KABUL - The Afghan government and its
North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies are
struggling to bring stability to Afghanistan as
NATO's stabilizing efforts are being undermined by
bad governance.
Reforming government
institutions and rebuilding vital economic
infrastructures should have been the priority
since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001.
In fact, during the past three decades of
continuous conflicts and civil wars and the Taliban's
assumption of power in 1996,
Afghanistan's administration and economic system
became paralyzed and dysfunctional.
The
country has not seen economic progress since the
Soviet invasion in 1979. The middle class
disappeared, the best-educated people left the
country, and all signs of modern education and
government institutions were replaced by a
traditional, not to say archaic or "backward",
system.
Since the fall of the Taliban, the
effectiveness of the governing authority has been
mediocre at best. Afghanistan has not been able to
reform a corrupt and antediluvian administrative
structure. While the Taliban and their foreign
allies are the cause of many troubles, bad
governance also contributes to the worsening of
the country's situation.
Despite
international attention and the presence of NATO
forces, as well as billions of US dollars in aid,
nothing substantial in terms of reconstruction has
been accomplished. Even in relatively peaceful
provinces, popular frustration over government
ineptitude is mounting.
Two aspects of an
efficient and effective administration,
performance and accountability, are entirely
absent from the Afghan administration. Rampant
nepotism eliminates the notion of merit and
competency. In the absence of effective government
actions and activities, the functionality of the
government's vital institutions is reduced even in
the immediate periphery of Kabul. Deficiencies in
government services force the villagers in the
south and east of the country to turn to the
Taliban for security, justice, and protection of
their private property.
Corruption has
become a common practice in the country, seriously
undermining NATO's effort to win the "hearts and
minds" of Afghans. Without an effective monitoring
system, administrative corruption could undermine
all financial efforts to develop the Afghan
economy. Despite widespread cases of corruption
and mismanagement of funds, not a single corrupt
senior official has been brought to trial, much
less seen justice.
Ordinary Afghans
believe that some of the corrupt high officials
are implicitly protected by powerful NATO
countries. NATO ends up bearing the brunt of the
blame in part because the Afghan Parliament does
not have the capacity to monitor the government's
activities.
But international institutions
have made their share of mistakes. With a mandate
to reform the Afghan administration, they have
failed in their mission. The misunderstanding and
lack of communication between foreign advisers and
Afghan administrators has ensured that the pace of
administrative reforms is very slow, despite the
presence of a significant number of foreign
advisers and allocation of plenty of financial
resources.
The majority of Afghan high
officials, who have come from Western academic
institutions, have limited management skills.
Sometimes they have difficulties reconciling
modern concepts with the reality on the ground. In
addition, higher salaries in non-governmental and
other foreign organizations attract the best civil
servants from crucial positions in Afghan
administration.
As a result of
dysfunctional administration, President Hamid
Karzai is losing the broad popular support and
legitimacy that he had enjoyed before the
presidential elections in 2004. People in remote
provinces distrust the central government and are
tired of unfulfilled promises. Until now, Kabul
has failed to recognize priorities in each
province, and the bulk of aid provided by foreign
donors is unaccounted for.
Decentralization in public administration
has been a major policy in many developing
countries. Why should Afghanistan become the
exception? A centralized education system, a
centralized economic policy, a centralized
heath-care system, and similar inefficient and
ineffective centralized systems are bound to fail
in Afghanistan as well as elsewhere.
As in
developed countries, the criteria of
responsiveness and accountability should become
the norm in Afghan public administration. In fact,
local-government officials, instead of being
accountable to the people and responsive to their
needs, are following ill-advised directives from
the central government in Kabul.
To
achieve the long-term goal of stability and
progress in the country, people should be given
the opportunity to participate directly in their
own local political life by electing provincial
governors as an alternative to their arbitrary
appointment by the central government. The
initiation of political debates about the
possibility of alternative governing systems in
Afghanistan, which would provide a greater role
and political participation for people living in
remote provinces, should be encouraged. Indeed,
modern effective governing systems well suited to
the geography and ethnic mosaic of the country
should be considered as potential alternatives to
the current failed centralized governing system.
Indeed, the growing administrative
corruption combined with recent resurgence of
Taliban attacks in the northern and western
provinces is a major cause for the degradation of
security throughout the country. This is a signal
for a deeper problem that, if not dealt with
appropriately and in a timely way, could expand
resentment and insecurity to the relatively
peaceful northern and western provinces.
It is incumbent on NATO countries to help
the Afghan government reform its old and
inefficient institutions. The stakes are too high
to let a dysfunctional government undermine NATO's
efforts to stabilize the country.
Haroun Mir was an aide to the
late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's former
defense minister. He works as a consultant in
Kabul and is a policy analyst for International
Affairs Forum.
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