IRIN Interview with Chairman of Afghan Support Group

The Federal Republic of Germany currently holds the Presidency of the 16-strong Afghan Support Group (ASG), the donor body that provides the bulk of humanitarian assistance to Afghans in the region. Following this year’s mid-term review, Ambassador Hans-Joachim Daerr told IRIN that the donor group was actively looking at ways of providing Afghans with more sustainable aid, in particular the farmers and labourers who were impoverished by last year’s poppy cultivation ban.

Daerr maintained that the lack of a viable government partner in Afghanistan meant foregoing longer-term structural projects. Instead, the donor body had agreed on the need for more sophisticated agricultural and irrigation projects, in addition to ongoing emergency aid. However, the recent harassment of relief workers by the Taliban on the grounds that aid was “politically motivated” had not been welcome. Daerr added that the international community was providing assistance to over 4 million Afghans, while the number of people in need this year was estimated to be almost double that figure. Halting this support would be a “catastrophe” for Afghans, and Daerr was sceptical as to whether other initiatives could match the volume of aid provided by the 16 ASG countries.

QUESTION: What were the most significant developments that came out of the mid-term review meeting held on 7 and 8 June in Islamabad?

ANSWER: It was the first mid-term review. We are convinced now that having a mid-term review, as opposed to only a year-end review, is an improvement for the Afghan Support Group. We agreed that the political and humanitarian situation is bad.
There is no political solution in sight and the humanitarian situation is deteriorating, meaning an increased need for aid. We did a stock-take on what has been firmly committed or spent, and what is in the pipeline.

By mid-May [the cut-off date for collecting the figures] we had a projected contribution of about US $260 million from the 16 ASG governments for support to Afghan people in Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, to refugees outside Afghanistan. That was the amount planned for support in 2001, and as assessed by mid-May. The other interesting, and even more positive, figure is that firm commitments and disbursements up to the mid-May cut-off date are slightly more than $200 million. So, already more than three-quarters has been firmly committed or disbursed. This is an increase over last year, which had disbursements of $229 million over the whole year. This allows us to counter the frequently heard argument of ‘donor fatigue’. There is nothing like donor fatigue. Compared to last year, there is already a substantial support, and $260 million may not be the last word until the end of this year. It might be substantially more.

Q: What about the key developments in terms of the ASG’s strategy toward Afghanistan?

A: There were two key areas of discussion. The first was how to respond to what looks like an almost complete implementation of the Taliban ban on poppy growing. With respect to the Taliban and their response as an authority, which should at least allow humanitarian aid in its country, they don’t have a very positive performance in our view.

The only area where they really came out with positive change was the implementation of the poppy ban. We agreed that this was the case, and it creates a need for improving or sustaining livelihood for two groups affected by the ban - the farmers who grew poppy and the day-labourers who made a living out of working in the fields. It is important to do something for these two groups to give the signal that wherever there is a positive development, the donor community will respond in a constructive way and engage the Taliban in a hopefully positive way.

Q: Can you provide any details on how the ASG plans to respond to the poppy cultivation ban?

A: We have agreed, and this has already happened this week, to ask the competent aid agencies to come up with a short list of projects aimed at farmers and day-labourers. The next step will be to decide how to fund it, either out of existing commitments, or by quickly mobilising other funds.
There is a critical time window, as we have to do something before farmers and other parties concerned go into the next cultivation season.

Specifically, we are talking about the provision of seeds for alternative crops, helping them to restore irrigation for other crops, and similar programmes. For the farm-labourers we are looking at food-for-work programmes. In terms of timing, we need to get into implementation of projects by September or October. By November, in many areas of Afghanistan, the decision to cultivate is already taken. On the basis of these proposals we will have to decide whether we need a special meeting to start, or whether we can do it in a pragmatic way. We have decided to keep the momentum going.

Q: You mentioned two key developments which came out of the ASG mid-term review. The response to the poppy ban was one, what was the other key area?

A. In early planning of the mid-term review we said that while we do the traditional “look backward and look forward”, we should also critically review the ‘tool set’ we use for the Afghan people in humanitarian need situations and beyond. We agreed that there is a need to add a longer-term perspective, focusing on sustainable development, to the present emergency relief tools. This requires careful use of food aid - to try and get a development effect out of emergency relief, such as in good food-for-work programmes.

