Sid4Salmon@aol.com
Wed Dec 05 2001 - 11:44:30 EST
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Hello Group:
This URL listed below has a few photos and a storyline. Our discussion of "Where Do We Go From Here?" could have a subtitle. It could be "Where Do They Go From There?" That answer appears to be simple as it needs just two words only. The grave. That is not my wish. It is a problem not only to that region that exists although. A few more questions: How do we fix it? How do we sustain it? We could buy used Dairy equipment. We could even use Cloned Cows! A Russian Scientist and myself could do a RFP with the Civilian Research & Development Foundation (www.crdf.org) and begin it. Any other ideas? Any Cheerleaders? Any help?MILLIONS OF AFGHAN REFUGEES FACE WINTER WITHOUT FOODISLAMABAD, Pakistan, December 3, 2001 (ENS) - While United Nations talks on the creation of an Interim Authority to govern Afghanistan continue around the clock in Bonn, Germany, officials and aid agencies here grow increasingly troubled about the situation of millions of internally displaced Afghan people stranded in winter weather without food or shelter.
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-03-01.html
Respectfully,
Clouston Energy Research
Sidney Clouston
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Susan Holcombe shholc@brandeis.edu
Wed Dec 05 2001 - 14:50:22 EST
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Next steps...
Political and social chaos in Afghanistan is a tragedy, but it can also be turned into opportunity. When social, economic and governmental institutions have broken down, people can choose between re-creation of some version of the old or the fashioning of new institutions and a new social contract. Though the basic next steps for Afghanistan---security and governance---are uncertain, it is possible to try to think out of the box about an Afghanistan whose change and development is shaped by Afghans themselves. The starting point is, as Waldemar Kasprzik expressed it, the capacities and potentials of Afghans themselves. In the context of what I have been reading in this exchange, I would like to try out some thoughts on the question of womens rights and roles in the evolution of a new Afghanistan.
First there are some assumptions about womens rights and womens roles.
a) Womens rights have universal dimensions and cannot be dismissed as a western construct. Womens political, civil, economic and social rights are recognized by key international agreements (Universal Declaration of Human Rights). The 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan emphasized the legal equality of women (Dupree).
b) Afghan women are actors and cannot be seen simply as victims of Taliban oppression or as a objects of human rights violations on which a solution must be imposed. We can see this in the plucky women who ran home schools for girls under the Taliban or who more recently captured global attention when they demonstrated for womens rights in the streets of Kabul and Herat. But even in traditional rural communities where women were secluded by tribal codes, they sometimes exercised public influence. The Pushtun heroine Malalai is credited in legend with using her veil to encourage the warriors not to risk shame by failing to continue the battle against the British at Maiwand.
) The space women have to exercise rights will vary in different micro-environments in Afghanistan, but women themselves, particularly when acting as part of civil society organizations, can expand that space. econd, changing deep-seated attitudes and practices about womens rights and roles cannot be imposed. Change will grow organically out of changes Afghans make in their own society. It is one of the paradoxes of rights. Rights cannot be imposed by authority; respect for rights grows out of a social agreement, on which we can create institutions to support rights. Changes in the Afghan social contract on womens rights and roles may occur, not because of confrontations, but because it makes increasing sense to see womens participation as an asset and a resource. Social contracts are not signed at tables but are constantly shaped by implicit agreements, behaviors and practices.
If we recognize Afghan women as an asset and resource, then we can think about the functions they can fill in an Afghanistan sorely lacking in human capital. One curious artifact of war in Afghanistan since 1978 is that for much of the period girls had increasing access to education while the access for boys declined. UNICEF reports suggest that urban girls, particularly in Kabul, had the greatest opportunity for education, including for post secondary and university education. For a variety of mostly obvious reasons, opportunities for rural children and for males decreased. Some of the women educated during this window of opportunity, or educated prior to 1978, remain in Afghanistan. The challenge is finding how to make full use of existing human potential.Derick Brinkerhoffs recounting of the lessons of implementing policy change are relevant to the changes in social attitudes about womens rights and roles. He mentions the importance of legitimization, constituency building, resources, organizational design, mobilizing actors and monitoring. They represent good guidelines for thinking about any intervention in support of womens rights, and particularly about supporting emerging womens organizations. The following examples suggest interventions that may legitimize changing social understanding of womens rights and roles and expand the constituency for womens involvement. They also suggest places where and how external donors can mobilize and direct resources so as to build capacity of Afghan women to make change themselves.
