With the benefit of the broad-brush-strokes picture painted above of the effects of international engagement on the inclusivity and legitimacy of governance in Afghanistan, it is possible to turn to the question of how donors actually seek to understand Afghan domestic politics and how they feed such knowledge into their development programming.
To ground this analysis in the PSG1 frame that drives this research inquiry, a brief prior reflection on the status of the New Deal in Afghanistan is useful. In general terms, Afghanistan has been an enthusiastic driving force behind the New Deal (mostly its Ministry of Finance), viewing it as an instrument that can help bring greater alignment about between government and donor priorities, as well as ensure larger on-budget donor contributions to strengthen the administrative capacities of the Afghan state. Several interviewees indicated that the relevant staff at the Ministry of Finance are savvy, skilled and have sought to use the New Deal as leverage to get donors to rally behind government priorities and spending mechanisms. This, however, has been difficult sailing as many donors pursue their own foreign policy interests in Afghanistan that do not necessary align well with government priorities, face parliamentary restrictions back home and/or have doubts about the administrative and fiduciary capacities of the Afghan government. In general, support for New Deal type measures and proposals seems to have been higher amongst smaller donor countries.
An additional factor that has complicated New Deal ‘implementation’ is that the country already featured a rich array of strategies and frameworks with particular interests and momentum behind them. One could consider the several Afghan National Development Strategies (ANDS: 2005–08 and 2008–13), the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework (TMAF: 2014–24) and the Self-reliance through Mutual Accountability Framework (SMAF: 2015–19).[41] As noted in a recent assessment of New Deal implementation, ‘the New Deal appears to have weakest resonance in countries with multiple political priorities and frameworks’.[42] This is definitely the case in Afghanistan and therefore the majority of the interviews carried out for this report did not use the PSG1 or New Deal lens to inquire into donor support for legitimate and inclusive politics. Although the New Deal is generally known across the donor community in Afghanistan, it is not implemented in programme-type fashion. Rather, some of its elements are pursued through other frameworks, such as the TMAF, while others are not really taken up at all. For example, the TMAF can be considered as a ‘compact’, in New Deal parlance. However, if one understands compacts as country-specific translations of the entire New Deal package, the TMAF is a partial compact only.[43] A key difference from the perspective of this report is that the TMAF restricts its understanding of ‘legitimate and inclusive politics’ to elections and the accountability of the administrative apparatus of government, thus largely ignoring issues such as parliamentary oversight, the quality of political leadership, civil society voice and engagement, the role of media, informal/non-state governance mechanisms, conflict resolution methods and peace negotiations.[44]
The tools that donors use to make sense of Afghan politics – and their limitations
Helpfully, the interviews consistently pointed to the same set of tools that donors use to gain a better understanding of Afghan politics. It was impressive how frank many donor interviewees were about the limitations of the tools at their disposal and how committed they were to doing as good a job as possible in spite of this. The level of self-reflection that could be observed was high. At least five such tools could be identified:
Bilateral diplomatic conversations: These are typically the bread-and-butter conversations that diplomats at embassies have with government officials, politicians, opposition leaders, civil society representatives, tribal leaders, journalists and other leading social-political figures. The interviews indicated that such conversations are typically ad hoc, incident- or inquiry-driven and that the knowledge they generate tends to remain within a limited circle of individuals, although some of it obviously finds its way back to capitals in the form of code cables. A particular problem in Afghanistan is the combination of two conflicting factors. On the one hand, the number of interlocutors one needs to speak with to gain an understanding of domestic political developments is high, owing to the present fragmentation of power. On the other hand, the range of interlocutors that most donors can actually speak to is significantly restricted, because of mobility and hosting constraints (largely government officials and other donors).
