Elevating the Role of Socioeconomic Strategy in 

Afghanistan Transition 

Dr. Michael Baranick 

Mr. Albert Sciarretta 

Dr. Cyrus Staniec 

Mr. John Applebaugh 

Center for Technology and National Security Policy 

National Defense University 

October 2011 
ii

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official 

policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the 

U.S. Government. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from 

unclassified materials. 

_______________________________________________________________________ 

Dr. Michael Baranick is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Technology and 

National Security Policy. In addition to conducting research regarding peace settlements, 

conflict resolution, and peacekeeping, Dr. Baranick teaches several courses on 

peacekeeping, creating stable states, and the regeneration of war-torn societies at both the 

Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the National War College. He has also 

conducted research and provided policy support to Office of the Secretary of Defense for 

Policy on rebuilding War-torn Countries and conflict management. Dr. Baranick 

received his Ph.D. in Systems Planning and Development from the Pennsylvania State 

University. 

Albert Sciarretta is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Defense University Center 

for Technology and National Security Policy and president of Carbon Niter Sulfur 

Technologies, Inc. Previously, Mr. Sciarretta was an Army armored cavalry officer, 

whose service included operational assignments, instructing at the U.S. Military 

Academy, acting as a technology officer on armored vehicle task forces, and serving as 

Assistant to the Chief Scientist, Army Materiel Command. He has dual M.S. degrees – 

Operations Research and Mechanical Engineering – from Stanford University and a B.S. 

degree in General Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy. 

Dr. Cyrus Staniec is an Expert Consultant at the National Defense University’s Center 

for Technology and National Security Policy. Over the past two years, he has specialized 

in socio-economic development issues in Irregular Warfare scenarios. Prior to his 

appointment at the National Defense University, he was a Director in the Northrop 

Grumman Corporate Strategy Office. Prior to Northrop Grumman, Dr. Staniec had a 26 

year Defense career as an enlisted soldier, an Ordnance Officer in the Army, and as a 

senior civilian analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Program Analysis & 

Evaluation). Dr. Staniec received a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the 

Naval Postgraduate School. 

John Applebaugh is a Research Analyst with the Center for Technology and National 

Security Policy at the National Defense University. Previously, he had been an intern for 

the Joint Interagency Multinational Planner’s Course and Joint Combined Warfare 

School at the Joint Forces Staff College. Mr. Applebaugh received his M.A. in 

International Studies from Old Dominion University and his B.A. in History from the 

University of Minnesota.

Defense & Technology Papers are published by the National Defense University Center for Technology 

And National Security Policy, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. CTNSP publications are 

available at http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/publications.html. 
iii

FOREWORD 

The System Analysis and Studies (SAS) Panel of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) Research and Technology Organization (RTO) created a Specialist Team (ST) 

in June 2010 in response to an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) request to 

help develop, refine, and implement a strategy for data collection and management. The 

overarching goal of the initiative was to provide direct assistance to NATO, ISAF, and 

the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) as they collectively 

move forward to implement the Inteqal (transition) plan. More specifically, the goals of 

the NATO RTO SAS–091 ST were to: 

• support the development of a plan that promotes the systematic collection, 

management, and analysis of data among ISAF nations; 

• identify technological mechanisms and policy agreements for data-sharing among 

Joint Afghan-NATO Inteqal Board (JANIB) stakeholders (ISAF, GIRoA, and the 

NATO Senior Civilian Representative [SCR]) in easy-to-use formats, and; 

• develop metrics, a data collection plan, and a data-sharing framework for the 

initial phase of Inteqal1 that are useful to senior decisionmakers. 

To accomplish these tasks, the team held two international workshops organized around 

six syndicates. Four of these six syndicates focused on the Inteqal initiatives: security, 

governance, rule of law, and development. The other two syndicates examined ubiquitous 

problems associated with data collection and data-sharing. All syndicates drew on polling 

results, demographic information, development projects, and other activities and 

measures in their deliberations. 

The Inteqal initiatives mirror the four lines of operation (LOOs) commonly of concern to 

decisionmakers and commanders in developing a nation’s or region’s capacity. These 

LOOs were the primary focus of the NATO effort and will be referenced often in this 

paper. A brief description of each follows: 

• Security is the protection from threats/activities of insurgent, terrorist, criminal, 

nationalist, ethnic, and extremist groups.

• Governance is the collective process of decisionmaking and the process by which 

decisions are implemented (or not implemented). It may be analyzed by three 

components: process, participation, and accountability. 

• Rule of Law (RoL) is dispute resolution as it applies to person-to-person, personto-group, and group-to-group disputes. RoL may include traditional systems such 

as a constitution, national laws, local district/village laws, courts, judges and 

police forces, as well as nontraditional systems such as religious laws (e.g., Sharia 

laws). 

• Socioeconomic Development includes actions that build the capacity of social and 

economic institutions so they may withstand and diminish the threats identified 

above in the Security LOO. This may include establishing governing institutions, 
iv

improving the existing transportation infrastructure, providing basic needs (water, 

electricity, sewage, etc.), expanding the existing education infrastructure, 

improving access to medical facilities, and providing high-impact economic 

(agriculture and industry) assistance. Related objectives include reducing illicit 

economic activities such as corruption, poppy cultivation, and 

processing/distribution of narcotics.

Some 175 participants from 17 NATO countries, ISAF, GIRoA, and a variety of other 

organizations who attended Workshop One (Summer 2010) hosted by NATO Joint Force 

Command (JFC) Brunssum, Netherlands, generated numerous methodologies and 

projects that helped identify and evaluate metrics and improve data collection and datasharing. About 115 participants who attended Workshop Two (Winter 2010) hosted by 

the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), in The Hague, 

Netherlands, refined the metrics and information architecture to support the Inteqal 

framework and enhance processes associated with data collection and data-sharing. 

In writing this paper, the authors drew heavily upon the knowledge gained from this 

NATO effort as well as previous National Defense University (NDU) Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP)–sponsored workshops addressing 

human, social, cognitive behavior (HSCB), corruption, data needs for U.S. combatant 

commands (COCOMS), and modeling and simulation needs for irregular warfare. 

Additionally, the authors reviewed a variety of open-source information, including 

GIRoA documents (e.g., Afghanistan National Development Strategy [ANDS], National 

Priority Program [NPP], Provincial Development Plans [PDPs], District Development 

Plans [DDPs]).
v

Contents 

Foreword iii 

Introduction 1 

Background 5 

A Procedural Approach to Elevating the Role of Development 7 

 Selecting Strategic Socioeconomic Drivers 8 

 Introducing Security Risk Considerations 10 

 Organizing Transition Cohorts 12 

 Examining First Cohort Attributes 13 

 Planning and Monitoring Transition Progress in Inteqal 13 

Case Studies: Use of PDP and DDP Information in Planning 16 

Summary and Conclusions 22 

Appendix A: Bibliography 24 

Appendix B: Glossary and Abbreviations 26 

Appendix C: Endnotes 27
1

Introduction

Afghanistan is attempting to move beyond the status of a failed state. It meets many of 

the criteria established by experts and used by donors to begin intervention.2

 Afghanistan 

has weak state institutions, is poorly governed, has been at war for nearly 30 years, and 

continues to have low-intensity conflict; its people are impoverished and its economy is 

immature. Afghanistan is also responsible for flooding the international market with 

opium and drug cartel “spill-over” effects that threaten global security. 

The goals of the international community (IC) have been to create a stable Afghanistan, 

eliminate terrorist safe havens, reconstruct the state, and reestablish the economy, but 

things have not proceeded as envisioned.3

 The stabilization and reconstruction of 

Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in November 2001 has proven more difficult than 

initially anticipated. After the initial ousting of the Taliban, the question arose as to 

whether the country needed only state-building or whether nation-building is required as 

well.4 Indeed, decades of foreign domination, invasion, and civil war have left 

Afghanistan in need of both state- and nation-building efforts. 