Women have significant competencies that can be put to work in building a new Afghanistan. The education and health arenas are places where womens contribution may be least controversial. Women have been teachers and administrators in the past and continued that role in the home schools. The obvious role for women is a leadership and implementation role in re-starting and operating primary schools for all children and middle schools and high schools for girls. Among the tasks that need to be done will be the development of new curricula and new texts and teaching materials. In the past the role of foreign assistance might have been to go in and design the curricula and the materials. Today a more appropriate function of assistance will be to support women, (with funds, techniques, materials) to develop materials appropriate to the context and which reflect an equal valuing of the roles of women and men in society. Access to information, new ideas and to moral support may be as valuable as cash. Outside funds, however, are important and can for example, support educated, mostly urban women to lead in working with rural communities to revive rural schooling for girls and boys.
Another artifact of recent years has been the emergence of women-led organizations. Some arose to provide education for girls when Taliban and other extremist authorities barred girls from school. Other organizations haveemerged inside and outside Afghanistan to advocate for womens interests. These organizations are the basis for launching a civil society movement in Afghanistan. Afghan civil society organizations, led by women, are a means for articulating the priorities of women in national and local fora, and for helping to shape the new social contract in Afghanistan. CSOs can also monitor and report on performance of government institutions in meeting the spirit of equity that may be expressed in national laws. A role for outside donors may be to invest in the organizational capacity and the leadership of emerging womens organization. This implies a true partnership role for outside donors:
a more 'hands-off' role that respects the capacities, potentials and priorities of womens organizations.
Afghanistan still needs the infrastructure and macro investment. Smaller but strategic investment in making use of womens existing capacities and in building civil society organization capacity, not just to deliver services, but to speak for women, will produce long-term benefits.
Susan Holcombe
Nidhi Passi
nidhipassi@hotmail.com
Wed Dec 05 2001 - 12:03:57 EST
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Robert Fisk: This is not a war on terror. It's a fight Against America's enemies 25 September 2001 'We are being asked to support a war whose aims appear to be as misleading as they are secretive'While covering the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, I would, from time to time, drive down through Jalalabad and cross the Pakistan border to Peshawar to rest. In the cavernous, stained interior of the old Intercontinental Hotel, I would punch out my stories on a groaning telex
machine beside an office bearing the legend "Chief Accountant" on the door.
On the wall next to that office ? I don't know if it was the Chief Accountant who put it there ? was a framed piece of paper bearing four lines of Kipling that I still remember:
A scrimmage at a border station
A canter down a dark defile
Five thousand pounds of education
Felled by a five-rupee jezail
Or, I suppose today, a Kalashnikov AK-47, home-produced in Quetta, or one of those slick little Blowpipe missiles that we handed over to the mujahedin with such abandon in the early Eighties so that they could kill their ? and our ? Russian enemies.
But I've been thinking more about the defiles, the gorges and Overhanging mountains, the sheer rock walls 4,000 feet in height, the caves and the massive tunnels which Osama bin Laden cut through the mountains. Here, presumably, are the "holes" from which the Wes is going to "smoke out" Mr bin Laden, always supposing that he's been obliging enough to run away and hide in them. For there is already a growing belief ? founded on our own rhetoric ? that Mr bin Laden and his men are on the run, seeking their hiding places.
I'm not so certain. I'm very doubtful about what Mr bin Laden is doing right now. In fact, I'm not at all sure what we ? the West ? are doing. True, our destroyers and aircraft carriers and fighter aircraft and heavy bombers and troops are massing in the general region of the Gulf. Our SAS boys ? so they say in the Middle East ? are already climbing around northern Afghanistan, in the region still controlled by the late Shah Masoud's forces. But what exactly are we planning to do? Kidnap Mr bin Laden? Storm his camps and kill the lot of them, Mr bin Laden and all his Algerian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Gulf Arabs?
Or is Mr bin Laden merely chapter one of our new Middle Eastern adventure, to be broadened later to include Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the destruction of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the humbling of Syria, the humiliation of Iran, the reimposition of yet another fraudulent "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians?
If this seems fanciful, you should listen to what's coming out of Washington and Tel Aviv. While The New York Times Pentagon sources are suggesting that Saddam may be chapter two, the Israelis are trying to set up Lebanon? the "centre of international terror" according to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon ? for a bombing run or two, along with Yasser Arafat's little garbage tip down in Gaza where the Israelis have discovered, mirabile dictu, a "bin Laden cell".
