:

• Advancing Afghan Agriculture Alliance

• Accelerating Sustainable Agriculture Program

• Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Production in Agriculture-Plus

• Afghanistan Water, Agriculture, and Technology Transfer 

• Commercial Horticulture and Agricultural Marketing Program 

• Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives for the North, East, and West

• Improving Livelihoods and Governance through Natural Resource Management

• Pastoral Engagement, Adaptation, and Capacity Enhancement

Future U.S. agricultural programs will place a greater emphasis on building MAIL’s capacity in some of its 

most important departments.

12

 9 DOD’s provincial reconstruction teams and village stability operations teams are also engaged in efforts to rebuild 

Afghanistan’s agriculture sector; however, they were not included in the scope of the audit because the U.S. 

Agriculture Strategy did not identify them as having responsibility for building MAIL’s capacity. In addition, the 

State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers, which also provide agriculture assistance to Afghanistan, were not included in the scope of this audit, 

though they provide agriculture assistance, because they do not implement MAIL’s capacity-building activities.

 These programs include USDA’s agricultural extension program, 

USAID’s agricultural research and extension program, and a capacity-building component within the U.S. 

government irrigation and watershed management program. USDA and USAID expect to award 

cooperative agreements for these programs in fiscal year 2011 or early fiscal year 2012.

10 USDA awarded the cooperative agreement to the Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance in November 2010. 

Originally awarded for four years, USDA officials have indicated that they reduced the program to three years at 

the same funding level.

11 This figure includes the capacity-building components of the Advancing Afghan Agriculture Alliance program; 

Accelerating Sustainable Agriculture Program; Afghanistan Water, Agriculture, and Technology Transfer program; 

Commercial Horticulture and Agriculture Marketing Program; and Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives for the 

North, East, and West program. USAID did not include the four other agricultural programs we identified as having 

a capacity-building component in their estimate. We were unable to determine the amount of funding dedicated 

to those programs’ capacity-building components. 12 Funding for future agriculture programs are considered sensitive and cannot be released publicly.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 5

In addition to their capacity-building programs, USDA, USAID, and DOD deploy about 160 personnel 

across Afghanistan at any one time on a rotational basis who help, as part of their duties, to build MAIL’s 

capacity at the ministry and in the provinces and districts.13 At an annual cost that ranges between 

$425,926 and $570,998 per year to support a civilian in the field, the U.S. government spends at least 

$80 million per year to support these personnel.14 In July 2011, USDA had 47 agricultural advisors to 

train and mentor MAIL and DAIL staff in project management and agricultural techniques and advise 

military units, other U.S. agencies, and international donors on their agricultural activities. USDA 

agricultural advisors are embedded at the ministry in Kabul and attached to regional commands, task 

forces, provincial reconstruction teams, and district support teams. According to USDA, from April 2010 

to March 2011, agricultural advisors trained on average about 370 MAIL and DAIL staff each quarter, 

and an estimated 24,000 farmers were trained in that year.15 As of June 2011, USAID had seven field 

program officers to advise provincial reconstruction teams and district support teams on agriculture 

projects and on coordination with the Afghan government and international donors.16 Currently, DOD 

deploys nine ADTs—eight in eastern Afghanistan and one in southern Afghanistan. An ADT is a National 

Guard unit typically composed of an agricultural expert team of 12 soldiers and airmen, a headquarters 

section, and its own security force. According to several ADT commanders, their missions have largely 

evolved from building agricultural infrastructure and training farmers to emphasizing increasing MAIL’s 

capacity at the provincial and district levels.17

COORDINATION IN KABUL HAS IMPROVED BUT SEVERAL FACTORS CONTINUE TO HAMPER 

INTEGRATION OF U.S. CAPACITY-BUILDING EFFORTS 

 For example, ADTs worked with the DAIL and agricultural 

extension agents to develop budgets and manage development projects funded through the 

Commander’s Emergency Response Program. The 2011 CDDEA review reported that ADTs had initiated

578 Commander’s Emergency Response Program projects in 2010, with a total value of $9.9 million, and 

completed 413 projects. 

Despite some improvement in coordination between USDA and USAID in Kabul, U.S. agencies continue 

to have difficulty coordinating and integrating their agriculture capacity-building efforts both between 

Kabul and the provinces and with some USAID implementing partners in the same geographic area. For 

example, U.S. personnel in the field were unaware of capacity-building activities at the ministry in Kabul 

and, therefore, could not ensure they were building the same capabilities in provinces and districts as 

those in Kabul. Several factors contribute to these coordination challenges, such as insufficient guidance 

to those implementing capacity-building activities, ineffective use of existing coordination mechanisms, 

and incomplete devolution of administrative and programmatic authority to USAID field program 

 13 This number includes USDA agricultural advisors, USAID agricultural field program officers, and ADT agricultural 

specialists. It does not include ADT security force personnel because they do not directly implement agricultural 

activities or USAID generalist field program officers.

14 See SIGAR and State OIG, The U.S. Civilian Uplift in Afghanistan Has Cost Nearly $2 Billion, and State Should 

Continue to Strengthen Its Management and Oversight of the Funds Transferred to Other Agencies, SIGAR Audit11-17 & State OIG AUD/SI-11-45 (Washington D.C., September 8, 2011). The $80 million per year is an estimate. 15 According to USDA, some duplication in the number of farmers trained is likely because many attended more 

than one training opportunity and, therefore, were counted more than once. We did not conduct an independent 

data reliability assessment of the data.

