sub national state-building in afghanistan - afghanistan research and evaluation unit

8/8/2019 Sub National State-Building in Afghanistan - Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

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Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

Synthesis Paper Series

Subnational State-Buildingin Afghanistan

Hamish Nixon

April 2008


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Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

Synthesis Paper Series

Subnational State-Buildingin Afghanistan

Hamish Nixon

April 2008


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2008 Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, recording or otherwise without prior written permissionof the publisher, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. Permission can be obtained by emailing [email protected] or bycalling +93 799 608 548.


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About the Author

At the time of writing, Hamish Nixon was the Governance Researcher at AREU. Before joining AREUin March 2005 he held academic appointments at Kingston University and The Queens College, Uni-versity of Oxford. He completed his Ph.D. on comparative peace processes and postconflict politicaldevelopment at St. Antonys College, Oxford. He has worked on postconflict governance and elec-tions in Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Palestinian Territories, El Salvador and Cambodia. He haspublished articles and chapters on citizen security, state-building and democratisation, subnationalgovernance, and aid effectiveness. He is currently Subnational Governance Specialist with theWorld Bank in Kabul.

About the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)

The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) is an independent research organisation basedin Kabul. AREUs mission is to conduct high-quality research that informs and influences policy and

practice. AREU also actively promotes a culture of research and learning by strengthening analyticalcapacity in Afghanistan and facilitating reflection and debate. Fundamental to AREUs vision is thatits work should improve Afghan lives.

AREU was established in 2002 by the assistance community working in Afghanistan and has a boardof directors with representation from donors, UN and other multilateral agencies, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Current funding for AREU is provided by the European Commis-sion (EC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Chil-drens Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the World Bank, andthe governments of Denmark, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.


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The author would like to thank all the community members, shura members, CommunityDevelopment Councils, district and provincial officials, and key informants who spent time with theresearch team, and all the local officials and NGO personnel who assisted with the practical matters

associated with fieldwork in Afghanistan.

Daud Omari worked closely with the author over a period of two years, and his understanding ofAfghan institutions, insights, experience, forbearance, and willingness to travel to all parts of thecountry were essential to the successful completion of this research work. His role in both fieldworkand the analysis of the data collected were indispensable. The portions of this report dealing withthe National Solidarity Programme would not have been possible without the contribution ofPalwasha Kakar, and have benefited from the work of the CDC sustainability team at AREU underJennifer Brick.

This synthesis report has benefited from a wide range of discussions in Kabul and the provinces, withtoo many people to acknowledge here. Their contribution of time and insight has improved the workconsiderably, though errors of fact and interpretation are the responsibility of the author. Finally,

the author would like to thank AREU colleagues and several anonymous reviewers whose commentshave improved the quality and clarity of the report.

AREU acknowledges the generous support of the UK Department for International Development(DFID) for this research.

Hamish Nixon, April 2008

Acknowledgements


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Glossary ............................................................................................................. iiAcronyms .......................................................................................................... iiiExecutive Summary ............................................................................................. iv1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Background and Rationale .......................................................................... 11.2 Key Concepts .......................................................................................... 21.3 Research Objectives and Methodology ............................................................ 4

2. The Governance Context of Afghanistan .............................................................. 72.1 Social and Economic Context ....................................................................... 72.2 Political and Institutional Context ................................................................. 9

3. State-Building in Provinces ............................................................................. 143.1 Formal Institutions in Provinces.................................................................. 143.2 Provincial Governors and Provincial Administration .......................................... 153.3 Provincial Development Committees: Coordination and Planning? ......................... 183.4 Provincial Councils: Representation and Accountability? .................................... 19

4. District Governance: Exploring the Government of Relationships ............................. 244.1 District Governors: The Gatekeepers ........................................................... 244.2 How Districts are Governed ....................................................................... 264.3 Governors and Contradictory State-Building ................................................ 32

5. NSP and CDCs: Changing Local Governance? ....................................................... 345.1 The National Solidarity Programme ............................................................. 35

5.2 Introducing the NSP ................................................................................ 37

5.3 CDC Roles in Community-Driven Development ................................................ 43

5.4 CDC Roles in Community Governance ........................................................... 485.5 Conclusions: CDCs in Local Governance ........................................................ 52

6. Conclusions and Recommendations .................................................................. 55

6.1 The Lack of Subnational Governance Policy ................................................... 556.2 Implementation of Subnational Governance Programmes .................................. 57 6.3 Barriers to Reform and the Art of the Possible ................................................ 57

6.4 Developing a Subnational Governance Policy .................................................. 58

Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 61

Recent Publications from AREU .............................................................................. 65