The Arabs, of course, would also like an end to world terror. But they would like to include a few other names on the list. Palestinians would like to see Mr Sharon picked up for the Sabra and Chatila massacre, a terrorist slaughter carried out by Israel's Lebanese allies ? who were trained by the Israeli army ? in 1982. At 1,800 dead, that's only a quarter of the number killed on 11 September. Syrians in Hama would like to putRifaat Al-Assad, the brother of the late president, on their list of terrorists for the mass killings perpetrated by his Defence Brigades in the city of Hama in the same year. At 20,000, that's more than double the 11 September death toll.The Lebanese would like trials for the Israeli officers who planned the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which killed 17,500 people, most of them civilians ? again, well over twice the 11 September statistic. Christian Sudanese would like President Omar al-Bashir arraigned for mass
murder.
But, as the Americans have made clear, it's their own terrorist enemies they are after, not their terrorist friends or those terrorists who have been slaughtering populations outside American "spheres of interest". Even those terrorists who live comfortably in the US but have not harmed America are safe: take, for example, the pro-Israeli militiaman who murdered two Irish UN soldiers in southern Lebanon in 1980 and who now live in Detroit after flying safely out of Tel Aviv. The Irish have the name and address, if the FBI are interested ? but of course they're not.
So we are not really being asked to fight "world terror". We are being asked to fight America's enemies. If that means bagging the murderers behind the atrocities in New York and Washington, few would object. But it does raise the question of why those thousands of innocents are more important? More worthy of our effort and perhaps blood ? than all the other thousands of innocents. And it also raises a much more disturbing question: whether or not the crime against humanity committed in the US on 11 September is to be met with justice ? or a brutal military assault intended to extend
American political power in the Middle East.
Either way, we are being asked to support a war whose aims appear to be as misleading as they are secretive. We are told by the Americans that this war will be different to all others. But one of the differences appears to be that we don't know who we are going to fight and how long we are going to fight for. Certainly, no new political initiative, no real political engagement in the Middle East, no neutral justice is likely to attend this open-ended conflict. The despair and humiliation and suffering of the Middle East peoples do not figure in our war aims ? only American and European despair and humiliation and suffering.
As for Mr bin Laden, no one believes the Taliban are genuinely ignorant of his whereabouts. He is in Afghanistan. But has he really gone to ground? During the Russian war, he would emerge, again and again, to fight Afghanistan's Russian occupiers, to attack the world's second superpower. Wounded six times, he was a master of the tactical ambush, as the Russians found out to their cost. Evil and wicked do not come close to describing the mass slaughter in the US. But ? if it was Mr bin Laden's work? that does not mean he would not fight again. And he would be fighting on home ground. There are plenty of dark defiles into which we may advance. And plenty of cheap rifles to shoot at us. And that wouldn't be a "new kind of war" at all.
Nidhi Passi
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Joshua B. Forrest jbforres@zoo.uvm.edu
Fri Dec 07 2001 - 17:14:57 EST
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I have been following this discussion of post-conflict recovery in Afghanistan quite closely and with great interest. I thought it might be useful to provide further consideration of the governmental system to be established in Afghanistan, with particular regard to provincial and local authorities.
First, let me say that I have learned a great deal from the comments put forth by all the contributors to this fascinating email discussion, which collectively ought to be taken very seriously by policy-makers in Washington and in Afghanistan. Mishka Zaman rightfully calls for the need to be attentive to the potential for the development of civil society; Kasprzik's suggestion regarding an indigenously run development agency is right on target. In regard to the particular issue of government structures, Derick Brinkerhoff is wise to point out that the new administration-to-forged will be greatly enhanced by a type of social contract, by legitimation, as well as by a system of accountability. At the same time, Margaret Reid has articulately underlined the significance of taking into account the segmented structure of Afghan society and the importance of provincial divisions, while Nizar Mecklai compellingly and boldly advocates that feudal tribal' rulers be allowed to continue their local systems of authority.
I would suggest that these points can be usefully aggregated in a way that can makes possible the creation of an administrative structure that both reflects the fundamentally local and provincial segmentation of Afghan society and that also builds generalized social trust, i.e., the basic building block of legitimation and of a potential social contract. Here I refer to the creation - from the bottom up - of a consociational form of government that allows existing power-holders at the local level to retain authority in their respective localities and territories, and that invites each local leader, power-holder and provincial authority to participate in a consociational government as a representative of his particular geo-territorial sphere.
