Donors are finally holding Afghan government accountable

In the midst of escalating Taliban violence across Afghanistan, the Qatar fiasco on talks with the Taliban, and with the final handover of security responsibilities to Afghans and the drastic withdrawal of troops in 2014 looming on the horizon, a Senior Officials’ Meeting of the international community and the Afghan government was held in the first week of July in Kabul, very quietly.

It was a follow up of the Tokyo Conference of 2012. The Tokyo Conference was held with much fanfare with the objective of consolidating international support for Afghanistan’s path from transition to the transformation decade. The major outcomes of the Tokyo Conference included donor aid pledges totalling $16 billion, with disbursements tied to the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework (TMAF), which underlined the commitments of the Afghan government and the international community to help Afghanistan achieve its development and governance goals. The international community’s commitment to sustain support for Afghanistan’s transformation decade would depend on the Afghan government meeting its commitments stated in the TMAF. The framework included a mechanism to monitor and review the commitments on a regular basis.

The Kabul meet on July 3 was the first followup session to take stock of progress made in addressing these commitments. Since donors distinctly tied their Tokyo pledges to Afghanistan successfully meeting the targets set in the TMAF, last week’s meeting should have had a high-profile internationally. Representatives from more than 40 countries and several global organizations and civil society attended the meeting. But little public attention has been drawn to the findings of the assessment, which have direct bearing on future aid flows to the country.

A high-level Afghan official describes the bottom-line outcome of the Kabul meeting as loss of face and reputation for the Afghan government and its elite rulers — a statement contradicting the Afghan government’s casting the meeting as a “success.” The Afghan government’s website lauds its efforts in making consistent progress in a number of areas under the TMAF, while the western officials claimed that Afghans only met three of the 17 targets.

Scripted statements, from donor nations (especially top donors, such as the U.S., EU and Norway) were critical of the lack of progress in a majority of the commitments, especially in combating high-level corruption, administrative cronyism and narcotics trafficking, protecting human rights, especially women’s rights, progress toward a free and fair election process, safeguarding good governance and the rule of law, and closing the gaping holes in the operation of a credible judicial system. The Afghan government, on the other hand, claims progress in all of these areas and in exchange expects the international community to abide by the aid pledges made in Tokyo, including allowing 50 per cent of aid funds to flow through the Afghan government’s budget and an 80-per-cent alignment with the Afghan government’s priority programs.

Several members of the international community, however, expressed reservations about doling out large quantities of aid if the Afghan government’s performance does not improve. A number of Afghan experts joined the donors in accusing the government of foot dragging in undertaking priority reforms. Afghans blame the international community equally for the dismal state of affairs, well reflected in the cryptic comment of a Kabul university professor who said that despite a lack of adequate indicators of progress, as in the past, the donors are likely to continue to provide aid without ensuring that transparency and accountability remain at the centre of aid expenditure. A recent letter circulated by the ex-executive director of the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (for control of corruption) leaves little grounds to believe that transparency will be a priority.

However, let us consider some rationale for expecting better results this time. All of the past conferences over the last decade, touted as landmarks in Afghanistan’s nationbuilding process, reflected complacent attitudes on the part of the participants, as the meetings concluded with oft-repeated promises and agreements on the very same issues as covered by the TMAF, with the agreements never monitored for implementation, especially those aspects of governance in which radical reforms were long overdue. Donor accountability for hundreds of millions of dollars invested in their own projects also remained minimal. Last week’s meeting in Kabul reflected a more determined tone from the donors, demanding improved performance of the Afghan government in meeting its commitments, and faster, in order for the donors to deliver on their pledges and make aid delivery more effective.

Without doubt, the results of the Kabul meeting will be different as, after such critical assessments (which also reflect the inability of the international community to affect any meaningful changes despite high volumes of aid investments), it will be difficult for the donors to continue business as usual and flow funds as per their pledges, without the Afghan government taking credible steps in meeting the TMAF targets.