Creating socioeconomic development, stability, and security in Afghanistan that will 

enable transforming the war economy to a peace economy will require good governance 

and time. This is critical since more than 40 percent of post-conflict, low-income 

countries that maintain peace fall back into conflict within a decade.5

 Paul Collier, 

professor of economics at Oxford University and leading expert on African economies, 

argues that coupling external peacekeepers with a robust economic development effort 

has proven more critical than political reform in preventing a return to conflict.6 

According to Dietrich Rueschemeyer, rebuilding a state after a conflict requires:7

• the development of both institutions and norms 

• alignment of interests and coordination of many different actors 

• embodiment of conflict, antagonism, winners, and losers, and long-term 

stalemates. 

Development, security, and stability are multidimensional processes that contain not only 

economic but also social and political (governance and rule of law) aspects. Therefore, 

policymakers must take into consideration their interdependence and interrelatedness 

when developing policies to stimulate development. 

Reflecting these complexities, the U.S. Regional Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan 

discusses the role and strategy of economic development in these extracts from the 

Overview:8

“In Afghanistan, our focus is building the capacity of Afghan institutions to 

withstand and diminish the threat posed by extremism, and to deliver high-impact 

economic assistance—especially in the agricultural sector—to create jobs, reduce 

the funding that the Taliban receives from poppy cultivation, and draw insurgents 

off of the battlefield.” 
2

“The provinces and districts are where our most consequential programs will be 

delivered, where we must help the Afghan government provide economic 

opportunities that increase stability and reduce the strength of the insurgency—

and where we are most visibly expanding our civilian commitment.” 

“Our top reconstruction priority is implementing a civilian-military (civ-mil) 

agriculture redevelopment strategy to restore Afghanistan’s once vibrant 

agriculture sector. This will help sap the insurgency of fighters and of income 

from poppy cultivation.” 

These strategic priorities highlight the high impact expected from economic program 

efforts, but recent evidence indicates that Afghanistan, the United States, and coalition 

partners have met challenges in execution.9

 Part of the problem appears to be the 

disparity between military and civilian resources. ISAF is heavily focused on its security 

mission, and individuals have admitted that socioeconomic planning and assessment have 

been “tertiary.”10 On the other hand, the U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID) touts the broad range of programs that it has pursued across Afghanistan on its 

Web site.11 Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also cite other broad “bottomup” efforts. 

Providing aid in Afghanistan has been an extremely complex undertaking, however, 

involving a wide range of actors with different agendas making cooperation and 

coordination difficult and, at times, competitive. Many factors contribute to this problem: 

the lack of field presence, poor coordination and information sharing, a dearth of reliable 

data, rapid turnover of on-site staff, and lack of capacity. There are also clear indications 

of inadequate civilian resources for local areas, to both implement high-impact 

development programs and to grow the local capacity to sustain socioeconomic growth 

into the future. These are just a small number of the more obvious factors that contribute 

to the poor availability and utilization of resources. 

Countries that lack human capacity, have ongoing violence (ethnic, religions, social, 

etc.), and lack of functioning institutions frequently experience restricted development. 

Afghanistan fits this mold because it lacks all of the required criteria necessary to begin 

rebuilding. It has limited capacity for embarking on any long-term strategy for 

development. It lacks the political consensus for implementing an effective development 

strategy. Its leaders also fail to think strategically and identify critical paths. These 

leaders also fail to identify constraints and assess their impact of successful 

implementation. 

To be successful, the government of Afghanistan must select a few priority areas based 

on a rigorous examination of resources and capabilities. Selecting a few provinces to 

implement such a program will limit the potential for overwhelming existing capacities, 

which would in turn increase wasted resources and contribute to all-too-frequent policy 

failure. 
3

As a product of the series of conferences with the IC (further described in the next 

section), a set of documents has been developed that provides potential strategic 

objectives and implementation plans (the ANDS and the ANDS Prioritization and 

Implementation Plan [PIP]).12 However, finding ways to ensure that Afghanistan has the 

capacity, information, and motivation required to pursue these strategies has been 

problematic and is exacerbated by the need to enact programs and achieve their 

objectives at the provincial level. To achieve this goal requires a clear policy statement 

that articulates specific and measurable objectives. 

However, for lack of capacity, GIRoA has failed to prioritize spending among programs 

and budget execution (payments, procurement, accounting, etc.), which has resulted in a 

waste of resources and poor execution. The lack of accountability and transparency has 

resulted in corruption and loss of public support. Public finance has played and continues 

to play a vital role in economic stability and security for Afghanistan. To support these 

objectives, public finances must be: affordable; well-prioritized in accordance with 

Afghan national strategies; efficient in terms of value for money and service delivery; 

and fair, accountable, and transparently reported to the Afghan public, private business, 

and other stakeholders. 

An optimal model for Afghanistan’s development needs would be one that blends topdown and bottom-up strategies. The loya jirga bottom-up strategy for development has to 

focus on rebuilding the state and societal relations. Donors and GIRoA, from the topdown, need to be conscious of how they can support such a process. To accomplish this, 

policy makers will need to focus on building upon the fragile foundation already in place 

in districts and villages. 

The time clock for return to Afghan sovereignty (the process referred to as “Inteqal”) has 

already been set in motion. The first “tranche” of municipalities and locales to enter 

transition has already been announced.13 These initial selections were based on a balance 

of security status, governance capacity, and development state. This suggests that 

socioeconomic progress has a role among transition priorities, yet no clear process for an 

ordered transition across Afghanistan’s provinces has been revealed. In fact, some of the 

selections reflect convenience more than strategic value. 

There is little question that security and self-sufficiency are key building blocks for 

sustained success; but for true enduring success, the transition that must occur in 

Afghanistan is the change from security-enabled economic opportunity to a state of 

socioeconomically-derived security. 

To accomplish such a transition, GIRoA, ISAF, and the IC must do several things. First, 

they must organize the transition process around a clear, focused set of development 

drivers. The immediate result will be a clear ordering of provinces based on their 

contributions toward the development objectives. Next, they must overlay considerations 

of local security and governance to arrive at an adjusted ordering of provinces, or 

possibly districts or municipalities. This ordering may then be broken into transition 

cohorts for entry into the Inteqal process. At this point, the ordering for transition would 

reflect contribution to development objectives, rather than convenience. 
4

Cohorts must receive the necessary resource allocation and planning focus to achieve 

transition success. This is both internal, focused on capacity development in government 

and local institutions, and external in the broader development community, focused on 

alignment with local needs and on sustainability. Planning and execution must address 

both economic objectives and local social needs. Two important tools to assist with this 

planning are the Provincial and District Development Plans that were commissioned by 

the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Rural Development (MRRD). This top-down strategic 

approach coupled with bottom-up planning to meet local needs and supported by focused 

resources provides an opportunity for timely success in transition. Finally, all of this 

effort must be supported by an enhanced data-collection process to track not only 

economic and social success and growth, but also to ensure that Afghan governance and 

institutional capacity is progressing in order to ensure successful Stage 4 transition under 

Inteqal. 
5

Background 

In October 2001, the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban 

regime, which had been in power since 1996 and had been providing a safe-haven to Al 

Qaeda—the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. In November 2001, the United 

Nations (UN) Security Council adopted Resolution 1378, which enabled the IC to 

intervene in Afghanistan and called for a central UN role in establishing a transitional 

government.14 On December 5, 2001, the major Afghan factions met in Bonn, Germany, 

under UN auspices and signed the so-called Bonn Agreement to form an interim 

government for Afghanistan. The interim government set the stabilization of the regime 

and the delivery of humanitarian assistance as its highest priorities.15

Stabilization efforts focused on strengthening the central government, which was weak 

and unable to control regional and factional leaders; rebuilding the Afghan National 

Army; deploying a multinational ISAF under NATO coordination to patrol Kabul and 

other cities; demobilizing, disarming, and resettling militias; and setting up regional 

enclaves to create secure conditions for reconstruction and state-building, utilizing 

Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). 

