Reconstruction in Afghanistan: Current Perspectives and Challenges Ahead

Check Against Delivery

Remarks of Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan
at the Council on Foreign Relations,  Berlin, Germany 23 June 2003

I.          Introduction

1.      I am honoured to address the German Council on Foreign Relations and I look forward to a useful and mutually enriching exchange following my initial remarks. My visit to Berlin this time is primarily, for me, an occasion to express my heartfelt thanks to the Government and people of Germany for their constant and generous support to the efforts of the people of Afghanistan to re-establish peace and security in their country.

2.       Germany’s support was perhaps at its highest visibility in Bonn when the UN sponsored Conference on Afghanistan was hosted in Bonn – at the Petersberg Hotel to be precise – and was successfully concluded on 5 December 2001.  But Germany’s support to Afghanistan did not start – and it did not end – at that memorable Conference in Bonn. 

3.      This is a long history of interest for and support to Afghanistan which can be traced back for more than one hundred years and , as far as I know, whereas Afghanistan has had a stormy relationship with practically all its neighbours and other major powers, including Great Britain , Russia and the United States, there has never been, to my knowledge, an conflict, or even tension or misunderstanding in the relations between Afghanistan and Germany. 

4.      Speaking to a large audience in Kabul, the other day, I reminded them of this remarkable relationship as a way of stressing the profound sentiment of horror felt and expressed by the overwhelming majority of the people of Afghanistan when a bus – carrying German soldiers – was attacked by that suicide car bomb in Kabul, killing 4 young men who were returning home after several months of distinguished service, spent in Afghanistan to help maintain peace and restore stability in that country.   I would like, here, to express to you, and through you, to the families of the soldiers as well as the government and people of Germany, the profound sympathy of my colleagues in UNAMA and the rest of the UN family working in Afghanistan. 

II. Overview of Current Reconstruction Efforts

Mr.  Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

5.      In the eighteen months since the signing of the Bonn Agreement, despite enormous challenges, there has been significant progress in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The needs are so great after two decades of war and neglect.  We would all like to have seen more.  But there are positive signs as the capacity of the government is strengthened and it takes on a more central role in identifying and planning national priorities. With support from the United Nations and the wider assistance community, access to basic social services, including health and education, has been expanded, roads and other infrastructure are starting to be rebuilt, and all of these efforts are creating much needed employment opportunities.

6.      A fairly comprehensive overview covering the reconstruction effort across many sectors in some detail will be made available to you.  In my remarks, I will only highlight a few key points before turning to what I believe to be the greatest priority for reconstruction, which is the building, or rebuilding, of security institutions in Afghanistan: a national Army, a National Police and a National Intelligence Department.

7.      Today, critical financial shortages are cutting across the efforts by the Afghan Transitional Administration to meet established reconstruction goals. The government’s National Development Budget (NDB) identified 15 national sectoral programmes—ranging from healthcare, to justice sector reform, to transportation—that it considered priorities for the restoration of security and economic prosperity.   The NDP is dependent on international donor assistance, and it sought USD 2.2 billion for this Afghan fiscal year which started on 22 March 2003.  Of this USD 550 million is for government operating costs and USD 1.7 billion for development.  During the Afghanistan High Level Strategic Forum held in Brussels earlier this year, donors pledged some USD 2.0 billion, leaving a shortfall of USD 200 million.  Humanitarian and reconstruction activities have been affected by the apparent slow down in donor contributions to Afghanistan, and we look forward to more predictable and accelerated financing.  We should also remember that critical items such as the elections, mine action, and DDR are non-budgetary and will require additional resources.

8.      The government has urged donor governments to meet the level of pledges made in Brussels by increasing the current level of their contributions to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which is the primary channel for donor funding to the national budget. The Government has sought $600 million for the ARTF for the current fiscal year. However, only $33.9 million was paid by donors into the ARTF during the first month of April. Based on signed donor agreements and statements of pledges, roughly $171.3 million in additional contributions can be expected.  If one includes the carry-over of paid-in contributions from the previous year, there still would only be income of $230.8 million from the ARTF. So again, there is a need for donors to honor their commitments in order to meet urgent cash flow requirements and to help support the increasing role of the government in national priority setting and development.

9.      The Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA), which assists the Government to develop an effective national police force, is also seriously under-funded. With a target of USD 120 million, to date only USD 11 million has been paid into LOTFA. This critical shortage threatens proposed improvements in security, police reform, and strengthening of sub-national policing measures.

