Foreign Assistance: Observations on Post-Conflict Assistance in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan
Released: 2003-07-18T00:00:00

Letter

Background

In Bosnia, conflict raged from 1992 through 1995 and involved the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Bosnia’s three major ethnic groups. All were fighting for control of specific territories tied to each group’s definition of its own state. During this time an estimated 2.3 million people became refugees or were internally displaced. NATO forces intervened in the conflict to support international humanitarian and peacekeeping operations beginning in 1993, culminating in a month-long bombing campaign against Bosnian-Serb forces in July 1995. This pressure and U.S.- led negotiating efforts resulted in a cease-fire and negotiation of the Dayton Peace Agreement in December 1995. About 54,000 NATO-led troops were deployed beginning in late 1995 to enforce the military aspects of the agreement and provide security for humanitarian and other assistance activities. Currently, about 12,000 international troops remain in Bosnia to provide security, including 1,800 U.S. soldiers.

The conflict in and around the Serbian province of Kosovo between Yugoslav security forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents fighting for Kosovo’s independence took place from early 1998 through mid-1999. NATO initiated a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in March 1999 to end Yugoslav aggression and subsequently deployed about 50,000 troops to enforce compliance with cease-fire and withdrawal agreements. Currently, there are about 25,000 NATO-led peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, including about 2,500 U.S. soldiers.

The conflict in Afghanistan extends back to the Soviet Union’s 10-year occupation of the country that began in 1979, during which various countries, including the United States, backed Afghan resistance efforts. Three years after Soviet forces withdrew, the communist regime fell to the Afghan resistancebut unrest continued. The Taliban movement emerged in the mid 1990s, but was removed by coalition forces in late 2001 for harboring al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11. In December 2001, the Bonn Agreement was signed, which provided for interim governance of the country. Currently, about 4,600 International Security Assistance Force troops provide security for the city of Kabul and the surrounding area and approximately 11,000 U.S.-led coalition forces continue to fight remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Nature and Extent of Post-Conflict Assistance

GAO’s work over the past 10 years on Bosnia and Kosovo, and our recent work on Afghanistan, indicate that post-conflict assistance is a broad, long-term effort that requires humanitarian, security, economic, governance, and democracy-building measures. For Bosnia and Kosovo, forces led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization provided overall security, and the international community developed country-specific and regional frameworks for rebuilding the country and province, respectively. Bosnia’s plan included the 3- to 4-year, $5.1 billion Priority Reconstruction Program, which provided humanitarian, economic, and other assistance based on needs assessments conducted by the World Bank and other international organizations. A number of international organizations involved in the Bosnia peace operation, including the Office of the High Representative, the United Nations, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, helped develop government institutions and supported democracy-building measures and police training. In Kosovo, a U.N. peace operation oversaw assistance through (1) the United Nations and other donors for housing winterization, refugee relief, and other short- term needs; (2) the medium-term Reconstruction and Recovery Program devised by the European Commission and the World Bank; and (3) programs to build a judiciary, a police force, and government institutions. The Bosnia- and Kosovo-specific programs were complemented in 1999 by the Stability Pact, which focused on encouraging democratization, human rights, economic reconstruction, and security throughout the region.

For Afghanistan, the World Food Program’s (WFP) food assistance effort constituted the largest portion of humanitarian assistance in the post- conflict period. To determine the needs of the Afghan people, WFP conducted and continues to undertake periodic rapid food needs assessments and longer-term food and crop supply assessments. Based on the results of these reviews, WFP designs short-term emergency operations focusing on free distribution of food, as well as longer-term recovery operations including health, education, training, and infrastructure projects. Owing to the size of WFP’s effort and its years of experience in Afghanistan, WFP provided much of the logistics support for other organizations operating in Afghanistan during 2002 and 2003. A range of humanitarian and longer-term development assistance is being provided through broad assistance programs developed by the United Nations and other multilateral, bilateral, and nongovernmental organizations. These programs include infrastructure rehabilitation, education, health, agriculture, and governance projects, among others.