16 USAID had a total of 185 field program officers throughout Afghanistan, but only seven were specifically 

dedicated to agricultural programs, as of June 2011.

17 The ADT Handbook and the National Guard Bureau, which is the program manager for ADTs, states that the ADT 

mission is to provide basic agricultural education and services and conduct stability operations to support the 

effectiveness of the Afghan government. See Center for Army Lessons Learned, Agribusiness Development Teams 

in Afghanistan: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, No.10-10 (November 2009).
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 6

officers. Without effective coordination and integration of U.S. capacity-building efforts, U.S. agencies 

cannot be assured their programs and activities are well aligned or mutually reinforcing, which the 

U.S. agriculture strategy indicates is necessary to achieve a common objective. 

U.S. Agencies Continue to Have Difficulty Coordinating Despite Some Improvement

Although coordination among agencies in Kabul has improved somewhat since the U.S. Embassy 

reorganized U.S. agriculture assistance in November 2010, U.S. agencies continue to have difficulty 

achieving the level of coordination needed to integrate their capacity-building efforts. The 

U.S. agriculture strategy calls for integrating multiple agencies’ human, technical, financial, and material 

assets to achieve a common objective. Achieving this level of integration requires coordination among 

civilian agencies and military forces at all levels. The CDDEA, the Senior Agriculture Coordinator, and 

other U.S. officials in Kabul and the field characterized U.S. agriculture assistance as disparate activities 

that did not constitute a strategic, sustained approach to achieving U.S. strategic objectives. Without 

effective coordination, U.S. agencies may be missing opportunities to leverage or build on other 

agencies’ capacity-building activities, thus limiting the U.S. Embassy’s ability to maximize the synergism

of multiple agencies’ capacity-building efforts.

The steps the U.S. Embassy took in November 2010 has led to closer coordination between USDA and 

USAID in Kabul and improvements to the management and effectiveness of U.S. agriculture assistance. 

Specifically, we found that USDA and USAID officials have more closely coordinated their respective 

agricultural research and extension and watershed management programs through Agriculture Working 

Group teams. The restructured Agriculture Working Group has become a mechanism for vetting major 

agriculture programs before the U.S. Ambassador reviews them. Previously, the U.S. Embassy expressed 

concerns about proposed program designs, citing in part concerns over duplications of effort. Because

of their closer coordination, USDA and USAID are combining their watershed management programs 

into the U.S. government Irrigation and Watershed Management program and de-conflicting their 

agricultural research and extension programs to ensure there will be no overlap in the programs. 

Additionally, a USAID staff member provides advice as a member of the advisory board of USDA’s 

Capacity Building Change Management Program. The advisory board is the decision-making body that 

monitors program implementation.

Nevertheless, we found instances where U.S. agencies continued to have difficulty achieving the level of 

coordination between Kabul and the provinces needed to integrate capacity-building activities. 

Specifically, we found that U.S. agencies were implementing capacity-building activities in provinces and 

districts with limited knowledge of what was being done to build capabilities at the ministry in Kabul, 

even though the U.S. government has emphasized the importance of strengthening the relationship 

between MAIL in Kabul and provincial DAILs. None of the USDA, USAID, or ADT personnel in provinces 

and districts we met with were aware of USDA’s Capacity Building Change Management Program, the 

principal U.S. program to build MAIL’s capacity, or the work of USDA’s embedded ministerial advisors 

and vice versa. As a result, USDA agricultural advisors and ADTs were helping build DAIL’s capacity to 

plan, develop, and execute a provincial budget without an awareness of the financial management

capabilities that USDA was helping the Ministry to develop in Kabul, including the capability to disburse 

development assistance to the provincial and district levels.18

Additionally, we found instances where USDA agricultural advisors and ADTs had difficulty coordinating 

with some USAID implementing partners operating in the same geographic area. In Nangarhar, for 

 18During the course of our audit, USDA officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul began participating in biweekly ADT 

conference calls.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 7

instance, USDA and ADT personnel said that they did not always know what specific training 

opportunities USAID implementing partners had already provided to DAIL staff or which staff had 

attended. Consequently, they had no way of knowing whether they were duplicating training 

opportunities or inadvertently excluding staff, and they may have missed opportunities to build on what 

DAIL staff had already learned. Furthermore, implementing partners report on their capacity-building 

activities to contracting/agreement officer’s technical representatives, almost all of whom are in Kabul, 

and this information frequently was not disseminated to USAID field program officers. This 

consequently limited the visibility of field advisors over those activities and ultimately may have 

hampered their ability to facilitate coordination with other agencies in the area. 

Although we found coordination to be good between USDA agricultural advisors and ADTs that were colocated, U.S. Embassy and USAID officials in Kabul expressed concern over the extent of strategic 

coordination among U.S. civilian agencies and military forces. During our fieldwork in Mazar-e-Sharif 

and Nangarhar, we observed USDA agricultural advisors and ADT personnel sharing information and 

planning capacity-building activities. In addition, USDA agricultural advisors often relied on ADTs for 

transportation and security to travel to locations to conduct capacity-building activities with DAIL staff. 

