Interview with UNDP Deputy Director

During a recent visit to Kabul, United Nations Development Programe (UNDP) Deputy Regional Director for Asia-Pacific, David Lockwood, told IRIN that recovery would need to be carefully dovetailed with ongoing relief aid. With an interim authority leading to a broad-based government by 2003, it was vital to set up rudimentary institutions of governance and revitalise a network of over 2,000 local committees that could facilitate local rehabilitation and governance, he said. QUESTION: What rehabilitation or reconstruction can be done before a broad-based government is in place? ANSWER: Certain urban projects can be restarted immediately, such as projects with Kabul municipalities. I can envisage an urban renewal-type project, expanding food-for-work, providing employment for demobilised troops, not to mention the people of Kabul who don't have any livelihood. In this transitional phase, it's going to be very important to demonstrate that international assistance is coming in. One of the best ways to do that is to provide jobs for those who are otherwise unemployed and to have cash moving into the [local] economy. If we are going to emerge from relief-dependency, the first immediate sectors that we need to build up would be those that the government would normally be providing services for, such as food production, health, education and shelter. These are the primary areas that are back-to-back with a relief programme. During the next twelve months, that's what you'll see the first emphasis on. The dovetailing between relief and recovery [activities]. During the two-year interim period we can begin to develop the institutions of government so that when a broad-based government is in place, it's actually starting to work. It would be important, for example, that the ministry of finance has some officials that the World Bank could talk with. Q: There's a fear that with world attention on Afghanistan, we will see a rush of large reconstruction programmes rather than support to social and community structures. What's your view on investing between the social and physical? A: There certainly has to be a balance. But in order for a government to be able to function, it needs to reach the various parts of the country and that means you do need highways and a communication system that works. It's all gone. The telephones in Kabul are wiped out. Is it going to be managed by the public service or financed by private investment? These are big policy issues that need to be addressed from day one. For example, the supply of electricity and water would be a priority in urban areas. Whether you can privatise that in the early days, I'm not sure. Some of this has to start very quickly. On the other hand, we have been successful in working directly with communities on a small scale to enable them to produce some food, survive and maybe even sell some surplus. Q: Are these micro-credit schemes? A: Not really, they are more like small projects that have been approved by a group in the local council as being a priority. It might be a culvert on a road, it might be a small road, a little irrigation scheme, a village school or health post. Something which clearly has a productivity value for that community. We created a network of about 2,000 village committees [rural shuras] at the sub-district level over the last ten years. We would like to re-activate them as quickly as possible and pump more money through them. The HABITAT programme has the same approach at the urban level with neighbourhood committees. It's the same concept - you bring together a group of people that the community themselves select to take decisions about priorities. It could perhaps become an element in local government with the local shura electing someone to represent them in a district shura. We also hope that the entire aid community could use these committees as a point of dialogue. Q: Regarding security, there has been agreement for the deployment of a multi-national force. Is that a significant development from your perspective? A: As long as there is a security force that people can trust to remain impartial, then it doesn't matter who guarantees the security. Sometimes the best security can be provided by the communities you're trying to help, especially in rural areas. Over the years, we've not had the kinds of problems that may face us now. Because UN assistance has been given all over in areas controlled by various factions, whenever there were changes of power the UN was able to move about quite freely because people knew us from before. However, today we have a group [Taliban regime] pushed out of power and who may presumably try to disrupt what is going on. That becomes a challenge to everybody. Q: How is the UN going to structure itself? A: There will certainly be an integrated UN office here, with a representative of the Secretary-General. Under that, there will be different arms, managed in an integrated fashion. One arm will be recovery and reconstruction. Whereas in East Timor we had an executive authority, where the head of the UN operated as the Governor of East Timor, here we can expect a representative of the Secretary-General providing advice to whatever interim structure is in place, so that decisions are taken by Afghans themselves. Q: What are the next steps following the reconstruction conference [in Islamabad on 22 November]? A: The problem is that the international community is on a roll. Politicians in virtually all the OECD countries are ready and anxious to be seen to be supporting the reconstruction of Afghanistan. So parliaments are ready to start voting money and we are expected to have a preliminary needs assessment ready for the Tokyo ministerial meeting where we would hope there would be pledges made to take advantage of the political goodwill. To have a full scale needs assessment by mid-January, it is going to be difficult to have a fully consultative process. Q: Are you saying that we need "second-best now"? A: That's right. Firstly, we'll produce something with as much Afghan input as we can through those colleagues who participated in the meeting we just had. It would then be good to talk to the interim authority to get their broad-backing for what's in it. In the spring we would hope to send teams throughout the country in order to discuss with local communities and NGO's. We would expect a buy-in from Afghans but also donors too. We need to link the donors own interest with the assessment. Securing funds afterwards is a lot easier if there's a built-in ownership of the project. Q: Do you have any idea on the amount of funds that would be available for reconstruction? A: We did a study in 1993 which was an immediate rehabilitation strategy document. Bearing in mind problems of capacity and implementation, for a two-year period we calculated US $650 million [1993]. If we include food aid, the international community over the last three years has spent about US $3 billion. That was at a time when there was no reconstruction. So there is a huge humanitarian ongoing need that overlaps into this, and it is going to be a long time before that need is over.