In January–February 2006, a conference for donors and the Afghan government was held 

in London, where the Afghan Compact was signed.16 This innovative agreement was 

based on donors pledging to implement a program of work and funding, following agreed 

principles (alignment and harmonization) and a national work plan, known as the 

ANDS.17 Targets and monitoring systems were also established. The Afghan Compact 

emphasized reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a national priority 

and eliminating the production and trafficking of narcotics as a shared goal. It established 

three critical and interdependent areas of activity for 2006−2011: governance; rule of law 

and human rights; and economic and social development. 

During 2006−2007, the Ministry of Reconstruction and Rural Development (MRRD) in 

GIRoA undertook a series of workshop-based planning activities using Community 

Development Councils (CDCs) in Afghanistan provinces and districts. Applying a 

common template approach to maximize consistency, these workshops created a localedriven set of development snapshots and priority needs. These documents, known as 

PDPs and DDPs, provide a fairly comprehensive view of local development status, 

priority needs, and basic strategies across Afghanistan. 

The July 2010 Kabul Conference produced the Inteqal Framework, which contained a 

plan for the transition of Afghan provinces from ISAF to GIRoA control in the areas of 

security, governance, and development.18 The JANIB, chaired by a senior individual 

from GIRoA with the NATO SCR and ISAF commander as co-chairs, was created to 

assess and endorse the readiness of Afghanistan provinces for transition in the areas of 

security, governance, and development for both Phase I and II. Phase I involves an 

assessment of the readiness of individual provinces to begin transition, while Phase II 

guides a province through the transition process. 
6

At the November 2010 Lisbon Conference, NATO reaffirmed its intent to maintain a 

long-term relationship with GIRoA—beyond the 2014 deadline, when GIRoA accepts 

responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan. In March 2011, the JANIB announced 

its first selections for transition—most of Kabul province, Panjshir, and Bamiyan 

provinces, the cities of Herat and Mazar-e-Sherif, and the districts of Metharlam and 

Lashkar Gah. For socioeconomic development, the main metrics for progress through the 

stages of transition address capacity of Afghan institutions, sustainment commitments of 

the IC, and the transition of the role of PRTs from execution-oriented to advisor to 

provincial government institutions. 

The challenges facing Afghanistan remain immense and are further complicated by 

insecurity within Afghanistan and the continued prevalence of a large illicit economy. 

The problems derived from the abundance of funds from multiple sources further 

complicate the difficulty of creating a viable and stable Afghanistan. Approximately 90 

percent of all reconstruction funds are provided by the IC, of which an estimated 75 

percent are outside of the Afghanistan Government budget cycle.19

The future of Afghanistan is unpredictable. It is still unknown what the security, stability, 

and development situation will be after 2014. The drawdown of ISAF will be 

accompanied by reduced resources. As a result, it will be impossible to meet all GIRoA 

needs. What resources will be forthcoming will require developing strategies and setting 

priorities to identify those provinces, districts, and villages that have the best potential for 

sustainment. 

Transition from ISAF to GIRoA control will take place over the next several years. The 

Inteqal Framework has outlined a plan for Phase I and II in the areas of security, 

governance, and development. In the current approach, security criteria are critical for 

furthering transition. Development, however, should also be given full consideration for 

selection, planning, and execution in order to provide an orderly and stable transfer of 

authority from ISAF to GIRoA. This is extremely important since, as stated earlier, a 

significant number of post-conflict low-income countries that maintain peace still fall 

back into conflict within a decade. By taking a strategic approach to development, ISAF 

and GIRoA can achieve transition objectives, while implementing a plan for maximizing 

Afghanistan’s socioeconomic potential based on local conditions. 
7

A Procedural Approach to Elevating the Role of Development 

The recent history of events in Afghanistan suggests that efforts are being expended in 

multiple domains to move Afghanistan toward sovereignty and self-sufficiency. 

However, synchronizing efforts remains a challenge. International conferences have 

pushed ahead, setting governance and development objectives at a state level. But the 

ISAF efforts remain heavily focused on confronting the insurgency and terrorists, while 

also training Afghan security forces to develop capacity for self-sufficiency. 

Development efforts, funded mainly outside the Afghan budget, have been approached 

broadly by USAID, other countries, and NGOs. Recent news articles cite questions of the 

effectiveness of key USAID programs, and related delays in funding.20 In the 

development arena, efforts are underway ranging from development of strategic 

resources and infrastructure (i.e., mining and primary roads) to basic food and health 

programs. 

While any and all of these efforts may be appropriate, what seems to be lacking is an 

organizing approach that strategically meshes socioeconomic development goals with 

security and the growth of governance and rule of law across the entire process of 

transition. If the overall transition effort is seen as a resource allocation process 

constrained in time (complete by 2014), personnel (Afghan expertise and IC subject 

matter experts), and funding (actual Afghan revenues and IC sustaining donations), a key 

objective must be transitioning the provinces of Afghanistan with the lowest possible risk 

of recidivism. Socioeconomic development conditions must be in place and improving, 

while civilian programs and capacity must be in place to enable and sustain successes, 

including the stated goal of encouraging private investment. In addition, the security 

situation must be stable to allow economic opportunity to flourish. 

Two other elements, one a constraint and the other a key objective, must be considered to 

complete this mental model of transition management. First, basic social needs must be 

met in selected provinces to minimize disaffection of the population with the provincial 

and national leadership during the transition and post-transition periods. This constraint 

must be addressed at the local needs level. Second, the transition selection process must 

address socioeconomic drivers for Afghanistan. It is easy to accept the notion that 

transition priority should be given to provinces that enable the greatest economic 

opportunity for the most Afghans, while long development timelines and enduring 

security may cloud specific selections. Nevertheless, those provinces that generate the 

most revenue and provide the most opportunity for commerce and jobs would appear to 

be high priority candidates. Applying the approach consistently results in a consistent 

approach to resource allocation throughout transition. 

Organizing this thought process into a resource-allocation model results in a 

straightforward top-down selection process based on socioeconomic drivers, coupled 

with a bottom-up planning process for transition. The first step is to identify the prime 

strategic approach to transition. This is important both to clarify drivers for transition 

selection and to balance development considerations with security considerations. The 

ANDS and related documents define key objectives: to enable sustainable economic 
8

growth, to positively affect the lives of Afghans, and to generate jobs.21 A strategic 

approach to accomplishing these objectives is to build on current economic centers, open 

key trade routes internally and regionally, and address the centers of greatest population 

early. 

Once the strategic approach is agreed upon, strategic drivers are identified. These 

straightforwardly include the economic potential of the provinces, greatest population 

centers, key regional border crossings, and internal transport corridors, including the Ring 

Road. Security risk is the main consideration that is applied after the development-related 

ordering is completed. 

At this point, each province is rated for its potential according to each driver, then given a 

composite rating and assigned to cohorts for transition. The rating method, reasonably 

objective in its approach, is described in more detail in the next section. Following this 

initial rating, security risk is overlaid since security may affect the ability to implement 

transition or require special programs. Decision makers should have adequate 

information at this point to make adjustments to sequencing. 

So far, the process addresses entry into the transition process. At this point, detail is 

necessary to plan and monitor progress through the transition stages of Inteqal. For each 

province, PDPs and DDPs must be analyzed and compared to ground truth to determine 

specific development objectives for transition, and to determine where and how capacity 

and sustainability will be developed and demonstrated for local government and related 

entities. To be faithful to the principles of Inteqal, detailed planning must be a true 

cooperative effort among GIRoA, ISAF, and appropriate stakeholders (NATO, USAID, 

NGOs, etc.). 

Selecting Strategic Socioeconomic Drivers. While many different criteria may be 

applied to prioritize selection for transition, from a socioeconomic development 

perspective, a relatively small set of drivers can be identified as objectives to use. 

Applying this approach, a set of recommended cohorts can be developed based on this 

handful of criteria that support key Afghan development strategies and objectives. 

One key criterion used here is economic development. From open source literature such 

as UN reports (e.g., the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan [UNAMA] and UN 

Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], or the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] World 

Factbook), it is fairly easy to ascertain the general economic potential of the provinces of 

Afghanistan. Based on these descriptions, it is possible to group Afghan provinces into 

three categories of potential: commercial and industrial, agribusiness, and subsistence. 