10.       Until the establishment of the Interim Administration following the Bonn Conference, the UN agencies were doing almost exclusively humanitarian work.  Of course, the humanitarian needs did not disappear overnight and even now, there are large numbers of vulnerable communities and urgent humanitarian needs that must be attended to.  But UN activities are consistently moving their emphasis and our vision for 2003 in Relief, Recovery, and Reconstruction is to assist the government’s state-building process through three priorities: first, in the area of governance, supporting increasingly self-sufficient and accountable state institutions to guide reconstruction processes and respond promptly to humanitarian needs; second, reconstruction that contributes to increasing security and stability and which provides Afghans with resources and skills necessary for taking charge of recovery and reconstruction at all levels, and third, providing international assistance in an efficient, effective, and integrated manner that contributes to institution building and to national reconstruction priorities.

11.       In order to help increase government capacities, the UN system is currently seconding 140 staff to various government structures. To a large degree, the focus of the UN’s support has been on ministries and other entities at the national level. UN support to provincial and district administrative bodies is being defined by the ongoing administrative reform reviews.

12.       These items are but a small example of some of the major challenges facing the central government’s reconstruction agenda and of the contributions that the UN has been able to provide.

III. Security and Reconstruction

Ladies and Gentlemen,

13.       The reconstruction of Afghanistan is a very long-term task; one that plays a critical role in improving the lives of the Afghan people and in stabilizing the country after so many years of war. Yet, this stability is threatened by the continued insecurity throughout much of the country, which poses a severe constraint on reconstruction activities.

14.       There have been several incidents over the past few months that underscore the changing security environment in which the UN, the Afghan government, and all partners in the reconstruction process face. The most alarming of these was precisely the 7 June suicide bombing of a German ISAF bus in Kabul, which killed four soldiers and one bystanders and injured twenty-nine personnel—the most deadly attack on the international security force in its 18 months of operations. Likewise, the assassination of an international ICRC worker in March of this year represented the first such killing since 1998—this tragic event was followed by the killing of an Italian tourist a week later.

15.       Outside of Kabul, factional misrule creates an obstacle to reconstruction, investment, and economic activities. Throughout the north, clashes between rival political factions are a near daily feature of the environment in which we have to operate. In southern and southeastern Afghanistan, incidents of violent crime and attacks by elements aligned with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Hekmatyar against the Coalition Forces and the ANA pose a real threat. The aim of these forces seems clear: to stop the peace process and force the government and international community into retreat. International and national staff working with the international assistance community have become soft targets for terrorism, posing a risk never before faced by the assistance community in Afghanistan. In the last two months, a series of deadly attacks on deminers have forced the UN Mine Action Centre in Afghanistan to suspend all demining activities in ten provinces in the south and southeast of the country. Local police have also come under attack. In the second week of June, two police officers were killed during separate ambushes in Zabul province.

16.       The UN is trying to remain as active as possible, but we have to be sure to avoid any fatal calamity, if at all possible,  if we are to preserve our role. The UN has had to severely restrict road missions, which in many areas of the south and southeast are required to travel with armed escorts provided by the Afghan authorities. While necessary for the safety of staff, these security restrictions nonetheless impact upon the collaborative development work the UN does with the Government.  We are working with the Government nationally and locally to constantly assess and reassess the situation and ensure that as much work gets done as possible.  It is vital, however, both for the security of staff and for the future of the peace process, that we do everything possible to avoid and thwart further attacks on the international community and Afghans involved in furthering the process.

17.       You may wonder why I am speaking of the need for security in Afghanistan when reconstruction is the issue of the day. The answer is very simple, and it is that, in the long term, addressing the reconstruction needs of Afghanistan will only be possible if security improves. We are actively engaged with international and national security institutions, including ISAF, the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, as well as the nascent Afghan National Army and the police to ensure that urgent security needs are met and that, over time, national capacities for providing security are developed.

18.       The first reconstruction priority therefore is not building clinics and schools—though certainly these are indispensable, but rather the first reconstruction activity is the reform of the security sector. Indeed, security sector reform is a precondition for long term stability and economic revitalization; without it, all other reconstruction may be meaningless as it cannot guarantee the continuation of the peace process.

19.       There are three primary elements to security sector reform—reform of the Ministries of Defence and Interior and of the National Security Directorate. These three institutions, responsible for the creation of a new national army, for rehabilitation of the police and provincial administration, and for intelligence, respectively, are the indispensable pillars of a more secure Afghanistan. Yet, at present, these institutions do not really support stability.  Indeed, at times, some amongst their number seem to undermine it. Largely, dominated by one ethnic group, the power of these institutions is seen as serving faction interests rather than those of the nation as a whole. Yet this reality exists for no other reason than that it was these groups which were most close at hand when the International Coalition led by the United States swept the Taliban from power in Kabul.

