USAID Administrator Says Afghanistan's Reconstruction Challenges Bigger Than Originally Believed

Even before the US anti-terrorism campaign succeeded in ousting the Taliban from power, US analysts were aware that Afghanistan's reconstruction challenges would be formidable. But after gathering more information about specific needs, one top US aid official now says that rebuilding Afghanistan could take substantially more resources than he originally believed.

Andrew Natsios, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), says a new report paints a "troubling and surprising" picture of the Afghan reconstruction effort. Afghanistan's problems, Natsios admitted, are much more serious than he envisioned a few months ago. "I should have realized they were there," he said at a recent open meeting of the Advisory Committee for Voluntary Foreign Aid (ACVFA) in Washington. The USAID report is based on the conclusions of an assessment team, which made a fact-finding visit to Afghanistan in early February.

Natsios' comments indicate that a major rethinking of aid strategy is required. Despite the unpleasant surprise contained in the report, Natsios pledged that the United States would craft an aid program that stabilizes Afghanistan and serves American interests.

The United Nations and World Bank have estimated Afghan reconstruction will cost up to $1.7 billion in the first year alone. American Secretary of State Colin Powell pledged $296.75 million in aid at a January 2002 UN conference in Tokyo; it was the world's biggest one-year pledge. (The European Union promised $500 million over 30 months.) USAID will handle $167 million of that amount. At the ACVFA meeting, Natsios outlined four major policy objectives: resettling refugees and internally displaced people, restoring food security, creating conditions for economic stability and rehabilitating the government system. Though these all require intricate, multi-year programs, USAID has recently focused on short-term, high profile projects.

Even as it considers adjustments to its Afghanistan aid strategy, Natsios says USAID has several "quick impact" programs already underway in Afghanistan. The agency is allocating $7 million in grants for women and agricultural rehabilitation and spending $6.5 million to print 9,700,000 textbooks in Pashto and Dari and to train 4,000 teachers. It's also committed $1 million to landmine victims and people with other disabilities. It has also earmarked $600,000 for over 2 million measles vaccinations distributed through UNICEF.

In mid February, the agency announced grants totaling $64,000 for other social costs. These funds aim to rehabilitate the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs building complex, restore the Afghan Women's Institute (which the Taliban burned nearly to the ground), and fund Ariana, an NGO that operated an underground school for girls under the Taliban regime.

Though reports in recent weeks have suggested that the American military mission has taken action without consulting the Afghan interim government, aid activities appear to be better coordinated. USAID project proposals are "painfully vetted" by Hamid Karzai's interim authority, says one official. Karzai and other Afghan leaders are keen to ensure that aid programs are compatible with the interim authority's own plans.

Natsios warned, though, that meeting political objectives as well as humanitarian assistance goals could lead to further surprises. He appealed to NGOs to avoid undertaking projects on their own lest they create an impression of chaos.

Gene Dewey, Assistant Secretary of the Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration at the State Department, shared Natsios' concern. He urged that Afghanistan "avoid above all the chaos of Albania and Bosnia, where there was no framework and NGOs running around led to the appearance that the international system was out of control." Both Natsios and Dewey emphasized that UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi should be the person responsible for ensuring that international NGO activity is well coordinated.

Also at the open meeting, some NGO representatives expressed support for Karzai's request for the expansion of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. InterAction, the largest coalition of development-oriented NGOs in the United States, sent a letter to President George W. Bush on February 7 in support of deploying peacekeeping forces "wherever insecurity threatens humanitarian and development programs."

Brahimi has urged the UN Security Council to expand the force. Bernd McConnell, director of USAID's Central Asia Task Force, suggested at the open meeting that without adequate security in the country, "there won't be an Afghanistan."