Through private conversations with GIRoA Ministry representatives, the authors obtained 

unofficial Afghan categorizations (rated 1, 2, or 3) of provinces that reflect this thinking. 

This assignment reflects the economic potential of the province, where a rating of 3 

indicates high (commercial/industrial) potential. 

A second criterion, aimed at placing as much of Afghanistan back in Afghan sovereign 

control as quickly as possible, identifies the largest urban centers and most populace 
9

provinces (both total population and population density). Two other criteria relate to 

economic enablers: key border-crossing provinces that enable regional trade and revenues 

and internal transportation corridors (e.g., the Ring Road and others). A final criterion 

applied here is proximity to high-priority economic centers. The basic notion is that 

economic growth can more easily move outward from centers to nearby areas. An added 

effect is to expand secure areas and to allow conservation of resources applied to 

socioeconomic growth efforts. 

Table 1 lists these drivers, the rationale for each, and an example set of leaders for each 

driver. The more often a province appears, the greater its overall importance; but 

individual provinces must be considered in light of all criteria. 

An integrated priority list is the desired result. The economic criteria are evaluated 

individually, and then integrated to develop a priority order of provinces. At this point, 

security risk is applied, resulting in a risk-informed set of cohorts. This socioeconomic 

information can then be combined with other considerations to select transition 

candidates. For example, in the development line of operations, other considerations 

might include a high degree of social need or the degree of ISAF presence. 

Strategic 

Driver Rationale Examples

Economic 

Potential

Higher priority to provinces with rapid growth 

potential to support economic growth. 

Balkh, Kabul , Nangarhar, Hirat, 

Kandahar

Trade 

Corridors / 

Borders 

Opening , securing, and managing borders 

enabling regional trade growth and enhances

revenue generation 

Balkh, Hirat, Kandahar, Nangarhar

Internal 

Transport

Corridors 

Opening and enhancing internal transport 

facilitates trade and economic growth, as well as 

population mobility (key focus is securing Ring 

Road plus) 

Badghis, Baghlan, Balkh, Bamyan, 

Farah Faryab, Ghazni, Ghor, 

Hilmand, Hirat, Jawzjan, Kabul,

Kandahar, Parwan, Samangan, 

Wardak, Zabul

Serve broad 

Population

To serve greatest population soonest gives 

priority to urban c enters, province t otal 

population, and greatest densities.

Kabul, Kapisa, Nangarhar, Khost, 

Laghman, Kunduz, Parwan, Kunar, 

Logar, Paktya

Cities: Kabul, Kandahar, Hirat, 

Mazari-sharif, Ghazni

Geographic 

Clusters 

Cultivate near neighbors as growth opportunity 

from economic centers, also enhancing security 

buffers

Kapisa, Laghman, Logar, Parwan, 

Paktya, Nangarhar, Wardak

Table 1. Strategic Drivers 

Prioritizing Provinces. In this initial effort, ratings were made based on a small 

composite data set assembled from the references cited in the literature review. For these 

criteria, ratings are viewed as additive and scaled appropriately, so that relative priorities 

of provinces are determined by the sum of their ratings. To manage flow into transition, 

provinces are grouped into cohorts with similar scores, with roughly seven in a cohort. 
10

Prioritization of provinces is based on a straightforward weighted sum of ratings for the 

individual priority categories. Here, the ratings are scaled to be similar in range and 

magnitude, and are therefore simply additive. Alternatively, ratings can be applied to the 

order statistics or to quantiles, and then normalized before being summed. 

Notation: 

• p = index of provinces, numbered 1–34 

• i = index number corresponding to rated category -- econ potential, 

border, population, transport, near neighbor, etc. 

• V(p, i) = rating value assigned for to category i for province p 

• w(i) = weighting applied to each rated category (all w[i] = 1 when criteria 

are equal priority) 

• P(p) = ∑w(i) V(p, i) for all i. 

In the initial application, equal weighting of priorities was adequate to arrive at rationale 

cohorts. However, weighting may also be applied and varied to explore alternative 

transition strategies to reflect the relative importance among the chosen drivers. 

Table 2 displays the cohorts generated by the strategic drivers discussed above. While the 

actual numbers of provinces entering transition would include other management factors, 

in this demonstration, provinces are broken into cohorts based on similar overall scoring. 

The first cohort contains the eight highest-rated provinces. Of these, the three lowest 

(Baghlan, Ghazni, and Kunduz) still score well overall with large, high-density 

populations to complement their Ring-Road positions and moderate, agriculture-focused 

economic potential. 

Cohort1 Cohort2 Cohort3 Cohort4 Cohort5

Baghlan   

Balkh   

Ghazni  

Hirat   

Kabul  

Kandahar

Kundoz

Nangarhar

Farah  

Faryab  

Hilmand  

Juzjan  

Khost  

Perwan

Samangan

Badakhshan   

Ghor  

Kapisa  

Laghman  

Logar  

Takhar

Wardag

Badghis

Bamyan   

Kunar  

Nimroz  

Paktiya   

Saripul  

Zabul

Daykundi

Nooristan   

Paktika   

Panjshir

Urozgan

Table 2. Recommended Transition Cohorts based on Development Drivers

Organizing ensuing cohorts by similar scores, five cohorts averaging seven provinces 

each were identified. The number of provinces entering transition may be varied 

according to the ability to manage transition activities, which includes specific stage 

transition criteria defined for the Inteqal process. 
11

Introducing Security Risk Consideration. At this point, the Afghan provinces may easily 

be parsed into transition cohorts based on socioeconomic drivers, but prospects of 

successful and enduring economic progress appear best when the risk of security-based 

issues is low. While an environment of low security risk is more benign for progress in 

the social and economic environment, an environment with higher security risk does not 

preclude development progress. However, the approach must be properly sized and 

structured, and must be well integrated with security planning. Indeed, any development 

progress may help mitigate and reduce security risks when progress is made. For 

example, where unrest is tied to deprivation, addressing basic needs may be critical for 

reducing security risk issues. However, when risk is severe and the drivers are more 

political than social or economic, it may be necessary to defer transition until basic 

security needs are met and risk is reduced to tolerable levels. Nevertheless, once the 

strategy-driven cohorts are overlaid with security risk considerations, decision makers are 

in a position to modify cohorts as necessary to move them from desirable to feasible or 

executable. 

Adding security risk consideration requires some care and consultation. Reviewing 

security-related risk assessments from various sources, one can see that there are multiple 

definitions and schemes being applied by various raters. Even without formal common 

definitions, it is possible to categorize these risk assessments according to their “bias” as 

moderate, more optimistic, or more pessimistic and cautious in their nature. Looking at 

four such security risk assessments, each bias appears to be present. An informal 

assessment received through personal communications with GIRoA officials appears to 

be moderate, perhaps reflecting a higher tolerance for some insecurity issues after 

decades of war. On the other hand, a recent ISAF assessment could be considered 

optimistic overall, reflecting a belief that the surge strategy is working. Comparatively, 

an assessment made in early 2011 by Afghan transition lead Dr. Ashraf Ghani reflects a 

more pessimistic bias based on his belief that some provinces inherit security risk from 

less-stable neighbors if they do not receive appropriate attention soon. 

