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‘Afghanistan: The Missing Peace’. Rudaw 2019
Rudaw English correspondent Robert Edwards was in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul when the US-Taliban peace process collapsed in September.
He and a team of Afghan filmmakers documented the hopes and fears of the city’s war-weary population, spoke to those involved in peace talks, and to those who will live with the consequences.
Now, as the peace process gets back on track, this new documentary and six-part written series explores a city anxious for peace – but terrified of the cost.
Read part I, part II, and part III
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Part IV: Aid sector prepares for peace
The United Nations compound in the centre of Kabul, where many Western embassies are also housed, is a gigantic concrete sprawl. The monotonous grey is broken only by the occasional mural championing press freedoms or condemning child marriage. It is a place of straight lines, procedures, spreadsheets, and cleanliness – so unlike the tangled, complicated world that is Afghanistan just feet away. Many of the humanitarians ensconced here rarely step beyond the tall blast walls. It suddenly dawns on me that I haven’t seen a single Westerner since leaving Dubai.
Ian Ridley is the head of UN OCHA in Afghanistan, responsible for humanitarian coordination across the country. After a forensic search of our camera equipment, we are granted access to his office at Palace 7 – a stately home from the time of Afghanistan’s ill-fated monarchy, complete with its own peacock.
Many of my close friends are humanitarians, who freely admit they live a world apart from the contexts in which they work. Here they call it the Karbubble.
“Human beings are economic beings, so they will leave the country for reasons of economics, if their livelihoods are not sustainable,” Ian says, referring to Afghanistan’s 2.5 million registered refugees – although he could easily have meant expats.
The OCHA chief meets us in an ornate conference room, decked out in the UN’s signature blue. “A corporate colour,” he says with a wan smile.
Ian is friendly, welcoming, and, like many Brits, deeply self-deprecating. But he hasn’t got where he is being loose-lipped around journalists. His non-specific answers and polished soundbites are trotted out with the poise and surefootedness of a ballerina in a minefield.
“Conflict has a detrimental impact on the economy. We see that not only here but around the world. And countries that don’t experience conflict on an ongoing basis tend to prosper.”
Ian is on the money here. Afghan workers and businessmen I spoke to that week said they are barely scraping by as the security situation keeps customers at home and eats away at their income.
“By God, there is no work in this country, there is no security and every day there is a suicide attack,” one man told me at his workshop in Shoda Street, where he and his family have been making traditional clay tandoor ovens for the past 40 years. “We come here and just waste our time then go back home. We were selling five, eight, ten, 12 tandoors every day. But now if we sell one or two weekly we are very happy.”
I hear the same from a carpet salesman near my hotel, who sold me a handwoven rug from Herat decorated with a startling motif of tanks and helicopter gunships. “Security affects our business,” the salesman tells me. “If security is good, there will be more customers. If security is not good, naturally customers also disappear.”
The majority of Afghanistan’s refugees are in Pakistan – 1.5 million of them – where the Taliban continues to cultivate recruits and financing. Around 3 million Afghans have migrated west in search of work in Iran, where many young men have been recruited to fight for the Tehran-backed Syrian regime in the Fatemiyon division.
Others have fled further into Turkey en route to Europe. Afghans and Syrians make up the majority of the 63,000 refugees who have already risked their lives crossing into Europe this year. Some secure asylum there, or in the US or Canada. Others, like the Afghan teenagers I’ve met camped out near the French port town of Calais, often turn back or simply drop off the grid.
A sudden outbreak of peace will no doubt throw up new humanitarian challenges as areas of Afghanistan currently out of bounds to aid agencies open up and refugees return en masse.
“The best thing the aid sector can do is to be ready for when peace does come,” Ian says.
Click here to read Rudaw's full interview with Ian Ridley
“There are parts of the country that we currently can’t get to, or we can’t get to regularly. There are a few small parts of the country that we can’t reach at all. And of course we very much hope that as a result of peace we can access those people. So readiness is the most important thing.”
But the aid sector is at pains to keep out of politics.
“We do stand back from that political process. Humanitarians don’t want to be involved directly in that political process. But we can use the time that this process is ongoing to get ready to benefit from peace and reach those people that we haven’t been able to reach for the last weeks, months, and in some cases years.”
If peace talks fail altogether and Afghanistan slips back into civil war, the country will struggle to cope.
“We hope that peace will come and things will improve,” Ian says. “If the opposite happens, and we hope that doesn’t happen, but if the country does slip in the other direction, then clearly humanitarian needs will grow, displacement will grow, there will be even fewer young children, especially young girls, in school.”
“The social infrastructure of the country will be strained. Hospitals, the water facilities, and of course it will have a massive negative impact on the economy. We must remember that the vast majority of people in this country rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. And so that twin shock of increased conflict and what we’re seeing already in climate change would have a devastating impact on Afghanistan.”
Since the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) began tracking civilian casualties in 2009, some 100,000 Afghans have been maimed or killed. Last year, Afghanistan was the world’s deadliest conflict for children, leaving 927 dead.
According to OCHA’s own data, 6.3 million Afghans – around one in five – required some form of humanitarian assistance in 2019. UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, said 3.8 million children needed humanitarian protection this year.
And aid workers themselves are not exempt from harm. This year alone, 27 have been killed in the field.
OCHA requested $611.8 million from its donors to meet this year’s demands. As of October, the agency was 30 percent short.
There are disincentives for donors to deliver, however.
In September, the US cut $160 million in direct funding, accusing Afghan officials of failing to tackle endemic corruption – a rot that has spread to every level of government, bolstering support for armed opposition groups.
Afghanistan is the world’s eighth most corrupt country, currently ranked 172 out of 180 countries by Transparency International.
“In the short term, official development assistance has prevented the collapse of the Afghan state’s core functions,” reads an April 2019 report by Transparency International.
“However, donors’ highly fragmented, poorly executed stabilisation and democratisation measures have strengthened structures of neo-patrimonial governance and allowed parallel structures of service delivery to develop. Moreover, an unknown but significant amount of development assistance ends up funding various armed factions.”
Over the past 18 years, billions have been spent on development, governance, stabilisation, capacity, and all manner of things from the humanitarian glossary. Was it all worth it?
“I think humanitarian aid is always worth it,” Ian says.
“I think the question of has it been worth it is really like asking has it been worth it having an emergency department in a hospital. It’s necessary, it’s needed, it needs to be there. Of course what we would like is for nobody to require the services of that emergency department, but that currently isn’t the world we live in.”
Perhaps I’m being too negative, ever mindful of aid’s disruptive impact on local markets, its role in corruption, and the vast sums squandered on salaries, perks, and per diems. But without it, the suffering here and in all the world’s trouble spots would be far more acute.
“If you’re not a natural optimist, this work isn’t for you,” Ian says, sensing my concern. And in Afghanistan, I gather, this energy and optimism is needed more than ever.
“Now is not the time to take our collective eye off the ball.”
Click here to read part V
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