However, the CDDEA report on U.S. agricultural assistance noted that activities could be better 

coordinated strategically and recommended discussion between the U.S. Embassy and U.S. ForcesAfghanistan on the composition, location, and duration of ADTs. 

Several Factors Hamper Agencies’ Ability to Coordinate and Integrate Their Capacity-Building 

Efforts

The difficulties that U.S. agencies continue to have in coordinating and integrating their capacitybuilding efforts can be partly attributed to several factors. First, the U.S. Embassy has not clearly 

defined the set of conditions required to successfully build MAIL’s capacity, and consequently, U.S. 

personnel managing and implementing capacity-building activities do not have sufficient guidance for 

ensuring their efforts are linked to the overall U.S. effort. Second, U.S. agencies are not effectively using 

the Agriculture Working Group to share information because ADTs are not members and headquarterslevel liaisons do not regularly participate in the working group meetings. Third, USAID is devolving some 

administrative and programmatic authority to designated field program officers that can help ensure 

implementing partners’ activities support the overall U.S. effort, but the process has not been 

completed. 

USDA, USAID, and ADTs manage and implement numerous ministerial capacity-building activities 

throughout the provinces in Afghanistan, but they do not have sufficient guidance to ensure their 

individual efforts are linked to the overall U.S. effort in agriculture. Almost all of the USDA agricultural 

advisors, USAID field program officers, and ADT personnel we spoke with said that they did not have 

guidance on how to implement their capacity-building activities or, for ADTs, how to integrate their 

activities with civilian efforts. Furthermore, several USAID implementing partners stated that they did 

not have sufficient guidance from USAID to adequately plan their DAIL capacity-building to fit into an 

overall U.S. effort. Without such guidance, several ADT and USDA officials were concerned that their 

capacity-building efforts were disconnected from the overall U.S. effort and questioned whether the 

progress they made in building MAIL’s capacity at the provincial and district levels would be sustainable 

in the long term.

Insufficient Guidance Hinders Agencies’ Efforts to Integrate Capacity-Building Activities
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 8

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 provides management principles for ensuring 

U.S. programs are well aligned, closely coordinated, and mutually reinforcing.19

While we found that the U.S. agriculture strategy and other guiding documents incorporated some of 

these elements, they did not provide a sufficient description of the specific tasks or intermediate 

milestones for building MAIL’s capacity at the Ministry or in provincial offices. For example, the 

U.S. agriculture strategy and the Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan identify improving MAIL’s 

ability to deliver services to farmers and herders as a strategic objective, but neither document identifies 

which services MAIL is expected to deliver. According to an official from the Interagency Provincial 

Affairs office, USDA agricultural advisors at the regional, provincial, and district levels did not know what 

actions were needed to successfully build MAIL’s capacity because the strategy’s objectives were too 

broad. In addition, the 2011 Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan establishes the timeframe of 

12 to 18 months to strengthen MAIL’s capacity to effectively deliver services to farmers, but does not 

define the set of conditions that would demonstrate successful achievement of this objective. 

 They include 

(1) identifying long-term goals and objectives, (2) providing a description of specific actions to achieve 

stated goals and objectives, and (3) identifying a timetable with milestones for achieving those goals and 

objectives, among others. 

Without guidance on the specific set of conditions required for success, SIGAR found that U.S. agencies 

defined their own end states for their individual efforts and conducted capacity-building activities based 

on the core competencies they identified and prioritized. For example, one ADT commander tasked his 

team to create a list of DAIL core competencies that they would help build because they had not 

received national-level guidance on what capabilities were needed. We found U.S. personnel 

sometimes had differing opinions about what U.S. capacity-building efforts were intended to 

accomplish, with some officials thinking the purpose was to improve MAIL’s ability to better manage 

donor funding and others believing it was to provide better agricultural services in the provinces and 

districts. Although both may be necessary to build a capable ministry, understanding how these efforts 

are linked and prioritized is necessary for ensuring U.S. agencies emphasize and pursue the appropriate 

activities. 

Strategic coordination between U.S. civilian agencies and ADTs has been limited because they are not 

effectively using existing coordination mechanisms to disseminate information and guidance on building 

MAIL’s capacity. Establishing and effectively using coordination mechanisms to facilitate frequent 

communication, a key practice for enhancing interagency coordination, is particularly important because 

ADTs and civilian personnel fall under separate chains of command. ADTs are under the command and 

control of the brigade combat team commander assigned to their respective areas. As such, they report 

to and receive guidance through their military chain of command. On the other hand, U.S. personnel in 

the field report to and receive guidance from the U.S. Embassy’s Interagency Provincial Affairs office.