Occasional countrywide conflict or political-economy analysis: Most donors commission a form of broader conflict or political-economy analysis every so often to generate a big-picture understanding of what is going on in the country in political, security, economic and social terms. While useful, especially for staff who are new to diplomatic representations (of which there are many, given the high turnover), such analyses were regarded by many donor interviewees as being merely one-off exercises, based on partial information, owing to the tight timelines under which they were produced and/or the poor quality of information available more generally. According to the interviewees, these analyses lacked a thoughtful and structural link with broader strategic, policy and programming design processes. The latter requires, for example, the ability to really understand complex analytical products and then turn (some of) their recommendations into action. Such capabilities are rare among donors, given the severe constraints in terms of either staff, skill or time.
Project-specific political-economy or conflict analysis: Nearly all donors conduct conflict sensitivity, do-no-harm or political-economy analysis at the inception or design phase of new development programming initiatives as a matter of course. This tends to produce a snapshot that informs programme design, flags some risks and leads to inclusion of some mitigating measures. The problem here is that such analysis is usually done once, at the start of a programme, and not repeated, whereas the political context in which a programme operations, or which it may seek to influence, changes. Moreover, there is a significant shortage of scenario-planning type analysis that can support programme development during its lifetime by thinking through different political events and their implications for programming up front. In a country like Afghanistan that features a rapid pace of political events, change and reversal, this means donor programmes are typically ill equipped to respond to political events, let alone to anticipate them. Finally, several interviewees indicated that even when the analysis is of good quality, it still takes highly skilled programme managers to make effective use of it. These skills were generally considered to be in short supply;
Employment of local staff: All donors employ local Afghan staff in an effort to complement and compensate for the knowledge issues that result from the high turnover rates of their expatriate staff and their general lack of deep knowledge of Afghan domestic politics. Some donors even rely entirely on such staff, given the mobility restrictions that their expatriate staff face. However, in general little thought seems to have been given to taking account of the interests, bias and/or agendas such local staff themselves are bound to have, their potential vulnerability to corruption and/or the reliability of their own knowledge base. Moreover, the knowledge of local staff seems to be used mostly through personal interactions and task-driven group discussions, without much attention being paid to how their knowledge can be used in more structural fashion and be better triangulated.
Intelligence: A number of donors have access to unusually high volumes of intelligence resulting from their military-diplomatic presence. In many cases, this presents a rich trove of information that could inform development programming. Yet in practice much of this intelligence indirectly promotes a military framing of issues, focuses on security matters and in particular on the fight against the Taliban – thus limiting its usefulness for development. As one analyst noted: ‘Any batallion-level intelligence shop could produce a sophisticated “network diagram” for the main local Taliban group [...], but where were the network diagrams for the district governor or the provincial police chief?’[45]
Instead of conducting analysis to develop a better understanding of Afghan politics themselves, donors could also choose to outsource it. As a matter of fact, there is no real shortage of high-quality analysis of many aspects of Afghan politics, with local organizations or local branches of international organizations such as The Asia Foundation (TAF), The Liaison Office (TLO) and the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network (AAN) leading the charge. According to the interviews conducted, key challenges for donors in making good use of the work that such organizations produce are at least threefold. First, donors themselves have limited absorption capacity. Many donors were very frank about their modest ability to absorb analysis in the daily flurry of headquarter requests, visiting missions, bureaucratic requirements and responding to events – especially as much of this falls on the shoulders of the same understaffed political affairs units. Second, donors tend to engage research-type outfits such as those above on the basis of specific activities or incidents rather than on a structural basis, which removes an incentive for deeper and more regular cooperation. Third, donors do not tend to make a dedicated effort to feed the analysis produced by such outfits into their activity on an onging basis. In short, outsourcing of political analysis in its present form generates a limited return. For this situation to improve, there is a need for more dedicated and structural processes that link analysis to activities, as well as greater substantive ability on the part of donors to manage and steer research contracts in ways that make them useful to their own policies and programmes.
The interviews suggest that the result of applying all these tools – in terms of understanding Afghan domestic politics – is perhaps best compared to a tourist walking around in a new city, taking snapshots of the main sights and objects of interest. It tends to produce a photo album that references relevant landmarks, some key persons, some idea of connections and a few idiosyncrasies. It does not generate a series featuring the same persons in different situations and actions, let alone a movie providing a more sophisticated narrative over a longer, continuous period of time. In the words of one interlocutor, ‘it creates a situation in which you develop a picture of what is going on politically, but you may miss 70 per cent’. In short, it seems that very few donors take a structural approach to building an increasingly refined understanding of Afghan politics that is subsequently leveraged for political and development-related purposes.