It may mean trying to get into longer-term planning of programmes, which might also draw on budget lines beyond relief. Afghanistan has been a country in civil war for more than 20 years, and going into the fourth year of a drought. Yet, we are basically working with emergency relief measures and year-to-year budgets which are intended for unforeseen disasters like heavy rain and earthquakes. In Afghanistan, the combination of man-made and natural disasters for over two decades is a special case.

Q: Is the current situation that aid agencies are not able to provide long-term development assistance to Afghanistan due to the country’s ‘pariah’ status?

A: Most of the 16 [ASG] countries, if not all, are not making normal use of the tools of development aid, because that requires a partner government to make contracts with. This is a precondition which is not fulfilled in the case of the Taliban government due to the lack of partner quality. The other precondition is a perspective of stability and peace which allows for reconstruction or development, as opposed to a floating environment of civil war and catastrophe, which makes it difficult to go for longer-term projects. But there is a grey zone in between. Even in this present situation, we should look beyond the horizon of disaster relief measures.

We will not, for instance, be able to build power stations. This is clearly something we wouldn’t do with a lack of a government partnership. We are thinking in terms of food-for-work programmes, more complex schemes than just food distribution. This would involve stabilising the situation by combining food aid, provision of seed corn and advice on how to change to new agriculture products under drought conditions. There are projects [for] restoring irrigation systems, improving tube wells and enlarging irrigated areas.

Some areas are problematic as they could be seen as having influence on the conflict, such as the reconstruction of roads. Here we would opt for local feeder roads, and not long distance militarily important roads. We did some preliminary brainstorming. There was, however, an overall agreement that we must go beyond the narrow limit of emergency relief only.

Q: What is your view on the reasons behind the increasing hardline position being taken by the Taliban and the narrowing of the humanitarian operating space for aid agencies inside Afghanistan?

A: The last point of discussion in our conference was on the problematic evolution of the framework conditions for help. By that I mean there have been many moves on the Taliban side to try to create problems and to complicate the working conditions of aid workers in Afghanistan. We agreed, and this morning contacted the Afghan representation here to make them aware that we see that as a threat to an altogether positive programme of aid for Afghan people this year. I was listing up all that has happened over the last month from raiding hospitals to the potential closure of WFP bakeries, the idea of having all foreigners under a conduct of ‘dos and don’ts’.

All this together does not look good. It is difficult to interpret this trend. One worsening element is harassment of NGOs by the Taliban and increasingly by non-Afghan people working on the Taliban side. You might wonder whether there are elements of the Taliban who wish to see all foreign aid work come to an end.

Certainly, there is somewhere a limit of what we can tolerate if the situation worsens. However, the picture is fuzzy. We get signals that this is not the final position.

So we decided to express our concerns and appeal to the Taliban to maintain conditions under which we can continue this work. To illustrate the volume [of assistance], some experts attending the conference said that about 4 million Afghans are supported by measures financed by the ASG. The need is probably twice that, about 8 million [out of 20 million]. So although this year’s aid programme looks good, it still falls short of the actual needs. Imagine the catastrophe if all these programmes came to a grinding halt?

You may have seen the interview [on 13 June] by the Islamabad-based Taliban ambassador who went to report to his government. He said [in a BBC interview] that the Taliban was not interested in politically conditioned foreign aid, and they would count on other countries to make up for that. He said they would not be worried if the UN would halt support, which they see is ‘politically conditioned’. I think they are misunderstanding the UN.

First of all, the UN includes the ASG, but it’s not only ASG donor countries. It includes all Islamic countries, as well as Pakistan - we are all the United Nations. While we welcome any other contributions to the Afghan people from countries other than those 16, I am pretty sceptical that they would make up for the volume that we put together. We have no figures because there is no transparency. A few Islamic countries are known to support Afghanistan in kind, maybe sometimes financially. But my impression is that it is much smaller than what the ASG donor group provides.

Q: In the pre-ASG joint UNDP/World Bank meeting in Islamabad on 6 June, prominent Pakistani writer and author Ahmed Rashid interpreted the increased harassment by the Taliban as a preparation by the authorities to force the UN out of Afghanistan in the near future. What is your perspective?

A: I can’t exclude it, but, as I said, we get conflicting signals which are not coherent. There might be some elements who are on that radical track and would just add to the harassment until they see their desired result.
But I think the majority is still aware of how important outside humanitarian support is, and aware that there is nobody who could step in and make up for it. So I think we have good reason to hope for a prolonged debate on how to solve these problems and create a better environment for aid workers. But I don’t see anything like a finally decided series of steps leading to an ultimate consequence.
There is a red line somewhere, of course, and I seriously hope that we don’t get too close to that red line. But there are no guarantees.