Existing Coordination Mechanisms Are Not Used Effectively

Several mechanisms could facilitate coordination among civilian agencies and military forces, such as the 

Agriculture Working Group and the National Guard Bureau’s biweekly teleconference with ADTs. During 

the course of our audit, we found that all relevant stakeholders did not participate in these meetings on 

a regular basis or just started participating recently. In November 2010, the U.S. Embassy restructured 

the Agriculture Working Group to be a more effective means of communicating and coordinating across 

U.S. agencies in Kabul and the field. We found that representatives from ISAF Joint Command and 

Regional Command-East did not regularly participate in the working group’s weekly meetings and ADTs 

 19 Pub.L. No.103-62
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 9

were not members. As a result, they could not receive or share key information about other U.S. 

capacity-building efforts, priorities, or challenges. In addition, we found that ISAF Joint Command and 

Regional Command-East headquarters officials who are responsible for ADT issues do not regularly 

participate in these working group meetings. In June 2011, ADTs formally requested that they be 

included in the Agriculture Working Group through a designated headquarters-level liaison, and the 

chair of the working group said that he would consider their request to determine the level of 

involvement they were requesting. The Interagency Provincial Affairs office also began participating in 

the National Guard Bureau’s biweekly teleconference with all nine ADTs in July 2011. 

The difficulties that USDA agricultural advisors and ADTs experienced in coordinating with some USAID 

implementing partners can be partly attributed to the fact that USAID has not completed its process of 

devolving administrative and programmatic authority to field program officers. USAID began this 

process in September 2010 to use field program officers to help ensure development resources are used 

strategically and to help manage and oversee implementing partners. As of July 2011, they are 

devolving authority to field program officers in the Regional Command East to assist in program 

oversight. Unless designated an activity manager, USAID field program officers do not have the 

authority to guide or direct implementing partners to ensure their activities are coordinated or 

integrated with other U.S. capacity-building efforts. Once designated, field program officers will have 

responsibility for the day-to-day oversight of one or more specific activities and for communicating 

programmatic information to the contracting/agreement officer’s technical representative. Not all field 

program officers will be designated an activity manager, according to a USAID official.

USAID Has Not Completed Its Process of Devolving Authority to Field Program Officers

One limitation on the visibility that USAID field program officers have over implementing partners’ 

capacity-building activities is the large number of programs they need to be familiar with in a given 

geographic area. As previously discussed, only seven field program officers are dedicated to USAID 

agricultural programs. The other 178 field program officers are expected to be familiar with all USAID 

programs in their areas. The field program office in Nangarhar, for example, is responsible for 

monitoring 27 USAID programs, five of which are agricultural programs that help build the DAIL’s 

capacity.

THE U.S. EMBASSY FACES DIFFICULTY ASSESSING PROGRESS IN BUILDING MAIL’S CAPACITY

The U.S. Embassy has not been able to determine how much progress has been made to date in building 

ministry capacity because they did not have sufficient or complete data. The Agriculture Campaign 

Assessment does not include USDA agricultural advisors’ and ADTs’ capacity-building activities, and the 

performance data that agencies collect is not consistent, thereby making it difficult for the U.S. Embassy 

to incorporate them into their assessment. Moreover, the Agriculture Campaign Assessment does not 

have performance baselines and targets for all of their performance indicators, and it largely measures 

the products of capacity-building efforts, rather than the results achieved. Without a mechanism that 

can sufficiently and reliably assess and report on progress made in building MAIL’s capacity, the U.S. 

Embassy cannot determine whether the strategy is working and resources are properly aligned. 

Without being able to assess progress, these agencies cannot identify what changes are needed to 

improve the effectiveness of their programs and ensure sustainable results. 
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 10

The U.S. Embassy Does Not Have Sufficient Data to Determine Progress Made in Building 

MAIL Capacity

Although the U.S. Embassy reports on progress toward building MAIL’s capacity to deliver services and

promote the private sector through the Agriculture Campaign Assessment, the September 2010 and

March 2011 assessments did not have sufficient data to assess how much overall progress U.S. agencies 

had made to date.20

• Percentage of foreign direct assistance processed and managed by MAIL

 The primary purpose of the campaign assessment process is to provide U.S. 

leadership in Afghanistan with a series of assessments that can be used to prioritize and readjust the 

allocation of resources and efforts strategically. The Agriculture Campaign Assessment measures the 

performance of U.S. capacity-building efforts in improving agricultural education systems, agricultural 

research and extension services, and MAIL’s core function through performance indicators, which are 

particular characteristics used to observe progress and measure actual results compared to expected 

results. The Agriculture Campaign Assessment performance indicators were:

• Percentage increase in the number of applications for service delivery across targeted 

directorates (March 2011 only)

• Number of advanced degrees received as a result of U.S. assistance

• Number of farmers accessing agricultural extension services

• Number of agricultural extension staff trained in new techniques

• Number of national research stations and labs built or rehabilitated (September 2010 only)

• Number of MAIL officials trained at the provincial and district levels (September 2010 only)

• Number of new technologies made available for transfer (September 2010 only)

• Decrease in the number of steps involved in MAIL’s procurement process (September 2010 only)

• Percentage of benchmarks achieved for U.S. direct assistance (September 2010 only)

Based on the September 2010 and March 2011 Agriculture Campaign Assessments, the U.S. Embassy 

could only demonstrate progress in the number of advanced degrees received because of U.S. 

government assistance. Between 2009 and December 2010, the number of advanced degree candidates 

increased from 0 to 27. According to a USAID official, the U.S. Embassy did not have sufficient 

performance data to determine how much progress had been made for the other performance 

indicators in the September 2010 and March 2011 assessments. In the September 2010 assessment, the 

U.S. Embassy reported on three of its nine indicators, but we found that the U.S. Embassy did not have 

data to support the reported increase in the number of farmers accessing extension services, number of 

advanced degrees received, and the number of extension staff trained in new techniques. In March 

2011, the U.S. Embassy only reported on one of its five indicators—the number of advanced degrees 

received. USAID officials explained that performance data were not available to assess performance 

indicators because the agriculture programs that were to supply the data were either too new to have 

collected it or had not yet begun operations. Planned future agricultural programs discussed earlier in 

this report are supposed to provide this performance data, and we recognize that performance data for 

new and future programs should be available when necessary.