For the purpose of this paper, a relatively cautious assessment made by the UN in 

October 2010 and reported in the Wall Street Journal in December 2010 is used as a 

base. The UN assessment may be the best choice at this point because it was designed to 

identify risks and thus inform UN operations planning. It also reflects emerging changes 

to risks in the northern provinces that do not appear in the more optimistic ISAF ratings 

and are overwhelmed by the overall pessimistic ratings of Dr. Ghani. Since the UN 

ratings are more detailed (down to district level), they have been aggregated for use here 

into the approximate province-level ratings that are used in the following demonstration. 
12

Security

Risk* Cohort 1 Cohort 2 Cohort 3 Cohort 4 Cohort 5

Low Balkh  

Kabul  

Juzjan  

Samangan

Badakhshan   

Takhar

Bamyan   

Saripul

Panjshir

Medium Baghlan  

Kundoz

Nangarhar

Faryab  

Perwan  

Ghor  

Kapisa  

Logar  

Wardag

Daykundi

High Ghazni  

Hirat   

Kandahar  

Farah

Hilmand  

Khost  

Laghman Badghis

Kunar  

Nimroz  

Paktiya   

Zabul

Nooristan

Paktika   

Urozgan

*Security risk adapted from UN assessmentreports and Wall StreetJournal

 

Organizing Transition Cohorts. Applying risk categorization highlights a key challenge 

for decision makers in selecting provinces for transition. In Cohort 1 alone, five priority 

provinces have a high-risk rating that must be addressed. Decisions must be made to 

modify transition planning to accommodate development in a risky environment, or to 

transition only key districts with manageable risk, or to defer transition until the security 

risks are cleared. If deferrals are made, then cohorts can be adjusted accordingly. 

Note that transition focuses on returning provinces to sovereign Afghan leadership. 

However, ISAF does not have a significant presence in all provinces, such as in certain 

provinces in Cohort 5. Particularly for such provinces where risk is not high, it is possible 

that they could enter the transition process at will since they tend to be more subsistence

economies and would tend to have needs more in the social and agricultural end of the 

development spectrum. 

An additional value of visualizing risked-informed cohorts is to allow discussion of 

alterative transition strategies. For example, high-priority but high-risk provinces might 

enter transition immediately with greater resources necessary to address security needs in 

one approach, or they could be deferred in favor of transitioning more stable nearneighbors to establish economic opportunity buffers that can positively affect neighbors. 

Such trade-offs can affect the overall pace of transition and the amount and use of 

resources supporting transition. 

Table 3. Risk by Cohort 
13

Examining First Cohort Attributes. As might be expected, the first cohort has several 

positive attributes with respect to the strategic development drivers. The first cohort is 

represented by circles on the map of Afghanistan in Figure 1. Balkh, Hirat, Kandahar, 

Nangarhar, and Kunduz contain key border crossings that allow regional commerce and 

should generate substantial revenues for re-emerging Afghanistan. All Cohort 1 

provinces have key urban centers or large, high-density populations, such as Nangarhar. 

Many have category 1 economic ratings, but Nangarhar (category 2 potential) is an 

example of a province that joins the cohort based on good scores in multiple other 

categories. All of these provinces incorporate segments of the Afghan Ring Road. Further 

examining recommended cohorts reveals that the second cohort would largely complete 

the Ring Road and that selected provinces would provide some buffering to the primary 

centers of Cohort 1. 

Once again, it is evident that some of these provinces have high security risk ratings, such 

as Kandahar. In these cases, decisions must be made on how to implement security 

transition. For example, this transition for Kandahar City, Kandahar’s Ring Road, and 

Kandahar’s border crossing may be accelerated while the southern barren areas are 

secured later. 

One of the drivers selected for development was to impact the Afghan population at the 

quickest pace possible, thereby focusing on population centers and population density. 

Figure 2 depicts the rate at which population transitions by cohort. The first cohort 

addresses approximately 50 percent of the population, and more than 80 percent is 

addressed by the first three. In short, focusing on strategic-development drivers described 

Figure 1. Cohort Map Overlay 
14

here will direct resources to where they can benefit a large portion of the Afghan 

population as quickly as possible. 

Planning and Monitoring Transition Progress in Inteqal. Once provinces are selected 

for the transition process, Inteqal describes a progression of four Phase 2 Stages through 

which a province must progress to complete transition. At the end of 2010, as the 

transition process was being debated among GIRoA, ISAF, and the IC, metrics and 

indicators were under debate to support the process. Considering the declared end point 

for transition of 2014, it is clear that the actual development state in any given province 

cannot be advanced too far. However, it is equally clear that the process of transition to 

Afghan leadership must enable and measure the progress toward Afghan ownership of 

development processes, must develop and measure the capacity to do the governmental 

and institutional business of socioeconomic development, and must measure the ability to 

sustain progress during and after transition. This final element is ultimately a measure of 

IC commitment to adequately fund Afghan governmental and institutional activities and 

programs at provincial levels while Afghanistan grows toward self-sufficiency. 

Since these dimensions both contribute to assessing and understanding transition 

progress, a decision support framework incorporating both is helpful. In Table 4, 

Development State is rated against the vertical axis, while Capacity and Sustainability are 

rated against the horizontal. The Development State axis is vertical using the five colors 

and language of current Afghan assessments. The horizontal axis uses four colors to 

relate to the four stages described in Inteqal Phase 2. Two benefits quickly emerge in 

application: development state can be tracked as a progression; and capacity and 

sustainment can be directly recorded, allowing a history of (x, y) pairs to track results. 

Figure 2. Population/Cohort 
15

Developm ent

State

S ustainable 

Developm ent

Plan for 

Capacity 

Development Stage 4 End State 

Will Vary by Locality 

Dependent 

Growth

M inim al 

Growth

S talled 

Growth

Plan for both P lan for 

Development Improvements

P opulation

at Risk

Unproven Dem onstrated

Delivery

Full 

Program 

Capab ility

Full 

Authority 

Capacity & Sustainm ent

Some key notions are enabled with the matrix approach. First, at the Phase 1 selection, 

the development baseline can be mapped onto the Development State dimension as 

appropriate. However, since economic potential under ANDS can be imputed down to the 

local level, rational local objectives need to be applied. In short, districts can have 

different end states and need not all strive for green ratings. And, of course, gathering the 

indicators initiates or extends the management information that Afghanistan will need to 

track progress well after Inteqal is complete. 

Second, capacity and sustainment assessments can also be conducted at the time of Phase 

1 selection. Therefore, stage assignments can be tailored to the actual condition of the 

location under consideration. In this scheme, locations with more mature capacity can 

progress quickly through Phase 2. Third, this matrix approach can be applied in a uniform 

and consistent way to all locations and can be aggregated to develop other pictures of 

maturity and progress. Fourth, positioning on the matrix can easily be used to support 

Action Planning for progress through transition. A consistent approach can be used to 

identify whether key needs to be developed are state-oriented or capacity-oriented, or 

both. An added benefit of tracking capacity directly is the emergence of learning 

processes and “best practices” to employ throughout Inteqal. 

Table 4. Development State and Capacity/Sustainment 
16

Case Studies: Use of PDP and DDP Information in Planning 

Once provinces have been designated for transition, detailed planning should proceed to 

address specific projects, organizations, and capabilities for transition. The overall 

objective of transition is, in essence, to ensure that the most important local 

socioeconomic needs are being addressed while institutional capacity and sustainability 

are being built to enable a permanent return to sovereign Afghan leadership, and to set 

the stage for mid- and long-term socioeconomic improvement. A challenge in 

Afghanistan is to gain an authoritative appreciation for the most pressing local needs that 

can be integrated into prioritized needs on a provincial basis, allowing focused 

application of resources and capacity development. Recent experience indicate that 

relevant information is vested in many individual NGO databases, or is partially available 

through organizations like the UN and USAID, but is seldom available in military 

databases in helpful form and extent. Since the task of canvassing Afghan districts and 

villages to generate up-to-date needs data would be daunting, the most appropriate 

“bottom-up” documents that exist are the PDPs and DDPs. Out of 34 provinces, 30 PDPs 

are known to be available. 