Q: What is Germany’s strategy during its ASG presidency?

A: This job of chairing the donor coordination group does not require grand visions and a set of new concepts. We took up the suggestion of a mid-term review, tried to add an element of brainstorming to the stocktaking and planning business. But basically it is to optimise the coordination and the generation of support. We have no traditional government to government development cooperation with Afghanistan. We would of course like to revert to that as soon as possible, but it is not possible yet, so we are on the emergency relief track. We try to do as much as possible, and in a way that has the maximum sustained effect.

Q: Over the past year, have you seen a shift in donor attitude towards Afghanistan, given the scale of the crisis?

A: Personally in my two-and-a-half years Afghan experience, I haven’t seen much of a change in donor attitude. I don’t know if there was a slowdown of activities in the years before. There is a cliché of ‘donor fatigue’, which influences people who don’t look into the figures, and who think it seems plausible in a crisis that lasts for over two decades. As far as the methods to handle it are concerned, the longer it lasts the more you think of how to improve your instruments; how to get better organised; how to handle it in a longer perspective than just as a one-time catastrophe.

Q. What is the ASG’s stance toward the UN-led peace process in Afghanistan?

A. This goes beyond the ASG horizon, although the hope for a peace process is part of the political framework conditions for all our work. Of course we discussed it - the perspective is not very encouraging for the time being. We all have supported the UN effort, especially that of Francesc Vendrell in his effort to prepare the ground for a start of a dialogue of the fighting parties. There have been other tracks followed, like the Loya Jirga approach. Germany, with many other countries, is interested in Afghanistan. There are more than 80,000 Afghan residents in Germany right now, and we have had good long-standing relations with Afghanistan.

However, the only way out is a broad-based peace process. Whether it leads to a broad-based government is another question, but it would include the two fighting parties, and if possible as many other relevant Afghan political forces. That would bring the dialogue of the two parties together with exiled Afghans, because to have a lasting and stable solution and a reasonable chance of reconstruction and development in the country, it is obvious that you need the maximum of those who left the country to return.

Afghanistan, as it is today, will have incredible problems going into a peace mode with a lack of qualification and competence. That is true for the Taliban side as well as the Northern Alliance. But for a lasting peace, you need more than just an agreement between the two fighting parties. One can only hope that once there is the beginning of a process, old structures can be revived, like the lower-level Shura [consultative] Councils, or pre-civil war and pre-Soviet occupation structures. The present status of Afghanistan is that of a country where not only material destruction has reached an incredible dimension, but where the social fabric has been torn apart and about to be completely destroyed.

Q: What is the ASG policy toward sanctions, and more specifically, do you feel that an arms embargo can be enforced and effective against the Taliban?

A: Let me first give you the very limited view of the ASG on that matter. We just looked into assessments which have been made of the impact of sanctions on the humanitarian situation. While you cannot claim that there is no influence at all, all 16 of us are convinced that there is no major impact of the sanctions, because they are tailored as much as possible not to hurt the Afghan people. For example, the ban on the provision of weapons to the Taliban. The European Union position has been for years to ban such exports to all fighting parties. Anyhow, the clear UN Security Council decision should be respected.

Q. What is the ASG policy toward Afghan refugees in Pakistan?

A. We of course have looked into the figures and it is difficult to say how much of our support effort goes to Afghanistan and how much to the Afghan refugees in neighbouring countries.
Our rough estimate is that 80 percent of what we do goes towards Afghans inside Afghanistan and about 20 percent to refugees outside. That means supporting them with food, with medical support, with education, because there you have a longer-term perspective.

We are called upon to provide emergency support and we do so, providing tents to Jalozai as soon as we were allowed to bring them in. We are very interested in seeing progress between UNHCR and the Pakistan government to find a solution on the central issue of screening which of course means screening in and screening out. If you want to be credible with such an approach, you have to conclude on who is a genuine refugee and who is an economic migrant.

Q. What is your longer-term prognosis on Afghanistan? Are you optimistic that conditions will improve, or will Afghanistan be mired in conflict for the next 10 years?

A. Travelling to Afghanistan and looking at the misery, you simply refuse to be pessimistic. It does not look good, but you want to keep a glimmer of hope. Maybe after what we now see as a clear start into another fighting season, maybe at the end of it there is a small chance to revert to dialogue or a move towards a peace process once the fighting parties realise there is no military solution. Past experience, however, has shown it can go on and on. It’s terrible, but there must be an end and a way out of it.