Post-conflict assistance efforts differ in the extent of multilateral involvement. In Bosnia and Kosovo, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is responsible for enforcing the military and security aspects of peace operations under the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1031 and 1244, respectively. The United Nations, the European Union, and other international organizations are responsible for rebuilding political and civic institutions and the region’s economies under U.N. resolutions and the Dayton Peace Agreement. In Afghanistan, the United States is one of many bilateral and multilateral donors of aid helping to implement the Bonn Agreement. In contrast, in post-conflict Iraq, the United States and Britain are occupying powers under international law and are recognized as such in U.N. Security Resolution 1483. The obligations of occupying forces as enumerated in international conventions include respecting the human rights of the local population; ensuring public order, safety, and health; protecting property; and facilitating humanitarian relief operations, among others.

While the post-conflict situation in each location has varied, certain similarities are apparent, chief among them that assistance efforts continue to be provided in volatile and highly politicized environments where local parties have competing interests and differing degrees of support for the peace process. In Bosnia, the Bosnian Serb parties continue to oppose terms of the peace agreement, such as the freedom of ethnic minority refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their prewar homes. In Kosovo, groups of Kosovar Albanians and Serbs retain unauthorized weapons and commit acts of violence and intimidation against ethnic minorities in violation of the peace agreements. In Afghanistan, warlords control much of the country and foster an illegitimate economy fueled by the smuggling of arms, drugs, and other goods. They also withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in customs duties collected at border points in the regions they control, depriving the central government of revenue to fund the country’s reconstruction.

Essential Components for Effective Post- Conflict Assistance

Our work has consistently shown that effective reconstruction assistance cannot be provided without three essential elements: a secure environment, a strategic vision for the overall effort, and strong leadership.

Secure Environment

In Bosnia and Kosovo, humanitarian and other civilian workers were generally able to perform their tasks because they were supported by large NATO-led forces. In Bosnia, the NATO-led forces enforced the cease-fire, ensured the separation and progressive reduction of the three ethnically based armies from more than 400,000 soldiers and militia to 20,000 by 2003, and disbanded paramilitary police units. In Kosovo, the NATO-led force provided security by (1) ensuring that uniformed Yugoslav security forces withdrew from Kosovo as scheduled and remained outside the province and (2) monitoring the demilitarization and transformation of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Despite the relative security in these two locations, various paramilitaries continued to operate, and sporadic violent incidents occurred against international workers and the local population. From 1996 through 2002, eight humanitarian workers were killed in Bosnia and from 1999 to 2002, two humanitarian workers were killed in Kosovo as a result of hostile action.

In contrast, throughout the post-conflict period in Afghanistan, humanitarian assistance workers have been at risk due to ongoing security problems caused by domestic terrorism, long-standing rivalries among warlords, and the national government’s lack of control over the majority of the country. The 4,600-troop International Security Assistance Force operates only in Kabul and surrounding areas, while the mission of the approximately 11,000-troop (9,000 U.S. and 2,000 non-U.S. troops), U.S.-led coalition force is to root out the remnants of the Taliban and terrorist groupsnot to provide security. In 2002 and 2003, the deteriorating security situation has been marked by terrorist attacks against the Afghan government, the Afghan people, and the international communityincluding humanitarian assistance workers. Among the incidents were attempted assassinations of the Minister of Defense and the President; rocket attacks on U.S. and international military installations; and bombings in the center of Kabul, at International Security Assistance Force headquarters, and at U.N. compounds. On June 17, 2003, the U.N. Security Council expressed its concern over the increased number of attacks against humanitarian personnel, coalition forces, International Security Assistance Forces, and Afghan Transitional Administration targets by Taliban and other rebel elements. These incidents have disrupted humanitarian assistance and the overall recovery effort. Since the signing of the Bonn Agreement in December 2001, four assistance workers and 10 International Security Assistance Force troops were killed due to hostile action.

Strategic Vision

In our years of work on post-conflict situations, a key lesson learned is that a strategic vision is essential for providing assistance effectively. In Bosnia, the Dayton Agreement provided a framework for overall assistance efforts, but lacked an overall vision for the operation. This hindered both the military and civilian components of the peace operation from implementing the peace agreement. For example, the Dayton Agreement determined that the military operation in Bosnia would accomplish its security objectives and withdraw in about 1 year but did not address the security problem for the ongoing reconstruction efforts after that time. Recognizing this deficiency, NATO, supported by the President of the United States, subsequently provided an overall vision for the mission by first extending the time frame by 18 months and then tying the withdrawal of the NATO-led forces to benchmarkssuch as establishing functional national institutions and implementing democratic reforms.