As a result, an essential step for more effective to support to PSG1 in Afghanistan is to develop a broader and more fine-grained understanding of the inner dynamics and relations of Afghan politics. The interviews suggest that increasing support to PSG1 without improving the level of political understanding first runs a substantial risk of doing harm instead of good. As a matter of fact, the donor emphasis on increasing ‘input legitimacy’ that resulted from the 2001 Bonn agreement, i.e. the procedural aspects of electoral democracy, can in all likelihood be explained as least in part as a function of such limited knowledge of how Afghan politics really work.
Internal constraints donors face when trying to understand Afghan politics
Before succumbing to the temptation to make the call for better political analysis the central recommendation of an agenda that seeks to increase donor support for PSG1, two additional issues must be considered. First, what are the internal constraints that donors face in developing a better understanding of Afghan politics and how amenable to change are these constraints?[46] Second, how much knowledge is actually enough for good diplomatic initiatives and good programming? These issues are taken up in this section and the next. Table 2 below inventories the main internal constraints across those donors that were interviewed. No doubt more such constraints can be identified, but those below came through most strongly in the interviews conducted. More importantly, the table’s two right-hand columns suggest to what extent the constraints feature beyond Afghanistan and to what extent present donor policy and development discourse suggests the constraint is amenable to change.
| Constraint | Origins | Impact on ability to support inclusive and legitimate politics | Constraint unique to Afghanistan? | Likely to change in medium term? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strategic internal constraints facing donors | ||||
| (1) An attitude that considers a high level of foreign interference in Afghan governance as normal | This is mainly a function of the large international military, financial and diplomatic presence | It reduces the level of accountability donors believe they have towards the Afghan government and Afghan citizens, which sets a poor example when seeking to stimulate PSG1 | There are few other countries where international engagement is so extensive | No, given a continuous dependency on foreign aid /military support |
| (2) A clear prioritization of fighting the Taliban as overriding policy objective | This is a function of the war on terror that led to the initial US engagement and was broadened through ISAF |
It puts development and governance initiatives in the service of achieving security objectives and short-term stability It accept(ed)(s) levels of poor governance and corruption that have boomeranged back to feed the insurgency |
IOECD donor support is similarly dominated by security considerations in Syria and Iraq | No, given the continuation of the war on terror and attacks in Paris and Brussels |
| (3) A significant level of micro-management by donor parliaments | This is mostly the result of a decade of a large international military presence |
It results in ‘pet provinces’ that enjoy greater support without adequate consideration of how they are governed or what their relation is to the central state It increases the expectation of quick results and reduces strategic patience |
Such scrutiny is usually limited to outbreaks of violence and sustained for short periods only | Yes, as aid and military presence decrease |
| (4) A clear focus on the central government and its agents, institutions and priorities | This is the default setting of most diplomatic activity and development initiatives |
It reduces support for PSG1 at the subnational level It reduces appetite for supporting ‘social contestation’ – i.e. stimulating actors or initiatives that resist non-representive or self-enriching elite capture of the state |
No, it is a standard phenomenon across the globe | While this approach reflects global norms, it can be extended to subnational level |
| (5) High staff turnover | Donor employees seem to spend, on average, about a year in-country |
It fatally impairs the ability to accumulate political knowledge about Afghanistan by reducing both incentives and exposure Poor knowlege management by most donors compounds this issue It allows some Afghan power brokers to play an effective waiting game or take a divide-and-rule approach |
No, this is the case in many conflict-affected postings | No, neither location appeal nor donor budget cuts show signs of improving |
| (6) Poor language skills | By far the majority of donor staff do not speak Dari, Pashtun or Tajik and rely on either English interlocutors or on translation |
This increases a risk of narrative and framing capture by Afghans with experience abroad, which drowns out local voices It makes it difficult to support PSG1 meaningfully beyond Kabul |
No, this is typical for many countries where English, French or Spanish is not widely spoken | It could be changed if greater resources were allocated |
