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Afghanistan
The Development Challenge: Afghanistan remains at or near the bottom of every socio-economic indicator used to measure human and economic progress. The country's overall human misery index is among the highest in the world. As just one grim reminder of the harshness of this long-suffering land, one of four Afghan children dies before the age of five. Reasons for poor health status include an infrastructure damaged by 23 years of conflict, no preventive care, the unavailability of treatment facilities and drugs, and the lack of appropriately trained health care personnel. Civil war and drought destroyed productive agricultural assets; crops were uprooted, livestock lost, and farmers heavily indebted. Eighty percent of schools were either severely damaged or destroyed at the end of Taliban rule, and girls were denied an education. In addition to the infrastructure damage caused by the long conflict, Afghanistan is recovering from the institutional devastation.
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When the USAID team arrived in Kabul in January 2002, the nation was without a viable security apparatus, courts, or functioning ministries. Compounding these challenges, Afghanistan has some of the harshest climatic conditions and most difficult terrain on earth, some of it laced with millions of unmarked landmines. The security situation in the country also poses a challenge as the Taliban and their allies do all they can to disrupt the paving of highways, rebuilding of schools (burning several of the schools as a signal to the people not to cooperate with the international community), and the establishment of free and fair elections.
The USAID Program: When the USAID office re-opened in January 2002, the first objective was to prevent a major humanitarian crisis. Programs were put in place immediately to ensure sufficient supplies of food and shelter, especially for returning refugees and displaced persons, and to prevent the outbreak of hunger and epidemic diseases.
The USAID/Afghanistan mission is now working on the building blocks of a reconstructed Afghanistan. The new phase of reconstruction builds on achievements in the past year: the building of schools and clinics; the immunization of children; the development of infrastructure; and the introduction of a new, stable currency. The six building blocks of the current program are:
1. Infrastructure. Highways and roads are the commercial lifelines in Afghanistan. USAID is rebuilding key road links, including the Kabul-Kandahar-Herat highway, contributes to the revitalization of the economy and reunification of the country's people. These roads also provide access from the vast rural areas to markets, health services and schools.
2. Agriculture and Rural Development. USAID has emphasizes agricultural recovery and rural reconstruction to assist the 85% of Afghans who participate in the agricultural sector. Revitalizing Afghanistan's Agricultural Markets (RAMP) is a three-year program aimed at increasing food security and incomes of Afghanistan's rural population through increased agricultural productivity and output and effective linkages between producers, processors and markets.
3. Education. Working with communities that demonstrate a commitment to education, USAID is rebuilding schools and providing textbooks, teacher training and accelerated learning for over-aged students, to ensure that schools are functional centers of learning. A main focus is on women and girls long denied an education.
4. Economic Governance. USAID is strengthening Afghanistan's economy by creating jobs in a variety of sectors, enabling Afghans to support their families and help rebuild their country. USAID programs also focus on currency and banking reform, investment law reform, sound budgeting procedures by the Afghan government and related "economic governance" initiatives.
5. Health Care. The objective of USAID's health care program in Afghanistan is to reduce the mortality and morbidity of women and children. USAID has built and renovated health centers in needy areas to increase women and children's access to basic health care. Grants are provided to NGOs to operate clinics and train new community health workers, midwives, and clinic staff. USAID is helping build Ministry of Health (MOH) capacity at the national and provincial levels.
6. Reconstituting the Basic Organs of Governance. USAID is working to support the Bonn process, including the Constitutional, Human Rights, Legislative and Judicial Commissions, the June 2004 presidential elections, and a free and independent media. USAID is also working to build the capacity of the ministries to carry out legitimate government functions and support reconstruction of the judicial infrastructure.
Other Program Elements: In addition to USAID/Afghanistan's health program, the Bureau for Global Health's programs include purchase of contraceptives ($2.5 million), and buy-ins to UNICEF's polio eradication program ($1.5 million), the universal salt iodization to combat iodine deficiency ($250,000), and the World Health Organization's malaria prevention program ($500,000). In addition, $2 million from the Global Displaced Children and Orphans Fund (DCOF) is being used for the care and protection of war-affected children and $1 million from the Victims of War Fund is being used in a pilot program to train orthopedic technicians and provide support to fledgling Afghan disability councils. The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance continued its humanitarian support for refugees, internally displaced persons and other disenfranchised segments of the Afghan population and to cover some of Afghanistan's emergency winter needs. Another $17 million was obligated to continue the implementation of quick impact projects by the Office of Transition Initiatives. Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT) used both an Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC) task order and a buy-in to the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) to support the Support of Democracy Initiative (SDI) ). Lastly, $40 million in P.L. 480 was granted to the World Food Program.
Other Donors: The challenges of Afghanistan's reconstruction call for an unprecedented response by the international community. The multilateral Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was set up in May 2002 to provide support to Afghanistan in three main areas: recurrent costs of the government, investments, and financing the return of expatriate Afghans.
Along with the United States, 21 donors pledged $430 million to the ARTF. Other donors are Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, European Commission, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and United Kingdom. About $276 million has been received to date. The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA) maintains an inventory of donor-funded activities through the Afghan Assistance Coordination Unit, a subordinate office of the Ministry of Finance. TISA has published a National Development Framework to guide the country's rehabilitation. The ARTF is jointly managed by the Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank, which also administers the fund.
In addition to the ARTF, there are over 80 other bilateral, multilateral, non-governmental, and private donors to the political and economic reconstruction of Afghanistan. The largest of which, after the United States, are the World Bank, the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The Bonn Conference in 2001 determined leadership roles for each of the major G-7 donors. The US has taken the lead in establishing the Afghan National Army. USAID has taken a leadership role in major infrastructure projects, such as the Kabul to Kandahar road, and in supporting a democratic political transition. The World Bank coordinates other large infrastructure projects, and has taken the lead on developing local governance. The EC has a leadership role in governance, health and education, the ADB has contributed funds towards education, Japan is coordinating the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) of soldiers, and Germany is the lead on developing a national police force. Other donors are providing technical assistance for the institutional strengthening of the Afghan government, to increase its ability to govern transparently and effectively and to deliver social services.
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