In Afghanistan, the Bonn Agreement sets out a framework for establishing a new government. In addition, multilateral, bilateral, and nongovernmental organizations providing humanitarian assistance and longer-term development assistance have each developed independent strategies, which have resulted in a highly fragmented reconstruction effort. To bring coherence to the effort, the Afghan government developed a National Development Framework and Budget. The framework ’provides a vision for a reconstructed Afghanistan and broadly establishes national goals and policy directions. The budget articulates development projects intended to achieve national goals. However, despite the development of these documents, donor governments and assistance agencies have continued to develop their own strategies, as well as fund and implement projects outside the Afghan government’s national budget.

Strong Leadership

Our work also highlights the need for strong leadership in post-conflict assistance. In Bosnia, for example, the international community created the Office of the High Representative to assist the parties in implementing the Dayton Agreement and coordinate international assistance efforts, but initially limited the High Representative to an advisory role. Frustrated by the slow pace of the agreement’s implementation, the international community later strengthened the High Representative’s authority, which allowed him to annul laws that impeded the peace process and to remove Bosnian officials who were hindering progress.

In Afghanistan, WFP recognized the need for strong leadership and created the position of Special Envoy of the Executive Director for the Afghan Region. The special envoy led and directed all WFP operations in Afghanistan and neighboring countries during the winter of 2001–2002, when the combination of weather and conflict was expected to increase the need for food assistance. WFP was thus able to consolidate control of all resources in the region, streamline its operations, and accelerate movement of assistance. WFP points to creation of the special envoy as one of the main reasons it was able to move record amounts of food into Afghanistan from November 2001 through January 2002. In December 2001 alone, WFP delivered 116,000 metric tons of food, the single largest monthly food delivery within a complex emergency operation in WFP’s history.

Challenges to Implementing Assistance Operations

Among the challenges to implementing post-conflict assistance operations that we have identified are ensuring sustained political and financial commitment, adequate human resources and funds to carry out operations, coordinated assistance efforts, and local support.

Sustained Political and Financial Commitment

Ensuring sustained political and financial commitment for post-conflict assistance efforts is a key challenge because these efforts take longer, are more complicated, and are more expensive than envisioned. In Bosnia, reconstruction continues after 8 years, and there is no end date for withdrawing international troops, despite the initial intent to withdraw them in 1 year. Corruption is difficult to overcome and threatens successful implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. In Kosovo, after 4 years, there is still no agreement on the final status of the territory—whether it will be a relatively autonomous province of Serbia or a sovereign entity. This makes it impossible to establish a time frame for a transition in assistance efforts. Moreover, providing this assistance costs more than anticipated. Total U.S. military, civilian, humanitarian, and reconstruction assistance in Bosnia and Kosovo from 1996 through 2002 was approximately $19.7 billiona figure that significantly exceeded initial expectations.

In Afghanistan, the preliminary needs assessment prepared by the international community estimated that between $11.4 billion and $18.1 billion in long-term development assistance would be needed over 10 years to rebuild infrastructure and the institutions of a stable Afghan state. Others have estimated that much more is required. For January 2002 through March 2003, donors pledged $2.1 billion. However, only 27 percent, or $499 million, was spent on major development projects such as roads and bridges; the remainder was spent on humanitarian assistance. Consequently, more than a year and a half of the 10-year reconstruction period has passed and little in the way of reconstruction has begun. For fiscal year 2002, U.S. assistance in Afghanistan totaled approximately $717 million. The Department of Defense estimates that military costs in Afghanistan are currently about $900 million per month, or $10.8 billion annually.

Shortfalls in Providing Resources

Another challenge to effectively implementing assistance efforts is ensuring sufficient personnel to carry out operations and follow-through on pledged funds. In Bosnia and Kosovo, the international community has had difficulties providing civilian staff and the specialized police for security in the volatile post-conflict environment. For example, operations in Bosnia had a 40 percent shortfall in multinational special police trained to deal with civil disturbances from returns of refugees or from efforts to install elected officials. These shortfalls sometimes threatened security in potentially violent situations. In Kosovo, U.N. efforts to establish a civil administration, create municipal administrative structures, and foster democracy were hindered by the lack of qualified international administrators and staff. Delays in getting these staff on the ground and working allowed the Kosovo Liberation Army to temporarily run government institutions in an autocratic manner and made it difficult to regain international control.