20.       In order for one, truly national army and police service to emerge, an effective DDR programme will be needed to progressively clear the field of all factional armed groups. This will be impossible without creating ministries with a national orientation. As long as these ministries are seen as representing factional interests, Afghans will not accept that the government serves their interests, nor will they disarm. DDR requires that all factions trust and have confidence in the Ministry of Defence, the government lead on DDR.

21.       The “Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme,” the national DDR program, is ready to begin, but it is being held up, conditional upon meaningful reform of the Ministry of Defence.

22.       The technical preparations for creating a new national army and police service are also moving ahead at a reasonable pace. But without the right political context, even attracting recruits with a sufficient national character suffers, undermining the aim of building a national army and police loyal to the state and to the people, rather than to one particular region, group or individual.

23.       Ultimately, the “law and order” responsibilities of the ANA vis-à-vis factional armies should be the responsibility of a professional, national police service backed by a functioning and independent judicial system. The appointment of a new Minister of Interior has marked a positive change, and the Minister has been able to effect a range of reforms—but in the end, one man cannot bend the will of an entire ministry overnight. Continued reform of the Ministry of Interior, particularly at the management level, is therefore urgently needed.

24.       But the first priority is and must continue to be reform of the Ministry of Defence. President Hamid Karzai has discussed with his vice-presidents a series of confidence-building measures intended to demonstrate that reform of MoD is on-track, including the appointment of new, representative officials to the senior-most level of the Ministry; the selection of professional, broadly representative senior officers for the Central Corps of the Afghan National Army; the establishment of a national recruiting system open to all eligible citizens of Afghanistan; and the development of a plan for merit-based officer selection. If these changes begin, and are seen as credible by Afghans, it will send a strong message that power is to be shared and that the government represents the whole of the country.

25.       In the best case scenario, successful DDR and building of the ANA and national police service will take several years before they enable the central government to fully extend its writ to the provinces. Nonetheless, to date, 6,500 personnel have been trained for the ANA, 4,500 of which are currently on active duty. Although none of the nine brigades trained thus far are fully operational, training is on track for the first of these to be ready by October—in time to provide security to the Constitutional Loya Jirga.

26.       The first 1250 new police at the officer-level started their training course under the German Police Support Project at the beginning of 2003. In August 2003, the first graduates will finish and will be deployed mainly to the Kabul police district. To compliment the German project, the US launched a trainers programme on 18 May in Kabul for 100 Afghan police trainers and four international trainers who will be deployed to the provinces to conduct two-month training courses. The US is also operating a separate Police Training Center for 7,000 constable police officers who will be deployed in Kabul by September 2004.

27.       In the meantime, the challenges to extending security beyond Kabul remain serious. We have repeatedly requested that the mandate of ISAF be expanded to the provinces. With relatively few more men and resources, ISAF could have a positive impact on the overall security environment. Importantly, ISAF would not have to enforce the peace, but rather help create the space for Afghan institutions to fill the gap themselves: for the ANA and police to bring law and order to the provinces and for the central government to enforce its will and collect tax revenue.

28.       If security is not brought to the provinces, then insecurity will surely find its way into Kabul. If the necessary agreement on ISAF expansion is not presently available, we must  look at how to achieve, to the extent possible, a similar effect with available resources.

29.       Although the PRTs are not intended to provide security in the provinces, they could play a useful role in the reconstruction of the Afghan state. By concentrating their reconstruction activities on rehabilitation of basic administrative infrastructure at the district level, they effectively support the extension of central government influence as well as aid the reconstruction process. Where deployed, the PRTs build confidence, project the presence of the central government, and, importantly, provide a platform for new security institutions to deploy and be trained.

30.       For this reason, we have argued for the PRTs to take on a greater role in security sector reform, rather than focusing on small-scale reconstruction. They can serve as a platform for regional training and building of security institutions, help the central government project its authority, and provide good offices and confidence building to help resolve local tension.  Where reconstruction is undertaken, we have argued that rather than be involved in small projects that are better left to NGOs,  PRTs should focus on large-scale infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and on government buildings, all of which enable the government to extend its authority and promote security.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

31.       The year ahead is a critical one for Afghanistan. The final stages of the Bonn Process—including preparations for the Constitutional Loya Jirga and for electoral registration—are getting underway. It is therefore important that real, tangible benefits be  realized by Afghans across the country and that these benefits be perceived—rightly—as being provided by the central government.

32.       In spite of the political realities and limited resources, President Karzai is doing his best to keep both the direction and pace of Afghanistan’s reconstruction on track. He deserves sustained, effective international support; indeed, for the time being such support is vital. Yet, it is important that, when providing this support, the international community send the right messages—primary among these is the insistence that security sector reform goes ahead and that neighboring countries, which for too long have been a source of insecurity rather than stability do, now, fully support the central government.