 20 The U.S. Embassy did not assess or report on U.S. capacity-building efforts prior to the September 2010

Agriculture Campaign Assessment. 
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 11

Several Factors Undermine the Reliability of the Agriculture Campaign Assessment 

The U.S. Embassy will have difficulty assessing progress in building MAIL’s capacity in the future because 

the Agriculture Campaign Assessment does not provide a reliable evaluation of the overall impact of 

U.S. capacity-building efforts at MAIL. Specifically, it does not assess progress made because of the 

capacity-building efforts of USDA agricultural advisors and ADTs, who have primary responsibility for 

building MAIL’s capacity in provinces and districts. Because the assessment is missing some

performance baselines and targets and largely measures performance outputs, the U.S. Embassy will 

have difficulty assessing the degree of change in MAIL’s performance over time.

The Agriculture Campaign Assessment does not include all U.S. agencies’ activities that contribute to 

building MAIL’s capacity. Specifically, we found that the Agriculture Campaign Assessment does not 

assess the activities of USDA’s agricultural advisors and DOD’s ADTs, even though USDA and ADTs have 

primary responsibility for building MAIL’s capacity at the sub-national level according to the 

U.S. agriculture strategy. The Agriculture Campaign Assessment is based on USAID’s Mission 

Performance Management Plan, which only measures the performance of USAID’s and USDA’s capacitybuilding programs.

Not All U.S. Capacity-Building Activities Are Included in the Agriculture Campaign Assessment

21

The U.S. Embassy will have difficulty incorporating performance data from USDA and ADTs into the 

Agriculture Campaign Assessment because U.S. agencies do not consistently collect or report their 

performance data. USAID performance management guidance states that data collection methods 

should be consistent and comparable over time. USAID, USDA, and ADTs individually collect and report 

on the performance of their respective capacity-building efforts. We found that they differed in both 

what they were measuring and how they were measuring performance. For example, the ADTs we met 

with measured the capacity of DAIL staff through color-coded assessments, while USAID measured the 

performance of its capacity-building programs in quantitative terms. These inconsistencies in agencies’ 

data collection methods can be attributed in part to a lack of common performance indicators and 

standard definitions. ADTs individually determined how they assessed progress in building MAIL’s 

capacity. USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C., which collects and compiles data from agricultural 

advisors in Afghanistan, determined their performance categories without input from the U.S. Embassy. 

USAID and ADT officials raised concerns about measuring progress toward building MAIL’s capacity 

without standard measures in part because the assessment process can be subjective. USDA’s guidance 

to its field personnel notes that the performance data collected should reflect the perspectives of field 

personnel based on their observations and best estimates, rather than the actual facts on the ground. 

USAID guidance notes that measuring institutional capacity is by nature subjective when it is based on 

 By not including information on USDA and ADT activities, the U.S. Embassy is 

missing key information on progress made in building the capacity of provincial DAILs. In addition, the 

Mission Performance Management Plan only identifies a single source of data for each performance 

indicator. For example, USAID’s future program on agricultural research and extension is the only 

program designated to provide performance data on improving Afghan government agricultural 

research and extension services, yet USDA will also have a program focused on building agricultural 

extension services. USAID guidance on performance management recognizes that while individual 

projects and activities produce specific outcomes, it takes the combined efforts of several projects to 

produce a sustainable impact.

 21A Mission Performance Management Plan is a tool typically used by USAID to plan and manage the process of 

assessing and reporting progress toward an assistance objective, as required in the Automated Directives System 

203.3.3. The U.S. Embassy issued the U.S. Foreign Assistance for Afghanistan Post Performance Management Plan 

2011-2015 in October 2010.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 12

perceptions and judgment, but subjectivity can be mitigated by clearly defining the capacity being 

measured and the criteria against which it is being judged. 

Another challenge is that the U.S. Embassy does not have access to ADT information. For example, the 

performance assessments that the ADTs in Parwan and Nangarhar conducted each quarter were only 

provided to their brigade commanders, and not the U.S. Embassy. In addition, according to a USAID 

official, the ISAF Joint Command is expected to provide information on ADT agriculture activities into 

USAID’s performance management database, but command officials said that they do not collect 

agriculture-related data unless requested.22 

Although the Agriculture Campaign Assessment has identified some performance baselines and targets, 

we found that the performance indicators related to improving MAIL’s core functions are missing, which 

could limit the U.S. Embassy’s ability to monitor progress over time and make program adjustments.