A local and provincial division of the country in reflection of existing micro-scale powerholders [not warlords, that is pejorative and unfairly implies primitiveness] would be more in keeping with the actual local political context than any macro-scale system that is superimposed upon local society by Westerners. It would likely minimize the potential for governmental collapse because each existing [post-Taliban] geo-territorial local authority would have a meaningful stake in a consociational political system that condoned, rather than challenged, the current division of local scale powerholders. Consociational systems leave local rulers in place, while allowing them to be represented at the central, national level in a common political unit - such as a cabinet and/or a parliament.
A consociational political system in Afghanistan could be implemented in a way that complements democratization: elections would be held in each locality, and the new parliament would then be comprised of representatives of micro-scale geo-territorial units. Existing authorities obtain a piece' of national political power and representation would extend to the national cabinet - similarly to linguistic/territorial representation in Switzerland, to political party and ethnic cabinet representation in post-apartheid South Africa, and to the regionally based National Council in contemporary Namibia (where I carried out research on the organizational capacity-building success of the country's regional councils and National Council).
I believe that micro-territorial representation would serve Afghanistan better than ethnic representation because of the extent of competing powerholders *within* each each group. Thus, an ethnically based consociational governmental system based on Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara - the four main groups - would be too broad and would force each ethnic group into internal competition over representation. By contrast, a consociational system based on existing micro-territories would facilitate representation by multiple powerholders within the same ethnic group. It is a system that more accurately reflects the particularistic contours of Afghanistan's social history and geo-political framework as it exists today.
This would furthermore have the advantage of a political system that is genuinely built from the ground up, so to speak, and would be democratically installed as well as representative of the segmented structure of the Afghan polity. With a consociational structure in place, there would be no reason to delay elections I strongly disagree with the current plan to wait two years before holding national elections. Even in a fragile and insecure political environment, however imperfect, elections would provide a consociational government with the legitimacy required to at least begin the process of creating a workable dynamic between the central government and the localities and provinces. This lesson was learned successfully in South Africa and Namibia, and the failure of Sierra Leone to carry out elections when the country was still stable (I was an election advisor at the time) provides a frightening example of the danger of long-term electoral postponement.
Moreover, a consociational political structure would provide a functional basis for the implementation of development programs, as local powerholders are likely to facilitate NGO policy effectiveness more successfully than if local powerholders feel threatened or are challenged politically. Local authorities have a personal and political interest in assuring that health, educational and economic development programs are implemented effectively. It is not the role of the Western NGOs to intervene in local political life but the carrying out of development programs could only generate a positive impact on the broader generalization of social trust and community well-being.
A consociational government would need to include a far broader array of political actors than the current convention, which is based principally on the Northern Alliance; local powerholders from each province - including the Pashtun-dominated south - would need to be brought in as equivalent partners. There would not be any idealistic expectations that Pashtuns, Hazara, Uzbeks and Tajiks would work together in cooperative fashion as ethnic blocs - thus the importance of creating territorially based rather than ethnically oriented representation. Such an inclusive government, grounded in geo-local legitimacy, has the best chance of eventually generating the social capital, constituency-building, and peaceable political mobilization that can result in long-term national stabilization and administrative consolidation. This, in turn, would provide a meaningful basis for central-local relations to evolve in a way that facilitates successful efforts at development implementation aimed at grassroots social and economic upliftment.
Joshua B. Forrest
Associate Professor
Comparative Public Policy
University of Vermont
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Sid4Salmon@aol.com
Fri Dec 07 2001 - 13:58:59 EST
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Dear Fellows and Friends,et al.
I would like to discuss this, but there seems to be a glitch in the computer room where I have been deleted. I wonder if someone voted me off the island.... Earth, only the Shadow (Moderator) knows. Please reply, as I have to present my argument for saving starving people with the technology/project that I have been developing for other areas, which can only help the people. I repeat, Help The People.
