"U.S. aid to Afghanistan falls short"

U.S. aid to Afghanistan falls short
By Margaret Coker and Anne Usher
COX NEWS SERVICE
Published November 19, 2005

SHOWKHEI, Afghanistan -- Most mornings, boys from this village walk to
a mud-brick school built two years ago, compliments of U.S. taxpayers.
But the building is already in disrepair, its walls crumbling and its
roof pitted by termites chewing into untreated wooden beams.
Village elders in Showkhei, some 20 miles from the main U.S.
military base at Bagram, were unanimous in the summer of 2003 when
soldiers arrived and asked what they needed: a bigger school for their
children. The soldiers sent a construction firm called Ahmad Jamil
Construction to Showkhei to double the size of the existing school from
five rooms to 10.
But no one from the military came back to inspect the quality of
materials or the company's work, villagers said. The next time they saw
the soldiers was weeks later at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. U.S.
officials took pictures of the new building and then left, said school
principal Said Rakhman.
Two years and $20,000 later, the locally made mud bricks crumble to
the touch, and termites have infested the roof beams, leaving villagers
with the morbid pastime of guessing when the ceiling will fall.
"Do they just care about photographs?" asked Mr. Rakhman. "My
children have to stay in this building, their children don't."
Use of inferior construction materials is just one of myriad
complaints lodged by auditors and aid workers who are critical of U.S.
efforts to rebuild Afghanistan.
Four years after American forces invaded Afghanistan to purge the
Taliban, the United States has spent more than $1.62 billion to
reconstruct this war-ravaged Central Asian country.
Vital, visible results
Some vital and visible results of the U.S. intervention are
evident. After 25 years of open warfare, millions of Afghans have
returned home, voters have elected a government and many women are back
at work.
But a report published in July by the U.S. Government
Accountability Office (GAO) cited bureaucratic squabbles, poor
planning, and a lack of coordination and oversight in the spending of
U.S. reconstruction money in Afghanistan. The effect is that building
and public works projects by the State Department and the Pentagon have
had little impact on improving the country's long-term reconstruction,
the GAO said.
For Afghans, this is cause for despair. In a country ranked among
the world's worst in terms of poverty, literacy and infant mortality,
the slow reconstruction endangers short- and long-term stability.
No one expected Afghanistan to transform its bomb-scarred, medieval
landscape into a modern nation overnight. But analysts, aid workers and
many Afghans are questioning how effectively the millions of U.S.
dollars meant to improve the country have been spent so far.
"You say time equals money. In this case it's true. We Afghans
don't have the luxury of time," said Mohammed Sidiq Patman, the deputy
education minister. "I know that America has a desire to help, but the
U.S. government isn't doing things in the best way."
The government of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai, still heavily
dependant on international assistance, is being further undermined by
more frequent and deadly attacks by the Taliban and insurgents. The
continued presence of warlords means the authority of the central
government doesn't stretch much beyond the capital, Kabul.
2006 U.S. troop cut
Despite pledges by President Bush to stay the course, the United
States is reportedly planning to pull out 20 percent of its 18,000
troops next year.
Quayum Karzai, a brother of the president recently elected to
parliament, said withdrawing even 50 U.S. troops would send a signal to
ordinary Afghans and extremists alike that "the commitment isn't
there."
In the effort to deliver roads, schools, clinics, irrigation canals
and other public works, U.S. agencies fell short of most of their own
targets and glossed over their lack of progress for decision makers in
Washington, according to the GAO, an investigative arm of Congress
whose July report covered reconstruction results through May 2005.
For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
has pointed to the repair and construction of miles of irrigation
ditches and canals as a reflection of booming Afghan farms. But the GAO
found that the contractor responsible for overseeing these projects,
Chemonics International Inc., did not fully collect or report
information on progress. More important, U.S. efforts weren't steered
with the aim of helping Afghans produce specific crops or getting those
crops to market.
Local roads ignored
While a Kabul-to-Kandahar highway is nearing completion, cutting
travel time from three days to six hours, relatively little attention
has been paid to fixing or building smaller roads, so moving crops -
or people, money or even the Afghan army - around the country remains
difficult.
"People told us 'I hear there's a clinic but I can't get to it,' "
said Morgan Courtney, a researcher for the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. She conducted an independent
survey this year of reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan: The clinic
may only be a mile or two away, but "they say the roads are so bad that
if we carry our family on a cart, we'll dump it on the way there
because it's way too bumpy for us."
The handful of health clinics built last year weren't located where
trained doctors are because contractors didn't consult local officials
or the Health Ministry, which wanted to ensure that the clinics were
being put in places of need, the GAO reported.
Plan is now in place
Peggy O'Ban, a spokeswoman for USAID, said the agency agrees with
the GAO's assertions and notes that a comprehensive strategy for
reconstruction in Afghanistan, lacking until this past summer, is now
in place.
"It would've been a lot easier to import [workers] from abroad but
- depending on project and level of skill - what you're trying to
do is train people," she said. "But if the imperative is to get
everything done as quickly as possible, that creates a challenge."
Improving primary education, by building schools, revamping
inadequate curricula and training teachers, is a goal embraced by all
international agencies working in Afghanistan. Yet some of the U.S.
government's most abysmal reconstruction results came in education.
Since 2002, 3,500 schools have been refurbished or built from
scratch. For all Afghan children to study in covered buildings instead
of tents or open-air schools, however, another 2,000 schools will need
to be built, according the Education Ministry.
The U.S. government has funded a relatively small number of these
needed school projects.
USAID had projected that it would refurbish or build 286 schools by
the end of 2004, but its contractors had only completed eight by that
deadline and refurbished about 77 others, with a coat of paint
sometimes counting as a refinished school, the GAO reported.
As of Sept. 1 this year, according to USAID, its contractors had
completed 314 school projects since reconstruction began after the
U.S.-led invasion.
USAID officials say such lackluster performance was largely a
result of being initially too optimistic about Afghanistan's political
and security climate. They said they set targets that were too high
given how unstable the country became months later. Many areas of the
Texas-size country are considered unsafe for humanitarian workers.
Risks deter contractors
Deteriorating security played a major role in slowing or shelving
plans in at least six of the country's provinces, mainly along the
Pakistani border, officials said. They blamed a lack of contractors
willing to work in risky areas for allocating only $6 million of its
$49 million budget for schools and clinics in fiscal year 2003.
Eighty-one aid workers were killed last year, the GAO reported, and
attacks by the Taliban and its sympathizers left more than 1,200 dead
- including U.S. and NATO soldiers, Afghan military and civilians and
foreign workers, in the six months leading up to the Sept. 18
parliamentary election.
U.S. officials also note they had to coordinate their actions with
the Education Ministry, a challenge considering the Afghan government
didn't even have pens, desks or computers - let alone a working staff
- until mid-2002.
"Building the capacity of the new government to deliver is as
important as the buildings, and it takes time," said Alonzo Fulgham,
the USAID mission director in Afghanistan.
Under the same difficult conditions, however, other international
lending agencies such as the World Bank and nonprofit organizations
have demonstrated better results.
Atlanta-based CARE International, which has worked in Afghanistan
for 44 years, built 40 schools in 2004, which in most cases cost
between $10,000 and $20,000 less than U.S.-sponsored projects. Schools
constructed by USAID contractors cost between $60,000 and $80,000.
CARE's faster pace was possible in part because it already had
relationships with Afghan villages and businesses with which to
organize and build.

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