The PDPs are most valuable for development indicator data that is roughly comparable 

across provinces. While the data are vintage 2005−2007, they can be used to provide an 

initial historical baseline. Since the documents were developed through local workshops 

using a standard approach and drawing together the best available information across 

development sectors of interest, they present a relatively consistent picture of 

development sectors for each province and district of Afghanistan. Since they are 

historical, they allow a straightforward opportunity to compare past conditions to current 

conditions to assess the quality and impact of interim development efforts. Additionally, 

the documents are supported by detailed data on local needs and project priorities that 

provide a locally-based view that can be composed into province-level views to aid in 

focusing developmental programs and capacity-building efforts. 
17

Sector Develop Priorities

Economic Establish companies, build factories, establish Markets, provide loans, 

banking system, tax manual

Infrastructure Dams, roads, bridges, communications , retaining walls

Agriculture Irrigation projects, cooperatives, machinery, seeds, veterinary clinics ,

animal husbandry farms

Education Construction/renovation of school facilities, teacher training programs, 

equipment

Health Construction/ renovation of medical facilities, drinking water, sanitation 

facilities

Social Shelter, pensions, vocational training, emergency food, retaining walls

Governance Priorities include salary, staff, training, facilities, equipping

Security Priorities include salary, staff, training, facilities, equipping

Table 5. Development Sectors and Priorities 

Table 5 shows the development sectors addressed in the DDPs, which present districtlevel strategies and are accompanied by lists of priority projects developed through 

CDCs. This data can easily be used (once placed into a common spreadsheet) to develop 

a province-level view of local priority development. It can also be used to validate that 

local priorities are in line with national priority programs. 

For transition planning, the strategies and the priorities help focus development 

objectives. This allows plans to be developed for government capacity and sustainment 

development among province-level government entities. Case studies of these documents 

have demonstrated their utility in several ways, as suggested by the examples that follow. 

For this demonstration, two provinces—Kandahar and Laghman—were studied in detail 

to show how local development documents can be used to identify and prioritize 

development interests, both within development sectors and across them at the provincial 

level. Then, development plans were studied in aggregate to demonstrate how the 

information can be used to support broader planning for Afghan national interests. 

Kandahar and Laghman share a few similarities but many differences on the 

socioeconomic development spectrum. Kandahar is a Cohort 1 province, strong on many 

of the strategic development drivers, while Laghman is in Cohort 3, rated lower overall 

against the key drivers. Kandahar is a large province of 17 districts, diverse in terrain, and 

currently rated as a high security risk with ongoing violence at the time of this writing. 

Laghman is a smaller province of five districts, overall mountainous and pastoral, and 

rated low in security risk. Examining the development strategies and the proposed 

development projects highlights the similarities and differences of locally-derived 

priorities. 
18

One clear application of the DDPs is to paint a province-level view of the priority 

strategies for each development sector. Taking the individual strategies of the 17 districts 

and compiling them into a single database across the development sectors, a table of 

development sector priorities emerges for Kandahar. Table 6 shows the strategies ordered 

by number of occurrences in DDPs (The table is truncated at the point where all ensuing 

strategies are mentioned only once.) 

18 Roads, Bridges, 

Culverts 18 Schools 15 Health Clinics 10 Agricultural Equipment 12 Financial Support 18 Trade Center & Markets

12 Hydroelectric 12 Religious 

Schools

12 Public Health 

Awareness

10 Veterinary 

Services 12 Shelter 9 Factories

12 Irrigation 10 Teachers 7 Medical 

Equipment

8 Drinking 

Water

12 Vocational 

Training 7 Small Industry

9 Telecomm 6

Educational 

System 5

Doctors and 

Physicians 7 Irrigation 8

Flood 

Protection 

Walls

7 Micro Finance

5 Natural 

Resources 5 Educational Awareness 4 Disease Prevention 7 Irrigation Dams 6

Disaster 

Preparedness 

and Relief

5 Private Sector 

Development

4 Public 

Transportation

4 Vocational 

Education 3 Drinking Water 6 Ag. Research Farms

2 Jobs 

Programs

4 Natural Resource 

Exploitation

3

Flood 

Protection 2

Educational 

Equipment 3 Health Training 6

Flood 

Protection 

Walls

1 Drug 

Programs 2

Economic Dev 

Programs

1 Drinking Water 2 Educational 

Facilities, other 3

Medical Wards 

for Women and 

Children

5 Fertilizer & 

Seeds 1 Drinking Water (wells) 2 Vocational Training

1 Shelter 2 Literacy 

Courses 2 Health Inspectors 5 Trade Centers and Market

1 Red Crescent 2 Capacity Building 

for Farmers

1 Grazing Lands 1 Kuchi Clinics 

(health) 2 Vaccination Programs 3 Micro Finance 1

Social 

Services 

Department

2 Electricity

Infrastructure Education Health Agriculture Social Services Economic

Table 6. Strategy Occurrences 

In most sectors, the highest priority goes to three or fewer strategies. Some interpretation 

of the strategies is necessary, since there are both some repetitions and some differences 

in how strategies are expressed (leading, for example, to more occurrences of a strategy 

than the 17 district plans they are drawn from). However, the difference between the 

broadest needs and lesser needs is compelling in most sectors. It is also noteworthy that 

most strategies address the more basic ends of the development spectrum, with near- to 

mid-term impact on local populations. 

However, any plan of action must narrow its focus to key activities that can be resourced 

and, in the case of Afghan transition, will lead to an improved development state. Since 

institutional capacity-building must occur, it must also be focused during transition; 

attempting to develop all institutional capacity equally can be both wasteful of resources 

and have limited impact or impact in the wrong areas. In order to demonstrate this crosssector prioritization, the Kandahar strategies were rank-ordered across development 

sectors. Adjusting for duplications of strategies in different sectors allows added 

emphasis to emerge. 

In Table 7, the need for irrigation to make agriculture broader and more productive 

receives extra emphasis when development of irrigation is cited as an agricultural 

strategy and as an infrastructure strategy. Following this thinking, the table imputes 
19

Count Activity Sector

27 Irrigation Agric

23 Trade Center and Markets Econ

21 Schools and Facilities Educ

19 Roads Infra

17 Flood Protection Infra

16 Vocational Training Soc

15 Health Clinics Health

14 Hydroelectric Infra

13 Drinking Water Health

13 Shelter Soc

Count Description Sector

21 Clinics and Hospitals Health

17 Schools Education

16 Factories Economics

12 Irrigation Agriculture

12 Roads & bridges Infrastructure

10 Shelter Social

7 Farms Agriculture & Social

6 Ag Productivity Tools Agriculture

6 Veterinary Agriculture

6 Electricity dam Infrastructure

highest priority to very logical strategies for 

irrigation, trade centers and markets, schools, 

and roads. However, the fifth priority—flood 

protection—becomes evident when strategies 

in agriculture, infrastructure, and social welfare 

are examined as a composite. The logic of this 

priority will become clearer later when 

provinces are examined for economic-shock 

impacts. However, regional descriptions of 

Kandahar suggest that it is broadly agricultural 

in nature, with large regions subject to droughts 

and mountainous sections subject to annual 

floods that both devastate crop production 

regularly. A final note on this list of priority 

strategies is that many, collectively, address either basic human needs, including shelter, 

drinking water, health, or vocational training to provide basic employability. Therefore, 

while Kandahar represents a strategic economic development priority for Afghanistan, 

many of its priority needs are at the social welfare level. 

While the priorities for Kandahar were derived by examining the strategies stated for 

each development sector, the composite picture of Laghman, at right, was derived by 

placing the actual lists of project proposals accompanying the DDPs into a single 

database and coding each entry by its specific type of project. This method has the 

advantage of providing a demographic distribution of projects over the method of 

counting strategy references from the Kandahar example, but it does bring out both 

similarities and differences that appear to be real between Laghman and Kandahar. 

For Laghman, in Table 8, six types of 

projects highlight the greatest needs, and 

highest among these is the need for 

clinics and schools in this more isolated 

and pastoral province. Irrigation and 

roads are logical, given the agriculture 

focus, as is the need to reach markets 

and medical attention. Shelter for a 

displaced and deprived population is 

clearly necessary. Only the priority for 

factories requires some explanation. The 

idea is to enable some value-added 

handling of agricultural products, 

opening potential for revenues from more distant markets, as well as related job 

opportunities. The overall priority in this province is to meet more basic social needs 

while improving agriculture from mere subsistence level to the first opportunities of 

“agribusiness.” On the other hand, one thing the detailed project data highlighted by its 

absence is a priority focus on higher-end agribusiness or commercial-industrial programs, 

which is largely consistent with Laghman’s potential. 

