Government wants greater role in reconstruction

An Afghan minister told IRIN on Wednesday that he wanted his government to have a greater say in how humanitarian and reconstruction aid was utilised and for there to be better coordination of the overall aid effort. "The people need us to deliver; we can, but we need more resources as a government to do this," Ali Asghar Paiman, the deputy minister of planning, said as he shivered in his unheated government office. Only about one-fifth of donor funds for Afghanistan have reached government channels to date, according to September's figures from Kabul's Donor Assistance Database (DAD). Paiman's call came as key international NGOs operating in Afghanistan expressed concern over how few resources were reaching Afghanistan's interim authority to enable it to perform a more active role in the rebuilding process. "The donors have put the Afghan government in a Catch 22 situation. Kabul doesn't currently have the capacity to manage the reconstruction effort. To get that capacity, they need funding, but they are not being given it because they cannot demonstrate the ability to spend it wisely," Paul O'Brien, Afghanistan Advocacy Coordinator for CARE International told IRIN. Observers say donors should immediately launch a coordinated initiative to enhance skills and expertise within Afghan ministries both at national and provincial level. "Civil servants average US $30 per month; attracting talented Afghans to government just cannot happen unless the international community boosts this to something realistic," an interior ministry employee told IRIN. In Tokyo international donors pledged $5.25 billion for the reconstruction of the country between 2002 - 2006. This year, donors were due to come up with $1.8 billion, but considerably less has reached the country. Emergency needs have soaked up much of the money, leaving reconstruction in many quarters all but stalled. The process could give President Hamid Karzai's fledgling administration a much-needed peace dividend, critical for enhancing stability, particularly outside Kabul. "It's important that a government that was elected by its people leads this [reconstruction] process and sets the priorities, otherwise there could be a nasty backlash," Anita Anastacio, the Mercy Corps representative in central Afghanistan, told IRIN. But many donors retain serious reservations about channelling aid through an inexperienced government that contains competing regional strongmen with powerful armies at their disposal. "Afghanistan, in the eyes of some donors, has not yet reached a level of stability where millions if not billions of dollars can be confidently invested," Rafael Robillard, coordinator of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), told IRIN in Kabul. Corruption at the lower level, and lack of ministerial transparency remain problematic too. "Our satellite dish was held up at the airport for months because we did not pay a bribe," one NGO chief told IRIN. But the deputy planning minister believes that donors can be given all the guarantees necessary with built-in penalties for financial abuse. "Give us the resources and we can demonstrate that we can spend properly," Paiman said. Trust funds jointly administered by international financial organisations like the World Bank and government are helping to alleviate fears that reconstruction money will disappear. Various strategies are being tried to balance the concerns of donors with the need of the interim authority to demonstrate to Afghans that it is delivering roads, schools, clinics, security and investment. "The international NGO culture has to change from planting the flag to operating more closely with slimmed-down accountable ministries," Robillard added. The planning ministry has already begun to coordinate the work of up to 1,000 local and international NGOs much more closely through better liaison. "This is already paying off, but there's a long way to go," Paiman said.