| (7) Significant aversity to personnel risks | Most donors err on the side of caution in protecting the lives of their staff. Most cannot venture outside of Kabul – or even its diplomatic areas |
It limits the range of interlocutors, opinions and interpretations of political developments that donors are exposed to It limits the flow of people and information between donors It facilitates rumour and reduces access to alternative narratives |
This is common only in countries with high levels of daily violence | Better risk-asssesment capabilities could enable a more nuanced approach |
| (8) A limited interpretation of PSG1 | Support for political processes has been focused mostly on electoral democracy and ‘input legitimacy’ |
It prevents questioning how level the playing field for electoral competion actually is It creates electorally legitimized power distortions It largely ignores informal governance mechanisms It prioritizes technically succesful but expensive electoral cycles |
No, but the level of ambition and speed of the electoral calendar has been extra-ordinarily high in Afghanistan | The toolkit can be expanded, but powerful conventions militate against changing this paradigm |
| (9) Facing significant spending pressures | The need to spend donor budgets drives a substantial part of what development units or agencies do | It reduces the bandwidth available for politically informed development programming and interventions to support PSG1 | No | Unlikely as long as aid budget allocation cycles are not made more flexible |
| (10) Successive short-term plans drive international engagement | Development operations remain driven by short-term planning and funding cycles |
‘Operating for 14 years on the basis of 14 one-year plans’ has hindered change efforts that address deeper governance issues needing more time to bear fruit It introduces significant fluctuation in government budgets. This reduces its effectiveness, in turning reducing its legitimacy |
Somewhat, if one takes account of the long period and intense level of international engagement in Afghanistan | It requires longer planning, budget and accountability cycles on the part of most donors |
Table 2 suggests that the range of constraints that stand in the way of improved OECD donor support for PSG1 is both significant and not very likely to change in the medium term. Unless there is considerable mobilization of political energy and capital to rebalance the overall strategic approach to development in Afghanistan (e.g. less security-focused and less central-state-focused), a reallocation of resources from programmes to programme enablers (such as more/better human resources and more sophisticated approaches to risk) and a push to implement some longstanding aid commitments (such as longer programmes), the constraints listed in the table severely limit what OECD donors can realistically do to improve their support for PSG1.
On a final note, one constraint that might have been expected relates to restrictions on the range of Afghan interlocutors donors are allowed to speak with, but this did not feature in interviews. More specifically, the research was unable to identify any legal, political or policy constraints barring donor representatives from speaking with, for example, (former) warlords with very poor human rights records, former Taliban supporters/sympethizers who now hold formal positions within the Afghan government or even Taliban commanders/representatives themselves. Whether such conversations do take place in reality is a different matter altogether, however, as security measures significantly restrict donor mobility. In addition, being allowed to speak with such Afghan interlocutors does not mean that donors actually seek out such conversations.
Transmitting political knowledge into development programming
With the possible exception of project-specific conflict/political-economy type analysis, political analysis and development programming are still largely separated lines of thinking and activity for many of the donors interviewed – despite donor interviewees generally pointing to relatively good collaboration between their diplomatic and development staff/units in-country.[48] In other words, it would appear that there are few structures, procedures, incentives or human resource arrangements that systematically stimulate the use of knowledge generated by general diplomatic activity and development analysis. Neither would it seem that the vast experience and network of contacts that result from development activity is harnessed for the purpose of diplomatic engagement.
A practical challenge that could be identified in this regard concerns the level of specificity of information. Knowledge acquired through general diplomatic analysis or country-level conflict analysis will tend to be fairly general and abstract, while development activities require information on political power and relations at the sector, issue or area level. When they generate this themselves, such information is typically not aggregated upwards in a way that makes it of interest beyond the purpose for which it was originally created.