U.S. Embassy Indicators Lack Some Performance Baselines and Targets

23 

The U.S. Embassy with the help of USAID took steps to identify baselines and targets between the 

September 2010 and March 2011 campaign assessments. While the September 2010 assessment had 

baseline data for only half of its indicators and targets for a third, the March 2011 Agricultural Campaign 

Assessment had baseline data and performance targets for three of its five performance indicators. The 

baselines and targets missing from the March 2011 assessment are for the indicators measuring the 

percentage of foreign direct assistance that is processed and managed by MAIL and the percentage 

increase in the number of applications for service delivery. Both indicators are associated with USDA’s 

Capacity Building Change Management Program, which, as of June 2011, did not have an approved 

performance management plan to supply that information. We recognize that performance indicators 

for new agricultural programs will have to be finalized before baselines and targets can be established. 

The Agriculture Campaign Assessment measures program outputs, rather than outcomes achieved 

because of those programs, which makes it difficult to recognize and quantify change in MAIL’s 

performance. The Government Accountability Office defines an output as the product or service 

delivered by a program, while an outcome is the result of those products and services.

U.S. Embassy Indicators Measure Outputs, Not Outcomes

24

 22 ISAF Joint Command directs the day-to-day operations of coalition forces across Afghanistan.

 Although 

output indicators provide a measure of a program’s deliverables, they are unlikely to demonstrate the 

effect on the delivery or quality of agriculture-related public services. For example, the number of 

advanced degrees received quantifies how many students graduated, but does not measure the quality 

of the education they received or whether the recipient of the advanced degree contributes to 

agriculture-related public services. USDA agriculture advisors in eastern and northern Afghanistan 

expressed concern that measuring outputs, such as the number of officials trained, does not provide an 

effective assessment of progress. A senior USAID official explained that indicators are initially more 

focused on output measures because of the time it takes to generate outcome or impact data, but 

should evolve over the course of program implementation. In commenting on the findings of this audit, 

a senior Agriculture official from the Embassy noted that although output measures are not sufficient, 

they are integral to tracking progress toward outcomes.

23 A performance baseline is the value of a performance indicator prior to implementation of U.S.-funded activities, 

which serves as a starting point from which to measure the degree of change. A performance target, which is the 

result that an agency plans to achieve within a specific timeframe, serves as a guidepost for judging whether 

progress is being made on schedule and at the levels originally envisioned.

24 GAO, Performance Measurement and Evaluation: Definitions and Relationships, GAO-11-646SP (Washington, 

D.C.: May 2011).
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 13

CONCLUSION

Building MAIL’s capacity is critical to ensuring the long-term success and sustainability of the substantial 

U.S. investment in Afghanistan’s agriculture sector. U.S. agencies have provided $77 million for 

capacity-building activities in their fiscal year 2010 and 2011 agricultural programs, and they plan to 

obligate significantly more funding for capacity-building in the next fiscal year. In addition, U.S. agencies 

deploy about 160 personnel across Afghanistan at any one time on a rotational basis to help accomplish 

this strategic objective. The U.S. Embassy has taken steps to better coordinate and integrate these 

programs and activities, but U.S. agencies continue to implement numerous programs and activities 

without sufficient guidance on the actions needed to successfully achieve the U.S. strategic objective of 

building MAIL’s capacity and effective means of evaluating their efforts. The absence of sufficient 

guidance, effective coordination mechanisms, and reliable evaluation tools not only reduces the U.S. 

Embassy’s ability to capitalize on individual agencies’ efforts, but also limits the U.S. Embassy’s ability to 

make necessary strategic and programmatic changes. Taking steps to better coordinate and assess 

U.S. capacity-building efforts is critical to ensuring MAIL has the capacity it needs to manage and sustain 

the agricultural programs that the United States and other donors have put in place, ensure food 

security, and foster sufficient economic growth to lessen the Afghan government’s dependence on 

donor assistance.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We are making five recommendations to improve management and integration of U.S. efforts to build 

MAIL’s capacity throughout Afghanistan.

To improve the integration and coordination of U.S. capacity-building efforts, we recommend the 

U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, in coordination with MAIL:

1. Develop a MAIL capacity-building implementation plan to provide guidance for programs with 

MAIL and DAIL capacity-building components that defines and articulates an end state for MAIL 

capacity building, identifies core competencies and their standards, and establishes priorities 

and critical milestones. This plan should include regular progress reporting.

To more closely integrate ADT capacity-building activities with those of civilian agencies, we recommend 

the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan: 

2. Improve coordination and integration mechanisms with ADTs by disseminating information and 

guidance to ADTs through a designated military liaison to implement U.S. MAIL capacity-building 

activities in a coordinated civilian-military manner. The dissemination of this information and 

guidance should be done formally and systematically.

To more accurately and consistently measure civilian-military progress made in building MAIL’s capacity

in Kabul and in the provinces, we recommend that the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, in conjunction 

with the USAID Mission Director, USDA, the Office of Interagency Provincial Affairs, and the ISAF Joint 

Command: 

3. Establish common indicators and standard definitions for assessing capacity-building efforts 

throughout MAIL and direct U.S. agencies to collect and report on those indicators to the 

U.S. Embassy;
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 14

4. Establish performance baselines and targets for all performance indicators in the Agriculture 

Campaign Assessment and the Mission Performance Management Plan; and

5. Include capacity-building activities from USDA agricultural advisors, ADTs, and relevant USAID 

programs in the Agriculture Campaign Assessment. 

COMMENTS

The U.S. Embassy Kabul provided written comments on a draft of this report. These comments are 

reproduced in appendix III. In its response, the U.S. Embassy concurred with each of the five 

recommendations.

