Right. My comments are more from the development perspective. I don't know if I have recommendations as strong as Peggy's, but I will refer to a number of issues that should be taken into consideration.
The analysis in this presentation is based on my experience living and working in Afghanistan for three years, my continuing visits to the country, and findings of research on the results of the international community's actions in other post-conflict countries.
I will focus on seven areas: the Afghan people's views; the objective of Canada's mission in Afghanistan and the strategies required to address the objectives; the effectiveness of aid; linking capacity building to state building; aid dependency and the poppy economy; the volume of aid and the number of Canadian civilian deployments; and whether the war is winnable.
Here is the view from the Afghan window. Afghans have no interest in going back to the Taliban regime. In their view, an army presence is necessary for the establishment of initial security, but they are not in favour of the continued, long-term presence of foreign troops in their country. They prefer the increased visibility and presence of their own government.
They are disappointed by the deteriorating security situation. Despite heightening security concerns in general, common Afghans bear positive attitudes towards Canada and Canadians. Educated Afghans, however, disagree with the claims of foreign troops on progress in winning the war and their argument that increased suicide bombing is an indicator of the Taliban losing ground. Afghan officials regard use of this indicator as reflective of insensitivity to the Afghan people's plight, when two suicide bombings managed to kill 250 Afghan civilians in two days recently.
With regard to clarity of Canada's Afghanistan mission objective, Canada must set a clear objective. In 2001 the objective set by the international community was to build a new Afghan nation by promoting reconstruction, reform, and development that would improve the stability and security environment and expand the Afghan government's legitimacy. Afghans dreamt of such a secure nation and poured their hearts into electing a president to lead them.
Their dreams were shattered, not because their material well-being has not been met. In fact, given the zero-base capacity with which the Afghanistan transitional government started, progress in the post-Taliban period in social and economic sectors has been commendable and has overreached the achievement of other south Asian countries within the first five years of their independence.
Afghans acknowledge these successes, but their priority is human security. In reality, security sector reform, the prerequisite to stability, became a secondary affair in the interest of rushing the political objectives of the Bonn process. The Afghan security forces and the army are not yet strong enough to resist aggression. The police force is unable to win the trust and confidence of the people. Reforms to the Ministry of Interior Affairs have not been implemented, and access to justice is non-existent.
The legitimacy crisis of the Afghan government could be abated through a leadership role taken by Afghans and with a coordinated donor strategy supporting the leadership. Instead, domination of Afghanistan's institution building process by the international community has tilted the entire process of nation building into a decline from which Afghanistan may not recover, ever.
The international community's response to institution building is totally uncoordinated. Despite the rhetoric of coordination by addressing the Afghanistan Compact benchmarks, it is quite clear that the international community has no shared vision, much less a common strategy.
To stabilize and secure the state, we must develop firm strategies and guidelines to address the central objective of our Afghan mission through the use of our defence, diplomacy, and development instruments. No project, program, action, or dialogue should be approved and implemented without screening it through the lens of the strategic objective. To what extent would a program, project, or policy serve the cause of strengthening the Afghan government's control and hold up its territories?
To this day, no clear strategy has been established and shared with the Afghan government or the Canadian public except the make-believe that quick impact projects will win the hearts and minds of Afghans. Quick impact projects are a temporary force protection, but not long-term legitimacy for the Afghan government.
On the other hand, the financing of national programs designed and delivered by the Afghan ministries do earn the support of the people. There is evidence of that. It is not management-efficient to finance similar programs through bilateral project assistance mechanisms, as suggested by the Manley panel.
The national programs are planned as large multi-donor programs with a sector-wide approach and financed through multilateral organizations. Accountability and reporting mechanisms are built in. If these are not found adequate by the Canadian government, tighter accountability requirements might be demanded, but just for the sake of tracking Canadian dollars.
Parallel bilateral project interventions will only manage to undermine the government-delivered programs. Observe the “do no harm” principle by avoiding an approach that is counterproductive to the objective of expanding the Afghan government's legitimacy.
Canada can bring value-added to multilaterally financed programs through inputs into critical policy dialogue and influencing critical reform directions and actions. This is a role that Canada has successfully played as a middle country for decades and earned a good reputation.
On the effectiveness of aid, expenditure tracking alone cannot make aid effective. Performance measurements for aid effectiveness is essential. Results on the ground in terms of addressing the strategic objectives of the Canadian mission in stabilizing the country and legitimizing the authority of the Afghan government will determine the effectiveness of aid.
On state building linked to capacity building, at the base of the state-building agenda lies capacity building. With a $1.6 billion investment in capacity building, the international community has failed to build sustained capacity in the critical Afghan ministries and institutions. Capacity buying and replacement for quick and easy management solutions have failed to build sustained capacity. A slew of overpaid, inexperienced, and untrained recent graduates from the northern countries have used ODA resources to develop their own capacity, working in the ever-expanding aid industry that has engulfed Afghanistan.
On aid dependency and the poppy economy, effort must be devoted to free Afghanistan from aid dependency and the curse of opium. A government's primary accountability is to its people. Both overdependence and long-term dependence of a government on aid transfers the government's accountability from its citizens to the donor community. This is undesirable. Therefore, an exit strategy and a sustainability plan should be an integral part of the Canadian aid and development strategy in Afghanistan.
With respect to the poppy economy, even limited legalization of the poppy will be a disaster in a country where there is no rule of law. As experts say, there is no silver bullet but to address farmers' needs through integrated rural development programs. This is not a short-term proposition.
I turn now to the volume of aid and number of Canadian civilian deployments. These are issues that need to be scrutinized well before implementation. Large volumes of aid will be of no consequence if not properly programmed, producing results on the ground. Disbursement is not an indicator of success.
Although decentralization of decision-making authority to the field is a critical issue, deployment of a large number of civilian officials is not necessarily the most effective response. It is not the number that matters, but the quality and experience. Owing to the insecure situation in Afghanistan, recruitment of experienced field officers is difficult. Placement in the most complex part of the world of a large number of recent graduates with no overseas experience, few analytical skills, and meagre networking abilities will not serve any useful purpose.
The living and work conditions and benefits and allowances have vastly improved when compared with the time we were first deployed. The Canadian government had basically exploited the first batch of officers and paid no attention to the horrific living and work conditions they were forced into.
The sacrifices made by the very dedicated first ambassador and his small three-member team remain unrecognized. As the only CIDA representative, I worked 18 hours a day to program and disperse $150 million in the first year. Our government should look into every possible instrument to attend to the needs of the current and future generations of civilians posted in Afghanistan.
Lastly, is this war winnable? This is a million-dollar question. My response is that this war can be won only if the combat is accompanied by an appropriate state-building strategy and Afghan-government-led negotiation and reconciliation with the various levels of recruits within the Taliban. You cannot kill them all. The solution must be political. Bringing them within the rubric of the political order is the only sustainable solution.
Thank you.