World Bank considers first step

Since the 1980's, the World Bank (WB) has kept a 'watching brief' on Afghanistan from the safety of neighbouring Pakistan, and maintained that it could not engage in a country that had no internationally recognised government and was still locked in conflict. Faced with a similar scenario some twenty years on, there are now murmurings from within the Bank that it should explore ways of dealing with crisis countries such as Afghanistan. Although it was perhaps too early to prepare plans for reconstruction, the Bank has been discussing smaller but significant initiatives on how to engage in Afghanistan. John Wall, WB Country Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told IRIN that although it was too soon to draft reconstruction plans, the Bank was considering conducting a nation-wide household survey. Normally reserved for more stable countries, the aim of such a survey was to collect economic data that would form the basis of any subsequent reconstruction plan. Wall cautioned that it was still early days however. Although the "Living Standard Measurement" survey was being discussed, Wall was not sure whether the survey implementers would be keen to undertake the task in present-day Afghanistan. The survey would clearly not be intended to address the current humanitarian crisis in the country and Wall pointed out that the Bank was "not a relief agency, but involved in reconstruction. Doing such a survey would still fit with our watching brief, but it would give us a basic baseline of data for any reconstruction plans that we wanted to prepare later on". Designed as a standard document used by the Bank worldwide, the survey results would uncover key information on household living standards, such as water use, sanitation, health, education, and family planning. Wall was aware of the fundamental problems of doing such a survey in war-torn Afghanistan. "For a start we'd need to be sure that our teams could work in safety and that we were accepted by whatever government there was. We couldn't have the authorities trying to influence our work. We don't want to have a distorted questionnaire, which would negate the findings. And we'd need support from both [warring] sides." Committing to a national survey would be a significant step for the Bank which for the last 20 years has resisted investing too much in a reconstruction plan because "the prospects for being useful and timely are simply not there". Wall explained that there had been discussion in the early 1990's of drafting a reconstruction fund that could be used at a later date, but that it had been repeatedly shelved for lack of a recognised government. "Any move towards a reconstruction fund would have to depend on the credibility of an Afghan government, and that isn't apparent yet," said Wall. However, even the presence of a legitimate government does not guarantee success. Wall pointed out that many of the more ambitious World Bank initiatives in Pakistan had "fallen foul of poor governance and political abuse". He also acknowledged that shifting attitudes to Pakistan's government meant that the country could soon be benefiting from disbursements of over US $200 million per year