• In response to recommendation one, the Embassy is defining MAIL capacity-building 

implementation plans and identifying core competencies of field DAIL extension agents and DAIL 

directors. The Embassy also noted it plans to hold a Field Agriculture Advisors Conference in 

October where actions in response to several recommendations will be addressed, including 

assisting in the establishment of common definitions for indicator data and identifying core 

competencies. 

• In response to recommendation two, the Embassy stated that the Embassy Agriculture Team 

includes a Civilian-Military Coordination Team and two DOD officers are embedded among its 

Interagency Provincial Affairs staff. It also noted that the Embassy Agriculture Team would hold 

a conference in October focusing on capacity building. 

• In response to recommendation three, the Embassy is revising the Agriculture Performance 

Management Plan to include ADT and USDA advisor efforts, and addressing the data collection 

issues and the use of common indicators. The October conference mentioned above will assist 

in establishing common indicators.

• In response to recommendations four and five, the Embassy concurred, but did not provide any 

additional detail about how it would proceed.

The Embassy also provided general comments, which we have incorporated in this report, as 

appropriate. ISAF Command and the U.S. Central Command did not formally comment on the draft 

report, but provided technical comments, which we have incorporated, as appropriate. 
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 15

APPENDIX I: SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY

This report provides the results of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan 

Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) audit of U.S. assistance to build the capacity of the Afghan Ministry of 

Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL). We focused on the fiscal years 2010 and 2011 

capacity-building programs and activities of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Agency 

for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense’s agribusiness development 

teams (ADT). We did not include activities conducted by provincial reconstruction teams or village 

stability operations teams. We assessed (1) the extent to which U.S. capacity-building programs and 

activities in agriculture are coordinated and integrated and (2) progress made in building MAIL’s capacity 

in Kabul and at its provincial offices.

To assess the extent to which capacity-building programs and activities are coordinated and integrated 

among U.S. agencies, we reviewed U.S. strategic documents, such as the U.S. Government’s Agriculture 

Assistance Strategy for Afghanistan (2009) and the U.S. Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan 

(2011); operational and campaign plans; and USAID and USDA program contracts, agreements, work 

plans, and performance reports. In Kabul and in the provinces, we conducted interviews with officials 

from the U.S. Embassy, USDA, USAID, ADTs, the International Security Assistance Force, and MAIL, as 

well as representatives from implementing partners. Additionally, we observed Agriculture Working 

Group meetings and attended two conferences: an Agriculture Shura in November 2010 and an ADT 

Conference in March 2011. To evaluate the level of coordination and integration between the national 

and sub-national levels and identify challenges, we conducted fieldwork at Regional Command-East and 

North headquarters and forward operating bases in Balkh and Nangarhar provinces. We selected these 

locations based on criteria we established on the number of U.S. government personnel and the number 

of U.S. agricultural programs that help build MAIL’s capacity. At each location, we obtained 

documentation and conducted interviews on capacity-building activities, guidance, coordination, and 

reporting mechanisms. We also observed the ADT in Nangarhar conducting capacity-building activities 

in the Jalalabad area. To calculate the cost of agriculture advisors deployed in the field, we multiplied 

the number of deployed advisors by $500,000, approximately the average cost of deploying a civilian in 

Afghanistan for one year, as reported by SIGAR and State Office of the Inspector General.

25

To determine the extent to which U.S. agencies have made progress in building MAIL’s capacity, we 

examined the September 2010 and March 2011 assessments of the Agriculture Campaign Assessment, 

which were the only two assessments that reported on progress made in achieving the U.S. Government 

Agriculture Assistance Strategy for Afghanistan’s strategic objective of building MAIL’s capacity. We 

used the Agriculture Campaign Assessment because it was the mechanism by which the U.S. Embassy

was assessing progress made in achieving the U.S. Government Agriculture Assistance Strategy for 

Afghanistan. We also examined USAID’s Mission Performance Management Plan (PMP) because it 

served as the basis for the Agriculture Campaign Assessment’s performance indicators and performance 

data. To assess internal controls for reporting performance data we analyzed the performance 

indicators, baselines, and targets, as well as the sources of the performance data used to assess 

progress. We also conducted interviews with U.S. Embassy and USAID officials responsible for 

developing and managing the Agriculture Campaign Assessment and the Mission PMP. To determine 

other performance assessments and sources of performance data, we interviewed officials from the

U.S. Embassy, USDA, USAID, ADTs, and International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul, 

at regional commands, and at the provincial and district levels. Based on these interviews, we collected 

 

 25 SIGAR Audit-11-17 & State OIG AUD/SI-11-45.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 16

documentation and analyzed USDA and ADT performance assessments to determine how consistently 

U.S. agencies measured progress in building MAIL’s capacity. We relied on data provided by U.S. 

agencies to determine and allocate program costs and personnel deployments and did not 

independently validate these data.

