The coordination strategy that now shapes the thinking of Canada’s Afghanistan Task Force barely survived its first day. The construct was developed around a table in a compound in Masum Gar – a compound that was hit by a mortar shell just a day later. But the ideas jotted down in the notebooks of the representatives from Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International Development Agency and the Canadian Forces have emerged as an initiative bringing together the three departments, the Privy Council Office and other agencies that will likely inform the policy of future operations. Stephen Wallace, vice-president of CIDA and the Agency’s lead on the task force, spoke with Vanguard about this evolving strategy.
What does it mean for CIDA to work in a 3D environment? How are you achieving greater integration?
Our approach is aligned with the three interdependent pillars of the Afghanistan Compact: security, development and governance. This is not about a separate Canadian development approach in Afghanistan; it is about Canada operating in a coherent way within an internationally agreed program.
We are evolving from a 3D approach in which development, defence and diplomacy strategies somehow work in a coordinated way, to more of a 1C approach, where you have a single, coherent strategy that is not dependent on departmental pillars. Instead, it’s dependent on what your functional objective is. So when we establish a functional objective related to security in Afghanistan, we are not talking about the National Defence plan, we are talking about the Canadian plan, which needs to marshal the best that Canada has to offer on security. The Canadian Forces are the centrepiece of that, but it includes CIDA on de-mining, the RCMP on policing, Corrections Canada on prisons and Foreign Affairs on disarmament and security reform. 3D can sometimes give people a sense of separate strategies coming together; but when you move to a 1C approach, that is no longer the case.
There isn’t a separate CIDA policy agenda either, but CIDA is still very active on the policy side. We support a Canadian policy agenda, and what I mean by that, is when I talk about strategies on anti-corruption, narcotics and civil-military cooperation, these are not CIDA constructs, they’re Canadian constructs.
Integration is always going to be a work in progress, it’s the nature of the beast and I don’t think you ever get to the destination on this one. But some things help. In the field, for example, you don’t have to try as hard. Experience with the Provincial Reconstruction Team has, in some ways, been the tail that has wagged the dog. When you have CIDA, DFAIT, RCMP and DND working together 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where you roll out of your bunk and you are at work, this idea of working in a coherent, coordinated way is intrinsic.
Also, we have strengthened the role that the ambassador plays as the coherence agent for the country. He is not just the token ‘diplomatic presence.’ We put in one of our best, Arif Lalani, and he plays a very strong role in representing the coherence focal point.
What are the challenges to staffing a unit like this?
In the field right now we have about 20, a mix of Canadian and local staff, and about 70 here at CIDA, 30 or so of whom are on the operational side. We’ve brought together those ancillary functions that are normally elsewhere such as finance, contracting, recruitment and training. The skill sets for operating in the security environment of fragile states are not traditional development. You need people who understand the link between development and security, who understand conflict dynamics but who also understand basic poverty alleviation. That is a distinct capability and you need to foster it. CIDA’s three biggest programs are Afghanistan, Sudan and Haiti – countries whose situations are very different from Tanzania and Mozambique in terms of fragility and conflict. It is critical in high-risk settings to work out effective approaches to both short-term humanitarian intervention and longer-term development.
What are some of the specifics that CIDA has responsibility for in the Afghanistan Task Force? How is that participation different from earlier joint initiatives?
When you overlay the broad goals of development, governance and security, you can start to see what Canadian development support has accomplished. In the past fiscal year, we delivered $139 million worth of projects across all three pillars: for example, demining on the security file (more than 1 billion square meters have now been de-mined); basic education on the development file (more than 6 million children are now in school, up from only 700,000 in 2001); and community councils on the governance file (operating in more than two thirds of the country). These are big programs, producing tangible results that fit within that frame.
There are some things that are different about what CIDA does in Afghanistan because of the unique environment. First, you have to go with partners who have the track record to operate in a peace and security environment. So we have backed some key multilateral organizations that we consider the best in the world and that have the deepest roots in Afghanistan – the World Bank, UNICEF, World Food Program, Red Cross, and the UN Mine Action Service.
Second, because you have a government that has extremely low capacity following 30 years of decline, you are starting from scratch. Therefore, when you’re working directly with the government, you have to ask first whether it has the ability to deliver at this stage. Here, some of my predecessors really deserve credit. Three years ago, choices were made on a number of what we call ‘pillars of competence’ that demonstrate local leadership and ownership; the right mix of proven players operating in a joined-up way; and clear, measurable benchmarks of progress. When clear evidence of those three were in play, we invested.
As a result, CIDA has now backed about a half dozen large government programs that have worked really well. For example, Afghanistan has gone from a country with eight percent coverage for basic health services in 2003 to 83% today, an almost unheard of increase over four years. It worked in Afghanistan because the Afghan government, rather than trying to do it all itself, created a network of health service capability through local NGOs and international organizations like the Red Cross and UNICEF to help deliver programs while building capacity. .
Micro-finance is another one. Again, CIDA found a combination of strong leadership, clarity of vision and a coalition of people that could be backed, including Canadian organizations like the Aga Khan Foundation of Canada. The results speak for themselves: there are over 350,000 clients and a repayment rate above 90%; there are 3,000 to 4,000 new clients every week and over two thirds are women. In other countries, CIDA is a junior partner on these programs, but in Afghanistan, we’re number one on micro-finance; it is the biggest single program that CIDA has ever undertaken.
