Analysis

Rethinking aid

Can humantarian help come at the point of a gun?

Last Updated: Monday, August 24, 2009 | 11:33 AM ET

By Daniel Lak, special to CBC News

In Washington, Ottawa and the capitals of Europe, there's rare unanimity these days: Bringing peace and prosperity to Afghanistan is an urgent priority.

To that end, billions of dollars are being spent yearly and troops from 37 countries are deployed.

Yet poverty, insecurity and hunger continue to plague a country that's known little else for the better part of three decades.

What's more, a Taliban insurgency that was supposed to have been defeated in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001 has instead been growing in reach and intensity.

To the point where delivering even basic humanitarian supplies to much of Afghanistan is today a risky business. And moving from alleviating hunger to encouraging development seems a distant dream.

What's going wrong and what can be done about it?

A Canadian warrant officer inspects Canadian-supported upgrades to Kandahar's Sarposa prison, the site of a spectacular Taliban jailbreak in June 2008. (Canadian Press)

Current realities

Aid agencies on the ground have a variety of opinions on this subject and at the same time many are starting to modify long-held mistrust of working with the military.

"It's time to look at all our positions and see if they make sense in current realities," says Phil Tanner of CARE Canada, a veteran field worker now based in Ottawa.

For years, the official position of the aid community has been that working too closely with military forces actually endangered development staff, or at least put their neutrality in doubt.

But today, in Afghanistan, necessity is forcing a rethink.

Take Canada's operations in Kandahar. Most of the country's 2,500 soldiers are based in the volatile southern Afghan province, the spiritual home of the Taliban insurgency.

And Canada's international development agency, CIDA, has decided to focus the bulk of its development efforts there, too.

The so-called "signature projects" that Ottawa says are the best use of Canadian resources are all in Kandahar — being guarded by designated troops — and the plan is that programs that CIDA funds through other international and local aid groups will mostly be there from now on as well.

Even aid groups like CARE Canada, which have in the past tried to stand clear of participating in areas controlled by foreign armies — for fear of being compromised or, worse, targeted — appear to be changing their tune and looking into Kandahar.

If you want to deliver humanitarian aid in Afghanistan, the choice today seems to be stark: Go where the Canadian or U.S. military has a protective presence or leave the country altogether.

A group of Afghan mothers cross in front of the new, Canadian-funded maternity waiting home at the Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar City, the first of its kind in Afghanistan, a country with one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the world. (Bob Weber/Canadian Press)

More for Pakistan

Another change to Canada's aid focus was signaled earlier this month by the minister in charge of CIDA, Bev Oda, during a trip to Pakistan.

Oda announced a new aid package for Afghanistan's neighbour, itself in the grip of a local Taliban insurgency and beset by chronic political instability.

"Afghanistan is Canada's biggest mission," Oda said. But to achieve Canada's objectives there, she said it is vital to help stabilize Pakistan.

This view, it seems, is a reflection of the Obama administration's realignment of its Afghan strategy to include Pakistan's military and developmental challenges.

Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliated groups have long been based in Pakistan's tribal lands along the Afghan borders. Taking them on more directly with a combination of combat operations and development projects is now seen as the way ahead in both Washington and Ottawa.

Marco Vincenzino of the Global Strategy Project, a non-partisan U.S. think tank, says such changes are welcome and long overdue.

But at the same time, they are another step in bringing aid groups more directly into the line of fire.

The Canadian style

Vicenzino has also been a vocal critic of recent humanitarian and development efforts in Afghanistan.

Donor countries, even generous ones like Canada, spend too much money on consultants and overseas allowances for their own people working on Afghan projects, Vicenzino says.

"You've got 15,000 foreigners, primarily Westerners, based in Kabul," he says. That means "a lot overlapping, poor co-ordination and a battle of egos."

However, on a recent tour of Canadian-funded projects in Afghanistan, Vicenzino said he was pleasantly surprised by the degree of civilian and military co-operation.

"Look, security is a huge cost, a huge problem there," he told CBC News in a telephone interview.

"The Canadians are doing the right thing, with soldiers and civilians working for CIDA actually coordinating their efforts. Other countries are starting to notice."

Deadline uncertainty

Not everyone agrees with this approach. The venerable aid organization OXFAM, among others, has repeatedly warned that military and development priorities often clash, in the field and in planning sessions at headquarters.

One immediate challenge for Canadian agencies has been this country's parliamentary commitment to withdraw Canada's military forces by the end of 2011.

CARE's Phil Tanner calls this deadline "Canada's glass ceiling."

"We go in there [to CIDA] and try to get funding for projects, but they tell us we can't commit past that date. Let's talk when we get there."

That makes it difficult to plan for the most important aspect of any development project, he says, handing it over to Afghans as a sustainable, locally-owned and managed operation.

One of Canada's biggest development projects in Afghanistan: the Dhala dam in northern Kandahar, a key reservoir and potential hydro-electric power site. (DND photo)

"Afghan ownership is crucial to any exit strategy," says Tanner. "But you have to ensure that local owners have the resources, the capacity and the power to keep things going."

History of shortfalls

These new approaches to aid being signaled in Ottawa, Washington and Europe are in their early days, officials say. And the commitment to work more closely with aid and development professionals is genuine.

But the devil could be in the details.

A report last year by an umbrella group known as ACBAR, set up in the 1980s to coordinate international aid to Afghanistan, found that most donors — Canada included — didn't live up to the aid and humanitarian commitments that they made at international gatherings and through the United Nations.

For a country such as Afghanistan, which relies on foreign assistance for almost 90 per cent of its budget, shortfalls can be disastrous.

Add to that the everyday corruption and crime that follows this money, not to mention the lack of technical capacity to make rapid progress on crucial infrastructure, and the challenge facing Afghans and those who want to help them is clear.

Nearly eight years after world leaders promised Afghanistan that they would rebuild and re-energize their country after 30 years of war, the task has barely begun.