Respectfully,
Sidney Clouston
ASSESSMENT OF AFGHAN ENVIRONMENT PROPOSED FOR RECONSTRUCTIONNAIROBI, Kenya, December 6 2001 (ENS) - Environmental issues should form part of the package being considered by governments for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan, Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said today.For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-06-03.html
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sid4salmon@aol.com
Fri Dec 07 2001 - 17:17:22 EST
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Dear Fellows and Friends:
Please visit the Internet site listed below for a discussion of a project that I am developing. I believe that it could be of help in Afghanistan and Pakistan in feeding people and make a direct improvement to the environment. It is an effort that is humanitarian, environmental and most necessary.
Essentially it could be a turnkey operation. I am told by Usman a UN employee in the region that the wheat straw could be made available to the feed lots. Some water developments are needed, but it can be sited in remote areas for greater benefit to local people. There are several kinds of Green Greenhouses that I discuss, to include basic units for remote areas. Those need to use solar for pumping well water as is discussed in the introduction. The rapid growing of orchard trees and starting seedlings for lumber are some options depending on several factors. Other plants can be container grown under grow lights for an increase in food production.
The "Magnum Opus" for the Green Greenhouse is the one that maximizes the lowering of the greenhouse gas in a complex "Profit Center" associated with a Dairy. Methane is sent into the digester in the feedlot area and it has a process for cracking (separating) the gas to carbon (C) and hydrogen (H).
The H is for fuel cells the C is for carbonizated drinks (food grade) and the rest of the C is for the greenhouse atmosphere enrichment. The solid waste is composted for the planter mix and the rest of it for amendments to the soil in the fields. 100% Sustainable, 100% Plus improvement to the GHG as it is a net negative C operation. The trees will continue to grow in the orchard or in the forest sequestering the carbon for many years as they continue to grow.I will be generating a proposal or two with the help of my friends, perhaps to the UN Energy Trust if partners are developed in the Pak-Afg area. This group's participation and support are respectfully requested.
Best regards,
Clouston Energy Research
Sidney Clouston
http://hometown.aol.com/sid4salmon/myhomepage/index.html
Zubair Faisal Abbasi zfa@comsats.net.pk
Fri Dec 07 2001 - 18:23:54 EST
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Comments on an article available at
http://www.developmentgateway.org/node/134111/topic/unbox?page_id=133865&concept_id=140520
I think, the ideas and approach for the solution of problems, which Afghanistan is facing since last 25 years, are beautifully portrayed in the interview of James Wolfanshon, President of the World Bank. More so is the approach to go ahead 'valley by valley' so that the diversity and complexity at the local levels is addressed. I would like to liken it with the World Bank Report 1999/2000 on 'Entering the 21st Century' in which, amongst others, the issues of decentralization have been dealt with. Taking vision from the report, at local levels, the competing political claims should be provided a framework of rules and governance that provides a broad based consultative process and inclusive approach to development. Can we work as social-technical guides to work with the prophetic (showing the right path and empowering the soul) approach rather than messianic (doing the right things while creating dependency) is a critical question.
Secondly, how does the business sector respond to the needs of Afghan Communities will be another point. Would MNC and local business interests cater to the needs of the affluent few or address the needs and unexplored market of the poor who constitute a major portion of the '(in)active market' . The point is to re-orient the understanding of the corporate sector to think for the 'bottom of the economic resource pyramid' and explore the volume of the 'hidden demand'. The understanding may lead to coming up with innovative solutions for the provision of goods and services to the poor while building their purchasing power (collective and individual) to access these resources. One such example could be making micro-finance accessible to Afghan communities and developing infrastructure of information technology for the locals. The Internet is fast establishing that some skill and some person is required somewhere. In the case of Afghanistan, as in many other countries, it may need new software development which facilitates
communication in local languages as well ----------- it is difficult to do but it's worth doing.
To my understanding, while money will be pumped into Afghanistan and reconstruction work will begin, the approach to developmental activity will play a very critical role. If donors want to work again on the 'paternalist' notion, I am afraid the real re-construction based on bottom up planning and implementation will go into the wrong hands. The point is to go deep in society to understand the 'social archaeology' and methods of community building, and address the questions of ownership and absorptive capacity for the new developmental resources, which are being designed for the Afghan communities.
Regards,
Zubair Faisal Abbasi.
Development Consultant and Journalist
Islamabad, Pakistan.
http://www.espots.org/
Vinod Vyasulu vinod_vyasulu@hotmail.com
Sat Dec 08 2001 - 06:19:29 EST
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It is not decentralisation so much as a repect for local democracy that is important. The world bank has conducted several indepth studies of how such decentraliation is working in India after the 73rd amendment of the constitution. Here may be some relevant experience there.