Table 7. Sector Priorities Kandahar 

Table 8. Sector Priorities Laghman 
20

 

The final example of PDP and DDP use is the comparison of provincial level information 

among groups of provinces or to Afghanistan as a whole. The most obvious applications 

are in comparing provincial standards against Afghan or other international norms. 

Literacy, health, and even poppy cultivation statistics are examples frequently seen. The 

development plans provide comparable data points for many of the sectors that can be 

used directly, or used with other demographic data, to compute comparative measures 

and indicators. While these are not presented here, they do provide value, and may even 

be used to derive thresholds and objectives for development in their sectors. 

Perhaps a more interesting and informative application for the information in the 

development plans is the use of some of the less standard, more descriptive, data to 

understand and to validate the priorities among cohorts of provinces. Each of the PDPs 

contains a table and discussion of whether the provincial population has encountered 

“shocks” to their lives and whether the shocks have endured through the year. Each PDP 

contains a table comparing the impacts for agricultural shock, natural disaster, water and 

sanitation, finances, health and epidemics, and lack of security. Besides the more obvious 

use for understanding key impacts in each province, these tables provide a helpful tool 

for understanding development sensitivities across provinces. In addition, since they were 

acquired around 2006, they may be used to determine where progress has been made, or 

lost, in addressing these issues. 

The bar chart in Figure 3 compares the Cohort 1 provinces for shock impacts on the 

Afghan population. The x-axis reflects the sum of portions of the population affected, 

indicating that people may be affected by multiple shocks in the same year and at the 

same time. Several important insights can be drawn. Agricultural shocks and natural 

disasters (mainly floods and droughts) have the greatest impacts across these key 

provinces, so these should be high among development priorities. Water and sanitation 

have generally lesser, but important impacts. For Kandahar, the combined impact of 

agriculture shocks and natural disaster rate highest in the lives of the population. Other 

social needs, or even financial and security shocks, are not rated as having as great an 

impact. In the ordering, Balkh appears least susceptible, while Ghazni is most affected 

with multiple shocks. Once again, these insights can certainly help focus detailed 

planning for transition and for the development of capacity in the areas where it will have 

the most potential to positively affect the socioeconomic lot of each provincial 

population. 

These short case studies show some of the potential contained in the PDPs and DDPs, 

especially since they provide insight that does not appear to be easily accessed in the 

military or civilian data systems that the NATO coalition utilizes. Of course, this data is 

not currently in a single database form that supports detailed analysis and exploitation. 

Broad access to fully integrated data would logically enhance the power of this 

information. 
21

0 50 100 150 200 250

Ghazni

Hirat

Kandahar

Kundoz

Nangarhar

Kabul

Baghlan

Balkh

Agric

Nat Dis

W ate r & San

Financial

Health / Epid

Inse curity

Summary and Conclusions 

Even as the surge continues to clear more provinces of the insurgency, the process of 

transition has begun. The first tranche of provinces entering transition has been named, 

while development programs continue to broadly address needs across Afghanistan 

without a clear strategic focus and with criticism of alleged ineffective or misdirected 

programs. The ANDS and the NPPs describe a full scope of programs, ranging from 

social needs to high-end economic development of natural resources, but phasing of these 

priorities and management of limited execution resources is not clear. The security-first 

approach has had beneficial effect to date. Now is the time to take action to put 

development effort on an equal plane with security, raising the potential for success in 

transition. Coalition partners and GIRoA should take several steps to make their intent 

clear. 

First, clearly articulate the strategy driving the transition process. As we have 

demonstrated in this paper, by identifying a few strategic drivers, a logical prioritization 

for provincial transition based on development objectives is immediately evident. While 

the ANDS and the NPPs address strategic elements, they are too broad to provide timesensitive focus to drive transition success. 

Next, adjust the development-based ordering for the local realities of security conditions, 

governance state, and other considerations. For the first cohort in particular, this means 

that some provinces may need to be deferred until security is stabilized or corruption is 

dealt with, while others may be prepared at the district or city level. The result is a 

comprehensive prioritization of provinces for transition. There are multiple benefits to 

establishing this ordering. Prioritizing transition targets has the immediate benefit of 

allowing resources to be allocated to enable priority transitions. An associated benefit is 

that other international actors, such as investment banks, would also be able to marshal 

resources to reinforce success in the priority areas. A third benefit is the strategic 

Figure 3. Shock Impacts Affecting Afghan Provincial Populations 
22

communications value of both announcing where Afghan economic strengths are and 

informing local leaders of what their key shortcomings are to reinforce success and to 

work to change lagging behaviors. 

Third, focus planning and operational resources on activities to move the priority cohorts 

through transition efficiently. Since these locales present higher-order economic 

opportunity, this implies the need for a multi-dimensional effort. Internally, an early 

focus must be on capacity-building in key governance areas and institutions. More 

broadly, planning must identify and establish key programs and priority projects to focus 

the efforts of all actors, including development banks and NGOs. However, reflecting the 

need for both state-building and nation-building, the more direct social needs of the 

people must be addressed at the same time as higher-level economic strategy. 

Fourth, plans should address the key social drivers of dissatisfaction and need on a 

localized basis. PDPs and DPPs should be used as the starting point to drive transition 

plans. These documents were generated in a template-enabled process, thus they contain 

local priorities that align with the intent of NPPs and can be compiled to provide 

province-level insight as well as used to assess comparative need and opportunity across 

provinces. While it is generally known that social and agricultural issues take priority, the 

PDPs and DPPs bring needs into a localized focus that can positively affect the lives of 

the Afghan people. 

Fifth, and finally, these steps should be used to develop a consistent and robust data 

support plan to track progress both of the state of development and of the growth of 

capacity and ownership. This notion is clearly consistent with the intent of Inteqal, but in 

the past has not been consistently used and resourced at local levels. 

The operations in Afghanistan are frequently described as complex operations, even 

placed into the category of wicked problems. Yet the NATO-based coalition and the 

international community in general have directed a multiplicity of resources broadly 

across the country to address issues of security, governance and rule of law, and 

development. The strategy of the surge has been “clear, hold, and build.” Now is the time 

to implement a development-driven strategy for transition with a focused approach to 

build, grow, and succeed. 
23

Appendix A: Bibliography 

David W. Barno, Responsible Transition, Securing U.S. Interests in Afghanistan Beyond 

2011(Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2010). 

Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, available at <https://www.cia.gov/library/ 

publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html>. 

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.S. Military Frets Over Delays in 3 Key Afghan Aid 

Programs,” The Washington Post, April 29, 2011. 

Benjamin Crost and Patrick Johnston, “Aid Under Fire: Development and Civil 

Conflict,” Discussion Paper 2010−2018, (Belfar Center for Science and International Affairs, 

Harvard Kennedy School, November 2010). 

Embassy of the United States of America—Kabul and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, United 

States Government Integrated Civilian – Military Campaign Plan For Support To Afghanistan, 

Revision 1, Karl W. Eikenberry and David H. Petraeus, February 2011. 

Ashraf Ghani, “Afghanistan, Opportunities and Risks.” PRISM 1, no. 4 (2010): 15−24. 

Ashraf Ghani,, Clare Lockhart, and Michael Carnahan, “Closing the Sovereignty Gap: an 

Approach to State Building” Overseas Development Institute Working Paper 253, (Overseas 

Development Institute, London, September 2005). 

Jonathan Goodhand, “From War Economy to Peace Economy? Reconstruction and State 

Building in Afghanistan,” Journal of International Affairs 58, no. 1 (Fall 2004): 155−174. 

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Office of the President, Afghanistan National 

Development Strategy 1, Kabul, 2007. 

Kabul International Conference, Joint Framework for Inteqal: A Process for 

Strengthening Peace and Stability in Afghanistan and the Region, July 20, 2010. 

Brian Levy and Francis Fukuyama, “Development Strategies Integrating Governance and 

Growth,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5196, January 2010. 

Johannes Linn, et al, “CAREC and the Future of Economic Development in Afghanistan 

and Central Asia,” Forum, (Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, June 1, 2011). 

Jen Meierhenrich and David Carment, When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, 

(Princeton: Princeton University Press), 2005. 