In Afghanistan, inadequate and untimely donor support disrupted WFP’s food assistance efforts. When the operation began in April 2002, WFP had received only $63.9 million, or 22 percent, of required resources. From April through June—the preharvest period when Afghan food supplies are traditionally at their lowest point—WFP was able to meet only 51 percent of the planned requirement for assistance. WFP’s actual deliveries were, on average, 33 percent below actual requirements for the April 2002 through January 2003 period. Lack of timely donor contributions forced WFP to reduce rations to returning refugees and internally displaced persons from 150 kilograms to 50 kilograms. Lack of donor support also forced WFP and its implementing partners to delay, in some cases for up to 10 weeks, compensation promised to Afghans who participated in the food-for-work and food-for-asset-creation projects. WFP lost credibility with Afghans and nongovernmental organizations as a result. Similarly, resource shortages forced WFP to delay for up to 8 weeks in-kind payments of food in its civil service support program, which aimed to help the new government establish itself.

Coordinated Assistance Efforts

Coordinating and directing assistance activities between and among multiple international donors and military components has been a challenge. In Bosnia, 59 donor nations and international organizationsincluding NATO, the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union, the World Bank, and nongovernmental organizationshad a role in assistance activities but did not always coordinate their actions. For example, the United Nations and NATO initially could not agree on who would control and reform the Bosnian special or paramilitary police units. For the first year of post-conflict operations, these special police forces impeded assistance activities. The NATO-led force finally agreed to define these special police forces as military units and disbanded them in 1997. In Kosovo, the need for overall coordination was recognized and addressed by giving the United Nations a central role in providing overall coordination for humanitarian affairs, civil administration activities, and institution building.

In Afghanistan, coordination of international assistance in general, and agricultural assistance in particular, was weak in 2002. From the beginning of the assistance effort, donors were urged to defer to the Afghan government regarding coordination. According to the United Nations, Afghan government authorities were responsible for coordination, and the international community was to operate and relate to the Afghan government in a coherent manner rather than through a series of disparate relationships. The Afghan government’s attempt to exert leadership over the reconstruction process in 2002 was largely ineffective primarily because the bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental assistance agenciesincluding the United Nations, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the U.S.

Agency for International Development (USAID), and othersprepared individual reconstruction strategies, had their own mandate and funding sources, and pursued development efforts in Afghanistan independently. In addition, according to the international community, the Afghan government lacked the capacity and resources to be an effective coordinator, and thus these responsibilities could not be delegated to it. In December 2002, the Afghan government instituted a new coordination mechanism, but this mechanism has not surmounted conditions that prevented effective coordination throughout 2002.

Ensuring Local-Level Support and Participation

Another challenge is ensuring that local political leaders and influential groups support and participate in assistance activities. In Bosnia, the Bosnian-Serb leaders and their political parties opposed the Dayton Peace Agreement and blocked assistance efforts at every turn. For example, they tried to block the creation of a state border service to help all Bosnians move freely and obstructed efforts to combat crime and corruption, thus solidifying hard-line opposition and extremist views. In mid-1997, when donor nations and organizations started linking their economic assistance to compliance with the Dayton Agreement, some Bosnian-Serb leaders began implementing some of the agreement’s key provisions.

Although Afghanistan’s central government is working in partnership with the international community to implement the Bonn Agreement and rebuild the country, warlords control much of the country and foster an illegitimate economy. They control private armies of tens of thousands of armed men, while the international communityled by the U.S. militarystruggles to train a new Afghan national army. Meanwhile, the Taliban regime was not party to the Bonn Agreement, and remnants of the regime continue to engage in guerilla attacks against the government and the international community.

Mechanisms Used for Accountability and Oversight

Over the course of our work, we found that the international community and the United States provide a number of mechanisms for accountability in and oversight of assistance operations.

First, the international community has monitored the extent to which post- conflict assistance achieved its objectives through reports from the United Nations and the international coordinating mechanisms. Individual donors and agencies also have monitored their respective on-the-ground operations. For example, the United States monitors aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development and USAID’s inspector general.

