The federal government has laid out specific goals to reach in Afghanistan in the next three years, including building 50 schools in Kandahar and training at least four Afghan army battalions to work nearly autonomously in the volatile southern province.

The 21 goals, which the government is calling benchmarks, will allow officials to quantitatively measure the progress being made in Afghanistan before 2011, when Canada's 2,500 troops are scheduled to pull out of the war-torn country.

Progress reports will be issued four times a year to update the government on how Canada is doing with its benchmarks.

"It's a blueprint for what Canada has to do, what Canada needs to do to achieve the vision we have for Kandahar in 2011," David Mulroney, the deputy minister of Canada's Afghanistan Task Force, told reporters Thursday in Ottawa.

"It will have tremendous influence for how we manage going forward…. It is the first time a really clear guide has been made."

A lot of work to be done

Mulroney conceded there is a lot of work to be done to achieve the 21 benchmarks.

For example, Canada wants to have four or five Afghan National Army battalions, made up of hundreds of soldiers, capable of planning, executing and sustaining operations on their own.

Currently, only one battalion has that ability, Mulroney said.

He also noted that Canada wants Afghan battalions to control three of the six most populous districts in the province of Kandahar by 2011. Currently they only control one.

Benchmarks for the Afghan National Police force are even loftier. Canada wants to have 80 per cent of police forces able to work nearly autonomously in Kandahar's populous districts. No forces are currently able to do so.

Canada also wants to have trained 80 per cent of officers in the key districts by 2011, but so far only 25 per cent have gone through the training program.

'We aren't going to raise our hands and say we give up'

Mulroney said the goals might be difficult to reach, but Canada will have time to get there. With each progress report that is issued, Canada can reassess its strategy, perhaps redirecting the money, people and resources it has in order to to reach its goals. Canada can also look to its United Nations, NATO and Afghan government partners for help.

"We have a number of strategies available to us," Mulroney said. "We aren't going to raise our hands and say we give up."

Other benchmarks the Canadian government wants to reach include:

• Creating 10,000 seasonal jobs through the ongoing project to rehabilitate Kandahar's crumbling Dahla dam, and its irrigation and canal systems.
• Build, expand or repair 50 schools in Kandahar. So far, only one is complete.
• Train 3,000 teachers in Kandahar. So far, none has gone through Canada's training program.
• Eradicate polio in Afghanistan through vaccine. In 2007, 27.7 million vaccines were administered, but 17 cases of polio were reported nationally.

Establishing benchmarks was a key recommendation in a report prepared for the government by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, who was asked to study the Afghan mission.

The benchmarks the government chose focus on six priorities the Canadian government has identified for the mission — improving security, providing humanitarian assistance, enhancing the Afghan-Pakistan border, developing institutions to handle elections and other needs, fostering reconciliation between feuding Afghan groups and improving Afghan access to jobs, education and essential services like water.

The benchmarks also touch on three key projects Canada has in Afghanistan — rebuilding the Dahla Dam, developing schools and vaccinating Afghans for polio.

The federal government outlined these priorities and projects in June, three months after Parliament approved a motion to extend the Afghanistan mission from 2009 to 2011, provided NATO allies provide reinforcements, and the government secures the use of transport helicopters and surveillance drones.

The Canadian military, which serves primarily in the Kandahar region, is to focus on reconstruction and training of Afghan troops and police during the extra two years.