Ministry of Finance, Department of Policy, Afghanistan National Development Strategy, 

Prioritization and Implementation Plan 1 and 2, Kabul, 2010. 

Ministry of Reconstruction and Rural Development, National Area Based Development 

Program, Summary of the Provincial Development Plan, English summaries, Kabul, 2006. 

Ministry of Reconstruction and Rural Development, National Area Based Development 

Program, Summary of the District Development Plan, English summaries, Kabul, 2006. 
24

Lant Pritchett and Frauke de Weijer, “Fragile States: Stuck in a Capability Trap,” World 

Bank World Development Report 2011, background paper (preliminary version), September 3, 

2010. 

Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews, “Capability Traps? The 

Mechanisms of Persistent Implementation Failures,” Center for Global Development Working 

Paper 234, December 2010. 

Maiwand Safi, “Afghanistan: Local Reconstruction Effort Goes Awry,” Institute for War 

& Peace Reporting, ARR 398 (May 17, 2011), available at <http://iwpr.net/report-news/arr-issue398>. 

Astri Suhrke, “Reconstruction as Modernisation: the ‘post-conflict’ project in 

Afghanistan,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 7 (2007): 1291−1308. 

J. Alexander Their, “USAID Afghanistan: Towards and Enduring Partnership,” 

presentation to the Afghanistan/Pakistan Federation Forum, Washington, DC, January 28, 2011. 

Yaroslav Trofimov, “U.N. Maps Out Afghan Security,” The Wall Street Journal, 

December 26, 2010. 

United Nations Secretariat. Office of Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2010, 

Summary Findings, 2010. 

——— Afghanistan – Opium Poppy Free Road Map and Provincial; Profiles, 2008. 

U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Economic Growth, Bureau for 

Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, “A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict 

Countries, January 2009,” available at <http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADO408.pdf>.

——— USAID/Afghanistan, “Sectors: Agriculture, Democracy and Governance, 

Economic Growth, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Gender and Participant Training, and 

Stabilization” available at <http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/programs>. 

U.S. Department of State. Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, available at 

<http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/135728.pdf>. 

Bret P. Van Poppel, “ISAF Data Collection, Analysis, and Assessment,” presentation to 

NATO SAS-091 Workshop 2, The Hague, Netherlands, December 6, 2010. 

World Bank, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, South Asia 

Region, Afghanistan: Managing Public Finances for Development, Main Report 1, Report No. 

34582−AF, December 22, 2005. 

 
25

Appendix B: Glossary and Abbreviations

Inteqal—Is the Dari and Pashtu term for the process of transition. The Inteqal framework has 

mutually agreed upon criteria; and it will be implemented gradually on the basis of an assessment 

of the security, political, rule of law, and socioeconomic development situation. 

Loya Jirga—A jirga (a tribal assembly of elders that takes decisions by consensus) regarded as 

“grand assembly,” a phrase in Pashto meaning “grand council.” A mass meeting prepared for 

major events: choosing a new king; adopting a constitution; discussing important national 

political or emergency matters; discussing disputes in Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

ANDS Afghanistan National Development Strategy 

CIA Central Intelligence Agency 

CDC Community Development Council 

COCOM United States Combatant Command 

CTNSP Center for Technology and National Security Policy 

DDP District Development Plan 

GIRoA Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 

HSCB Human, Social, Cultural Behavior 

IC International Community 

ISAF International Security Assistance Force 

JANIB Joint Afghan-NATO Inteqal Board 

JFC Joint Force Command 

LOO Line of Operation 

MDG Millennium Development Goal 

MRRD Ministry of Reconstruction and Rural Development 

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

NC3A NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency 

NDU National Defense University 

NGO Non-Governmental Organization 

NPP Afghanistan National Priority Program 

PDP Provincial Development Plan 

PIP Prioritization and Implementation Plan 

PRT Provincial Reconstruction Team 

RoL Rule of Law 

RTO Research and Technology Organization 

SAS System Analysis and Studies 

SCR Senior Civilian Representative 

ST Specialist Team 

UN United Nations 

UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 

UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 

USAID United States Agency for International Development 
26

Appendix C: Endnotes 

                                                           

1

 According to NATO, Inteqal means transition in both Dari and Pashtu. 

2 Jens Meierhenrich and David Carment, When States Fail: Causes and Consequences 

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 

3

 Astri Suhrke, “Reconstruction as Modernisation: the ‘post-conflict’ project in 

Afghanistan,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 7 (2007): 1291−1308. 

4

 State-building refers to activities that create or enhance human and institutional capacity 

to increase the functional capability of a state (e.g. administrative control, rule of law, financial 

management, security services, etc.). Nation-building refers to activities that seek to stimulate or 

increase a singular collective cultural identity and loyalty to that identity (i.e. the Nation). 

5

 U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Economic Growth, Bureau for 

Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict 

Countries (Washington, DC, 2009). 

6

 Ibid. 

7

 Dietrich Rueschemeyer, “Building States—Inherently a long-Term Process? An 

Argument from Theory,” States and Development: Historical Antecedents of Stagnation and 

Advance (Political Evolution and Institutional Change), ed. Matthew Lange and Dietrich 

Rueschemeyer (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 143−164. 

8

 U.S. Department of State, Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, available at 

<http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/135728.pdf>. 

9

 Maiwand Safi, “Afghanistan: Local Reconstruction Effort Goes Awry,” Institute for 

War & Peace Reporting, ARR 398 (May 17, 2011), available at <http://iwpr.net/report-news/arrissue-398>. 

10 Interview with an ISAF staff officer, August 30, 2010. 

11 U.S. Agency for International Development, Afghanistan, “Sectors: Agriculture, 

Economic Growth, Education, and Health,” available at 

<http://afghanistan.usaid.gov/en/programs>. 

12 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Finance, Department of Policy, 

Afghanistan National Development Strategy Prioritization and Implementation Plan 1 and 2, 

(Kabul, 2010); Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Office of the President, Afghanistan National 

Development Strategy 1 (Kabul, 2007). 

13 President Karzai announced the first “tranche” for transition on March 22, 2011: 

provinces of Bamyan, Kabul, and Panjshir, and the municipalities of Heart, Lashkar Gah, 

Mehtarlam, and Mazar-e-Sharif . 
27

                                                                                                                                                                                

14 United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1378 unanimously on November 

14, 2001. After reaffirming Afghanistan resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), and 1363 (2001), 

the Security Council affirmed that the UN would play an important role in the country and called 

for the establishment of a transitional administration leading to the formation of a new 

government. 

15 The “Bonn Agreement” is officially called the “Agreement on Provisional 

Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government 

Institutions.” It was the initial series of agreements intended to re-create the State of Afghanistan 

following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks. 

Agreements were made at a meeting held in Bonn in December 2001. 

16 The Afghanistan Compact was the output of the “London Conference on Afghanistan” 

in 2006. The conference included representatives of the government of Afghanistan, the United 

Nations, and the international community. It established the framework for international 

cooperation with Afghanistan for the following five years. 

17 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Office of the President, Afghanistan National 

Development Strategy 1 (Kabul, 2007). 

18 Kabul International Conference, Joint Framework for Inteqal: A Process for 

Strengthening Peace and Stability in Afghanistan and the Region, July 20, 2010. 

19 World Bank and United Kingdom Department of International Development, Poverty 

Reduction, Economic Management, Finance and Private Sector Development Unit, South Asia 

Region, Afghanistan Public Expenditure Review 2010: Second Generation of Public Expenditure 

Reform, 53892-AF, (London, 2010). 

20 Maiwand Safi, “Afghanistan: Local Reconstruction Effort Goes Awry,” Institute for 

War & Peace Reporting, ARR 398 (May 17, 2011), available at <http://iwpr.net/report-news/arrissue-398>. 

21 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Finance, Department of Policy, 

Afghanistan National Development Strategy Prioritization and Implementation Plan 1 and 2, 

(Kabul, 2010); Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Office of the President, Afghanistan National 

Development Strategy 1 (Kabul, 2007).