A more fundamental problem that was identified is that programming cycles are generally too short and rigid to benefit from good analytical inputs. For such inputs to be meaningful, after all, it must be possible to modify the purpose, structure and implementation parameters of programmes. Although some donors are able to do this, the interviews suggest that many are not.[49] One example is that few development programmes in Kunduz were proactively adjusted, despite local networks having already provided credible early warning signals in June/July that a Taliban offensive would shortly be on the way (Kunduz fell to the Taliban for two weeks around the end of September 2015). Apart from raising the moot question of whether development programmes should have the nimbleness to respond quickly to such major security events, it also suggests a certain bureaucratic ‘slowness’ to respond to evidence that does not fit the prevailing – or perhaps desired – understanding of the state of play at a particular point in time. In the view of some interviewees, poor programme adaptability is aggravated by the trend, at least among smaller donors, towards outsourcing programming to multilateral organizations. While this does facilitate donor coordination and brings advantages of scale, it also makes it more difficult for programmes to adapt, since there are more interests that have to be aligned .
Feeding understandings of Afghan domestic politics into development programming thus encounters three sets of problems. First, there is often a lack of fit between the specifications of supply of, and those of demand for, analysis. Second, bilateral development programmes are not necessarily nimble enough to accommodate deeper political insights. Third, multilateral development programmes are slower in responding to such insights as they represent pooled resources. In consequence, it is worth considering whether they should aim to benefit from higher-quality analysis up front, or else focus on issues that are relatively less sensitive to political relations and events – which is already what happens, to some extent.
Consequences of limited understanding, internal constraints and partial transmission
The previous sections have noted the limitations of the instruments that donors deploy to deepen their knowledge of Afghan domestic politics, the internal constraints they face in trying to improve this situation and the issues that impede transmission of political knowledge into development programming. What are the consequences of this state of affairs for the ability of donors to improve their support for PSG1 in Afghanistan? A few issues stand out for consideration:
First, donor knowledge about Afghan politics is largely limited to the formal aspects of the national government in Kabul: The average donor staff member develops a limited range of contacts across a few selected ministries in Kabul, fewer civil society organizations and a good number of fellow donors. He/she will spend about a year in Kabul so that when he/she is up and running, it is about time to leave. Yet, over the past decades, formal and informal governance structures in Afghanistan have fused to a significant degree at all levels of governance. Knowledge of this state of affairs is difficult to acquire, but it is essential for getting things done.
Second, Kabul may be a political bubble, but it also is a resource hub: The political reality of Kabul is not the political reality of most of the rest of Afghanistan. It is hard for donors to get a sense of the real state of governance, socio-economic prospects and security throughout the country. Basing activity on impressions, knowledge and analysis acquired in Kabul can create a limited or even distorted picture of what is going on nationwide. This paradoxically may increase the temptation to seek refuge in the more predictable and more recognizable interactions with the formal aspects of the Afghan national government. However, Kabul does remain the site where important resources are distributed. The relative isolation of the donors of these funds creates significant scope for potentially ill-informed decisions about allocations – for example, on the basis of ‘facts’ that have become truth through repetition, or on the basis of narratives that are not exposed to challenge.
Third, direct support for PSG1 is focused on establishing the procedural parameters of electoral democracy: Most of the efforts of the international community to bring about more legitimate and more inclusive politics in Afghanistan have been guided by the ambitious electoral parameters of the Bonn agreement of 2001. This has served the dual logic of improving the ‘input legitimacy’ of Afghan politics (against the historic evidence of the sort of legitimacy that matters most in the country: see section 2) and facilitating a gradual international exit – despite well-known and longstanding flaws in the post-Bonn electoral system.
Fourth, indirect support for PSG1 via improvements to the performance of the institutions of government probably takes insufficient account of the realities of ‘power fusion’: The apparatus of the national government – in particular, sensitive ministries such as those of the interior, justice and defence – represents and executes decisions by elected national politicians only to a certain extent. The fusion of formal and informal power stalls performance improvement initiatives when these threatens vested interests. Interviews suggest that, on average, donors have only a modest grasp of such realities.