The most significant project for me personally is the community development councils. The program, called the National Solidarity Program, is now operating in 20,000 communities across the country. The communities elect a local council (in the north it’s 50-50 men and women; in the south, because it’s a bit more traditional, there are separate men’s and women’s councils) and they do their own needs assessment, identify priorities and help to deliver projects such as wells, clinics and roads. In Kandahar, a tough environment where security is always a concern, there are up to 540 completed projects now, most in the last 18 months. Interestingly, less than one percent of those projects has ever been attacked by the Taliban. The village councils who own and run these projects do not want to see their development efforts threatened.
We have projects that don’t work, too. But part of the challenge in a complex, high-risk environment is knowing when to back out and reassess. We’ve stopped some projects because they were not meeting their objectives.
Are there more visible signs of progress?
Kandahar is a poor province in a poor country and we have a long way to go, so success in terms of whether it’s a stable, secure, self-reliant place – the answer is not for a good while yet. But success in terms of measurable changes to people’s lives for the better? On that part we are starting to see some really interesting things over the last 18 months. For example, there has been a 70% drop in polio cases – we have counted just eight cases in the South so far this year.
The Canadian Forces are doing an extraordinary job in building local capacity as well, especially through expanded Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams. Canada has also supported the Kabul National Training Centre, which has 30,000 graduates. The military have a multifaceted mission, too – fighting is one part of it, but rebuilding Afghanistan is the overarching objective.
When you create space on the security side so that people can work, you begin to see measurable results across health, education, demining and community infrastructure. On the humanitarian assistance side, there are more than two hundred thousand food aid beneficiaries in Kandahar alone this year, a result that simply would not have been remotely possible unless there was enough security to operate. It is clear that you will not succeed in rebuilding Afghanistan if any one of these pillars fails: there is no way development can carry security and there is no way security can succeed in the absence of governance and development.
How has the 3D approach affected your relationship with NGOs and other partners given the more integrated approach with the Canadian Forces?
I come from an NGO background, so I was probably making arguments about the risks and complications of interoperability 30 years ago. But it is an argument that, when you are working together in the field, just seems to come down to practicalities. The fact is that NGOs play a very strong role. They operate in their own space and they don’t have to operate under a military banner to do so. When you create security space in a place like Kandahar, NGOs can operate; if there is no security, they can’t work effectively. The question for NGOs is: “Do I have the freedom to be able to operate in a way that allows me to succeed.” CIDA funds about 10 NGOs in Afghanistan, including CARE, World University Service, Mennonite Economic Development Associates, Aga Khan Foundation and Rights & Democracy. They operate within the full terms of their mandates and they are doing great work. And in crisis situations such as a tsunami, they often rely on the military for communications and lift capability.
I think the larger issue is the relationship of NGOs with local government. Local government wants international organizations to be working on local priorities, and not in a way that is disconnected or fragmented. Local governments are concerned with aid effectiveness, and aid effectiveness requires a good understanding of who is doing what. Many NGOs share this concern and are working to improve local coordination. If 100 organizations are working in health, you want to know there is a plan for delivering primary healthcare that understands the breaks in the system and who can help fix them. NGOs need therefore to be full participants in the local priority setting and consultation process. If they operate outside a coordinated environment, NGOs can often end up, even with the best of intentions, overloading one area and under-serving another.
Advocacy groups often take strong positions on this. But the spectrum of NGOs is broad, their viewpoints are diverse, and in practice it is not an unmanageable issue.
The controversy generated by the recent Senlis Council report – which suggested CIDA’s programs in Kandahar were ineffective – turned out to be remarkably short-lived. How did you counter that?
Our attitude has always been that it’s good to have lots of dialogue and to look critically at our programming, because this helps make us better and helps target aid more effectively. We had encouraged Senlis to take a closer look at our efforts in the field. But I have to say we were disappointed in their work, which was poorly done, and in too many cases, factually inaccurate.
They appeared to have done a drive-by on some projects such as food aid (where we are the largest donor of a world class effort led by the World Food Program) decided they did not see enough Canadian visibility, and summed up that CIDA is not doing its job. They also used a couple of examples, one of which was Kandahar’s Mirwais Hospital: they pulled a few people aside, asked their opinion, took a few photographs, and then wrote a report. Not a serious effort. The Mirwais example is evident of the lack of homework in the report. Canada is working in this case with two organizations – the Red Cross and UNICEF, who have deep roots in Afghanistan and proven track records. They are working in difficult conditions with our support, and they operate very closely with local authorities. They know what they are doing, and we are in constant contact. Senlis had criticized a tent provided by UNICEF, but if they had actually talked to hospital authorities and UNICEF staff, they would have realized that it had indeed served a useful role as a pilot project to work out an effective design of a maternal waiting home. Ground is soon breaking on a permanent structure that is exactly what is needed and has been worked out in close cooperation with local groups. We think our partners are doing an excellent job and we stand behind the progress being made.