We conducted work in Washington, D.C., and Kabul, Nangarhar Province, and Balkh Province, 

Afghanistan, from October 2010 to September 2011 in accordance with generally accepted government 

auditing standards. These standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, 

appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 

objectives. We believe the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. The audit was conducted by the Office of the Special 

Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction under the authority of Public Law No. 110-181, as 

amended, the Inspector General Act of 1978, and the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 17

APPENDIX II: USAID AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO BUILDING MAIL’S 

CAPACITY

In fiscal year 2010, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) oversaw the implementation 

of 18 agricultural programs. Based on our review of contracts, cooperative agreements, and other 

program documents, we found that nine of these programs, totaling $833 million, had a capacitybuilding objective, as shown in table I. USAID estimated that the capacity-building activities in five of 

these programs cost $41.1 million. USAID did not calculate the cost of capacity-building activities in the 

four other agricultural programs that we identified as helping to build MAIL’s capacity, and we were 

unable to determine the amount of funding because data was not available for individual program 

activities.

Table I: USAID Agricultural Programs with Capacity-Building Objectives in Fiscal Year 2010

Program Performance 

Period

Estimated 

Total Cost

($ million)

CapacityBuilding

Funding

($ million)

Capacity-Building Objective

Agricultural Credit 

Enhancement 

2010-2014 $49.1 NA Support MAIL in better coordinating and 

rationalizing donor-funded rural and 

agricultural initiatives.

Advancing Afghan 

Agriculture Alliance 

2006-2011 7.0 $7.0 Link university agriculture faculties’ 

development efforts to MAIL.

Accelerating Sustainable 

Agriculture Program 

2006-2011 133.0 20.0 Improve the Afghan government’s 

capacity to formulate agriculture sector 

policies and strategies and carry out 

administrative and financial 

coordination for competitive, marketled production and agribusiness.

Afghanistan Vouchers for 

Increased Production in 

Agriculture-Plus 

2008-2011 431.0 NA Include Afghan authorities, civilian and 

military counterparts in program 

implementation. Strengthen MAIL and 

DAIL capacity to address farmer needs.

Afghanistan Water, 

Agriculture, and 

Technology Transfer 

2008-2011 19.8 3.0 Provide technical assistance to improve 

MAIL’s irrigation and watershed 

management decision-making strategies 

and outreach capabilities.

Commercial Horticulture 

and Agricultural Marketing 

Program 

2010-2014 30.4 0.6 Increase support to MAIL for the 

development of market-led agricultural 

production and marketing.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 18

Program Performance 

Period

Estimated 

Total Cost

($ million)

CapacityBuilding

Funding

($ million)

Capacity-Building Objective

Incentives Driving 

Economic Alternatives for 

the North, East, and West 

2009-2014 150.0 10.5 Enable local government to 

competently fulfill its role in driving 

long-term adoption and sustainability of 

projects. Engage the Afghan public 

sector to plan and implement activities, 

especially in insurgent areas.

Improving Livelihoods and 

Governance through 

Natural Resource 

Management

2010-2013 8.0 NA Create and strengthen community 

governance institutions. Strengthen 

laws, policies, and institutions. Build 

capacity to manage the health interface 

between livestock, wildlife, and people.

Pastoral Engagement, 

Adaptation, and Capacity 

Enhancement

2006-2011 4.7 NA Help build capacity of government 

personnel responsible for planning and 

implementing livestock development 

and rangeland resource management.

Total $833.0 $41.1

Source: SIGAR analysis of USAID data

Note: NA = Not Avaliable. USAID could not provide value of capacity-building activities.
SIGAR Audit-12-1 Governance and Development/Agriculture Page 19

APPENDIX III: COMMENTS FROM THE U.S. EMBASSY KABUL
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(This performance audit was conducted under the project code SIGAR-035A). 
SIGAR’s Mission The mission of the Special Inspector General for 

Afghanistan Reconstruction is to enhance oversight of 

programs for the reconstruction of Afghanistan by 

conducting independent and objective audits, inspections, 

and investigations on the use of taxpayer dollars and 

related funds. SIGAR works to provide accurate and 

balanced information, evaluations, analysis, and 

recommendations to help the U.S. Congress, U.S. agencies, 

and other decision-makers to make informed oversight, 

policy, and funding decisions to:

• improve effectiveness of the overall reconstruction 

strategy and its component programs;

• improve management and accountability over funds 

administered by U.S. and Afghan agencies and their 

contractors;

• improve contracting and contract management 

processes;

• prevent fraud, waste, and abuse; and

• advance U.S. interests in reconstructing 

Afghanistan.

Obtaining Copies of SIGAR 

Reports and Testimonies

To obtain copies of SIGAR documents at no cost, go to 

SIGAR’s Web site (www.sigar.mil). SIGAR posts all 

publically released reports, testimonies, and 

correspondence on its Web site.

To Report Fraud, Waste, and 

Abuse in Afghanistan 

Reconstruction Programs

To help prevent fraud, waste, and abuse by reporting 

allegations of fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement, and 

reprisal contact SIGAR’s hotline:

• Web: www.sigar.mil/fraud

• Email: hotline@sigar.mil

• Phone Afghanistan: +93 (0) 700-10-7300

• Phone DSN Afghanistan 318-237-2575

• Phone International: +1-866-329-8893

• Phone DSN International: 312-664-0378

• U.S. fax: +1-703-604-0983

Public Affairs Public Affairs Officer

• Phone: 703-602-8742 

• Email: PublicAffairs@sigar.mil

• Mail: SIGAR Public Affairs

2530 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA 22202