Humanitarianism & International Development: The Failure of Foreign Aid in Afghanistan

Ted talk by Maliha Chishti

* Maliha implemented one of the first training and capacity-building programs for women in post-conflict Afghanistan and served as the Social Impact Consultant for Canada’s first and largest ‘signature’ aid project in Kandahar Afghanistan

Why is there a need humanitarians in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is home to many worldly issues that have been progressing for the better part of three decades. For instance, it has the world's longest-running major armed conflict, poor protection of civilians, and the Taliban is still prevalent in society. Humanitarians, specifically the International Rescue Committee who have been doing work since 1988, go into Afghanistan and focus on health, education, safety, economic wellbeing, and power. Humanitarians are trying to help the country so people stop dying at such a young age. 

Many celebrities do work in Afghanistan as well. For example, Angelina Jolie opened an all-girls school in Afghanistan in 2013. The school was funded by proceeds from Angelina's own jewelry collection. She intends to raise more money using this foundation and raise more money to build more schools. 

After 9/11

After September 11, 2001, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that there will be a potential need for more generous humanitarian assistance to Afghan society. So, to meet the needs of the people of Afghanistan, the international community provided $584 million to meet humanitarian needs of around 7.5 million Afghan citizens. This money was supposed to go towards food, shelter, water, and other basic needs of survival, but now more than 15 years later, the United States has forked over more than $100 billion in aid and not a single constructive institution has come together for the Afghans, who did nothing to instigate the destruction the U.S. caused in the first place. With ruthless warfare still a fixture of everyday life, the hospitals and schools the United States has paid to construct or is still in the process of financing, are bombed by the Taliban - as more than a hundred schools were last year, per the United Nations – while other institutions pay the price too, such as the Doctors Without Border hospital that the United States bombed just last year. So, after all of this money spent, the CIA still says that Afghanistan has the world’s highest infant mortality rate, with more than 12 percent of children likely to die before age one.

The bulk of the $12.9 billion in aid to Afghanistan—$9.95 billion—went towards spending on military and security assistance to arm and train Afghan military and police forces.

Trying to make progress... failing miserably. 

There is a major disconnect between Afghanistan and foreign aid. The United States has been in and out of Afghanistan for over a decade and little results have shown in rebuilding the country. The US continues to pour in billions of dollars and unfortunately, there is nothing to show for it. For example, according to an article by World Affairs titled Money Pit: The Monstrous Failure of US Aid to Afghanistan, the United States Agency for International Development thought Afghans and their society were failing to succeed for a few reasons. The first was that the people grew up in a developing country so they are unfortunately already at a loss to begin with. The second reason is because the people are unskilled, disenfranchised, uneducated, neglected, etc. Their plan was to implement a three-year project, taking $50 million to build a program intended to train citizens of this generation to become productive members in Afghan society. The USAID took a look at how the program was progressing after two years and found that there was little to no progress towards their end goal.

More than half the population of Afghanistan is under 25, with an average life expectancy of about 49. With decimated infrastructure and waning access to any of the means typically needed to become a productive, sustaining member of society (healthcare, education, etc.), this is hardly a surprise. The reason why the project was such a failure was because the US thought up this idea, but didn’t commit to the implementation of it and, after handing it over to a contractor, they paid little to no attention to it and it slipped through the cracks. This seems to be a common thread in most Afghan foreign aid projects—so common that calculations say that the US has wasted more than $100 billion to Afghanistan and nothing has really changed.

This irresponsible handling of investments on the United States’ part, most glaring the story of handing over massive societal projects to loosely affiliated contractors, is foolhardy, according to “nearly a dozen government auditing agencies,” the World Affairs wrote. The Government Accountability Office put out a damning report in late 2012 on the failure of both United States aid and United States implementation of aid: in 2007, the Commission onArmy Acquisition and Program Management” found that contract managers “had noexperience managing contracts” and received inappropriate training. In 2011,the report added, the congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting reported“poor performance by contractors had resulted in wasted resources, missions notbeing achieved and the loss of lives.”

During/Post War. What are we doing with the money?

 According to Vice News, the US government has spent $120 billion on rebuilding the private sector of the country, but with no evident result so far. This is a budget capable of reconstructing buildings and cities, building new schools, and investing in a ton of other activities, as stated in the article. Nevertheless, for the thirteen years the US poured money into Afghanistan, the country's private sector failed to fulfill its potential. In fact, as of 2015, we were giving Afghanistan $15.7 billion a year which is 97% of Afghan Gross Domestic Product. This money comes from US taxpayers and various other forms of US organization aid, while only 10% of its economy is legitimate (Seabrook) so, we basically control all of their money with our tax payer money. Business owners were unsure of the future role of American troops and did not want to hire or invest because of other factors, such as bad politics, uncertain tax laws, and the constant threat the Taliban are to the country. 

Is it the US fault for giving too much money?

In contrast to the efforts of that program, the US continued pouring more and more money into Afghanistan each year. More than $10 billion were given in 2010 alone and more than $13 billion in 2011. However, the US forces have been gradually pulling out of Afghanistan since 2010. This leaves uncertainty on whether the money left in the country are going to be used better than in the past with no US army there. Some make the argument that the US has given "too much" money to Afghanistan and they do not know how to manage it. Anyway, the result of the overly ambitious program has not given a single sustainable institution or program back for the United States or for Afghanistan itself (Dhillion). 

USAID, in charge of the whole operation, has given most projects in the country off to independent contractors and have failed to manage and monitor the work that they have done. The Taliban have pillaged numerous new buildings funded by the program and government officials have found creative ways to gain profits for themselves by declaring false information to the US. This whole charade is best described with Heather Barr's words, "the perfect case study of how not to give foreign aid". 

What does this mean for Afghanistan? 

This is a tough question to answer considering the US has been in and out of Afghanistan since 2001 and there is little to show for it. In addition, there is still war going on, thanks to the involvement of the Taliban. For example, on February 11, 2017, at least seven people were killed while many were wounded in a suicide bombing attack outside a bank in Lashkar Gah. The bomber detonated and explosives-packed car next to an Afghan army vehicle as soldiers were going to collect their pay from a bank. It is extremely concerning that this is still happening so many years after the war. There is only so much that humanitarians can do but from research, it seems as though they are still willing to go in there and help out as much as they can.