Vinod Vyasulu
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Zubair Faisal Abbasi zfa@comsats.net.pk
Sat Dec 08 2001 - 08:03:21 EST
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At one level these two things are not mutually exclusive.
Decentralization without addressing democracy is as useless as the other way round specially in the areas which are geographically dispersed and socially diverse; this is what I think and I may be wrong in my assessment.
To my understanding, decentralization and democracy are means to an end. The end is social well being, provision of services, and participation in governance --- a genuine democracy and decentralization should establish these things as a bare minimum. When one speaks of 'valley by valley' it seems to be a workable project at least to myself. This is the way one can hope for 'success stories' which can be replicated in other areas. If we look at the Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi Pakistan designed by Akhtar Hameed Khan and his work in Comilla Bangladesh, this seems to be an approach of developing success stories generating potentials for replication.
Best,
Zubair.
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W. Kasprzik Wilderness@t-online.de
Sat Dec 08 2001 - 07:05:07 EST
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To Jennifer
I refer to your mail from December 5. You pledge for an evolution of thinking and perception of those of us, who are involved in development work. You rightly point to the existence of open-minded people in the development agencies and that they deserve our respect and encouragement.What I observe after you have introduced the topic:
* The participants of our e-discussion are reluctant to contribute to this 'personal' topic. This comes as no surprise to me. We have, for different and often good reasons, great difficulties in reflecting our own positions. We prefer to stay with a technical language and technical arguments. We would eventually open up, if we would be sure of a 'common space' (a space of trust), meaning a space and an atmosphere, where we could, at least for some time, dismantle our well preserved safeguards without paying too dearly for it.
* The 'drama' of the first point became manifest to me when I received emails from participants directly, avoiding the pak-afg path. They argue, that when they speak openly, they are quickly marginalised inside their agency. This also does not come as a surprise to me. All organisations have formal and informal filters. The staff is well aware of both of them, even if the informal ones are nowhere codified.
I find the same situation in corporations and administrations (I am working as a consultant not just in development but also in Europe). In order to overcome this solid blockage of professional and personal exchange we create 'communication centers' right in the middle of the company. People are free to choose the topic (it must be, of course, work related) and to use as a group the communication center without the normal hierarchical and departmental restrictions. And the propositions of the groups have access to well defined top management channels. To install such a center, you need, of course, a courageous management.
Why not try such a communication center in the development agencies? According to my view and experience every programme or bigger project has to be put thorugh a phase of intended complexity (meaning to introduce new ideas and aspects) before boiling everything down to an operational concept. This increase in complexity the task managers cannot do (they want to keep the tin of worms tightly closed). The communication center can do it.
But the communication center alone will not do it. We need also a 'qualified' personal courage. But this is too long a story to be told here....
To Joshua B. Forrest
I completely agree with you, that a decentralised structure without tribal/ethnic dominance would be a fine thing. As far as my experience with decentralisation goes, I observe, that in practice decentralisation is limited to urban areas. Rural areas are more or less completey abandoned (even if the legal framework is in place). Those responsible for this state of affairs (including the development agencies) argue, that their human and financial resources are limited, that they need a minimum of infrastructure (administration, know-how)in order to become operational and that urban development is more important than rural development.
Moreover I would like to draw your attention to the fact that decentralisation is an expensive business. So far nobody (to my knowledge) has undertaken even a rough estimate, how much it would cost a developing country (in this case Afghanistan) to establish a decentralised structure and more important, to calculate the operational cost of running such a structure.
We try now to shift the understanding of decentralisation away from a decentralisation of the administration to a decentralisation of basic services, training local people to do the job (it is so difficult to get civil servants from the center move into rural areas) and ensuring a legitimate flow of funds from the central government to them ( a particularly difficult piece of work).
To NajmaIn one of your earlier messages you mentioned that we should not underestimate the positive role of the military (at least for Pakistan). If we like or not, the argument is, I think, also valid for Afghanistan. In order to ensure some democratic framework for the military sector, at least two issues should be addressed:
- to include the defense budget into the overall goverment budget (which is, as far as I know, not the case in Pakistan, and of course in many other countries) and
- to include the military aid from mainly Western 'donors' into the framework of development aid, thereby ensuring a certain transparency and a most necessary discussion, where to put the priorities.
Waldemar Kasprzik
Institutional Development
Germany
Cont/P-11
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