In Bosnia, the Peace Implementation Council (PIC)—a group of 59 countries and international organizations that sponsors and directs the peace implementation process—oversaw humanitarian and reconstruction programs, set objectives for the operation, monitored progress toward those goals, and established mission reconstruction and other benchmarks in the spring of 1998. The High Representative in Bosnia, whose many responsibilities include monitoring implementation of the Dayton Agreement, reports to the Peace Implementation Council on progress and obstacles in this area.

In Kosovo, the High-Level Steering Group (comprised of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) performed a similar guidance and oversight role. It set priorities for an action plan to rebuild Kosovo and to repair the economies of the neighboring countries through the Stability Pact. Moreover, the U.N. interim administration in Kosovo was responsible for monitoring and reporting on all aspects of the peace operation, including humanitarian and economic reconstruction efforts.

In Afghanistan, WFP has used a number of real-time monitoring mechanisms to track the distribution of commodities. Our review of WFP data suggested that food distributions have been effective and losses minimal. WFP data indicated that in Afghanistan, on average, 2.4 monitoring visits were conducted on food aid projects implemented between April 2002 and November 2003.

In addition to WFP monitors, private voluntary organization implementing partners who distribute food at the local beneficiary level make monitoring visits in areas where WFP staff cannot travel due to security concerns. During our visits to project and warehouse sites in Afghanistan, we observed orderly and efficient storage, handing, and distribution of food assistance. (Because of security restrictions, we were able to conduct only limited site visits in Afghanistan.) WFP’s internal auditor reviewed its monitoring operations in Afghanistan in August 2002 and found no material weaknesses. USAID has also conducted periodic monitoring of WFP activities and has not found any major flaws in its operations.

Over the past 10 years, GAO has evaluated assistance efforts in 16 post- conflict emergencies, including those in Haiti, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Specifically, these evaluations have focused on governance, democracy-building, rule of law, anticorruption, economic, military, food, agriculture, demining, refugee, and internally displaced person assistance projects. In broader terms, our work has examined the progress toward achieving the goals of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the military and political settlements for Kosovo, as well as the obstacles to achieving U.S. policy goals in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to respond to any questions you or other members may have.

Contacts and Acknowledgments

For future contacts regarding this testimony, please call Susan Westin at (202) 512-4128. Key contributors to this testimony were Phillip J. Thomas, David M. Bruno, Janey Cohen, B. Patrick Hickey, Judy McCloskey, Tetsuo Miyabara, and Alexandre Tiersky.

Appendix I: Selected GAO Reports on Post- conflict Situations

Foreign Assistance: Lack of Strategic Focus and Obstacles to Agricultural Recovery Threaten Afghanistan’s Stability. GAO-03-607. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2003.

Rebuilding Iraq. GAO-03-792R. Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2003.

Cambodia: Governance Reform Progressing, But Key Efforts Are Lagging. GAO-02-569. Washington, D.C.: June 13, 2002.

Issues in Implementing International Peace Operations. GAO-02-707R. Washington, D.C.: May 24, 2002.

U.N. Peacekeeping: Estimated U.S. Contributions, Fiscal Years 1996-2001. GAO-02-294. Washington, D.C.: February 11, 2002.

Bosnia: Crime and Corruption Threaten Successful Implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. T-NSIAD-00-219. Washington, D.C.: July 19, 2000.

Bosnia Peace Operation: Crime and Corruption Threaten Successful Implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. GAO/NSIAD-00-156. Washington, D.C.: July 7, 2000.

Balkans Security: Current and Projected Factors Affecting Regional Stability. NSIAD-00-125BR. Washington, D.C.: April 24, 2000.

Bosnia Peace Operation: Mission, Structure, and Transition Strategy of NATO's Stabilization Force. GAO/NSIAD-99-19. Washington, D.C.: October 8, 1998.

Bosnia Peace Operation: Pace of Implementing Dayton Accelerated as International Involvement Increased. GAO/NSIAD-98-138. Washington, D.C.: June 5, 1998.

Former Yugoslavia: War Crimes Tribunal’s Workload Exceeds Capacity. GAO/NSIAD-98-134. Washington, D.C.: June 2, 1998.