Table of Contents


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AREU Synthesis Paper Series

ii

Glossary

Afghani (or Afs) official Afghan currency

agir contracted civil service employee

alaqadari rural or urban subdistrict

arbab village leader; representative between community and central government;maintains communal property; can resolve disputes

arbaki local militia linked to customary authorities

beg large landowner

hamaam public bath

hauza subdistrict, historically often used for military or police organisation butwithout constitutional status

jirga customary council/committee

karmand permanent civil service employee

khan large landownermalik village leader; representative between community and central government;

maintains communal property; can resolve disputes

manteqa area of living

markaz centre, often refers to provincial municipality

Meshrano Jirga upper house of the Afghan National Assembly

mirab customary water rights controller

nahia urban district

pashtunwali customary Pashtun tribal code

pir religious notable linked to one of the Sufi ordersqaryadar village leader; representative between community and central government;

maintains communal property; can resolve disputes

qawm kinship group ranging in scope

rish-i-safid elder, literally white beard

sardar landowner

shura customary council/committee

Shura-i-Wolayati Provincial Council

tariqat Sufi order

tazkera National Identity Documents, or the department of the District Governors

office responsible for issuing them

ulema religious scholars

woleswal District Governor/Administrator (sometimes spelled uluswal)

wali Provincial Governor

zamindar landowner


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Subnational State-Building in Afghanistan

Acronyms

AIHRC Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission

ANDS Afghanistan National Development Strategy

ASGP Afghanistan Subnational Governance Programme (UNDP)

ASP Afghanistan Stabilisation Programme

CDC Community Development Council

CDD Community-Driven Development

CDP Community Development Plan

DACAAR Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees

DFID Department for International Development (United Kingdom)

DRRD Department of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD)

FP Facilitating partner (NSP)

GoA Government of Afghanistan

I-ANDS Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy

IARCSC Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission

IDLG Independent Directorate for Local Governance

IO International Organisation

MoI Ministry of Interior

MRRD Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development

NABDP National Area-Based Development Programme

NDF National Development Framework

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

NSP National Solidarity Programme

OC Oversight Consultant (NSP)

PAA Provincial Administrative Assembly

PAR Public Administration Reform

PC Provincial Council

PRR Priority Reform and Restructuring

PRT Provincial Reconstruction Team

PSF Provincial Stabilisation Fund (ASP)

SAF Securing Afghanistans Future

UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan


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short-term stabilisation and security, butalso dedicate sufficient material and intel-lectual resources to comprehensive policydevelopment over the next few years.

The most important aspect of this policy de-velopment process is not to do everything inone office, but to ensure that a more logicalsequence of initiatives emerges. A crucialarea for sequencing involves the determina-tion of the relationship between representa-tion, resources and accountability forelected bodies at all levels; the correspond-ing reform of electoral systems and calen-dars; and the holding of the next elections.

Implementation of SubnationalGovernance Programmes

National-level state-building initiatives producea wide variety of outcomes due to the variedpolitical, social, economic and institutional en-vironments in the country, as well as the differ-ent actors responsible for implementation. Theoutcomes of NSP, particularly its governanceimplications, are therefore widely varying. Theidea of a consistent, persistent, institution ofthe CDC that operates in the same way every-where is not yet accurate. PDCs, introduced tobring consistency to a chaotic coordination and

planning environment, in actuality range fromquite effective to insignificant.

Recommendations:

National-level state-building should not al-ways be equated with uniform national-levelprogrammes. New institutions should begiven adaptive and open architectures toaccommodate asymmetrical roles and devel-opment across the country and over time.The implications on that flexibility of any

legislative action on CDCs should be care-fully considered, and overly prescriptive so-lutions should be avoided in the short-term.

The positing of a national policy choice be-tween formal or informal systems is an arti-ficial one, as both will invariably co-exist.Programmes should be oriented toward cre-

ating effective and viable alternatives tounsuitable aspects of the current govern-ance arrangements; attempting to entirelyreplace such arrangements will only produceperverse outcomes.

Barriers to Reform and the Artof the Possible

There is a fundamental duality to the system ofgovernment in Afghanistan. On the one hand, agovernment of relationships operates throughthe system of provincial and district governors.It functions through a mixture of informal andformal gubernatorial powers over expenditures,coordination, appointments and control of ac-cess to state bodies and functions. This systemhas had important roles in managing the influ-

ence of local power-holders, in extending thereach of the Presidency, and in meeting variousshort-term counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, and counter-narcotics needs. On theother hand, the primary formal mechanism forthe delivery of services other than security tothe population is through a system of verticallyindependent and highly centralised ministries.The interaction between these two systems hasyet to receive sufficient attention.

Recommendations:

The relationship between governors and po-lice chiefs and the service-delivery arms ofthe government must be progressively de-fined and circumscribed in law and practice.This may have to occur at a varying pace invarying locations, and must recognise theimportance of local leadership in producingresults in the remote areas of Afghanistan.

A central aspect of this process will be a bal-anced and gradual re-examination of the

place of governors at both provincial anddistrict level. This re-examination should notbe seen as a weakening or a removal of gov-ernors, or simply a search for the right orgood governors. It must instead involve anappraisal of the legal and actual power ofgovernors in relation to the systems by


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vi

which they are made accountable to thepopulation.

Reform and deconcentration of service-delivery responsibilities of the service-delivery arms of the state should be de-signed to reduce the confusion caused bythese co-existing forms of governance, for-mally integrating the role of governors withrationalised forms of service-delivery.

Representative bodies involve aspects ofboth systems of governance, and can thusplay a more important role in reducing thecontradictions between the two. Strengthen-ing both the representative basis and themonitoring role of subnational elected bod-ies should be a priority.

Developing a SubnationalGovernance Policy

The piecemeal state-building efforts of the pastmust be knitted together, and altered wherenecessary, into a fabric of subnational govern-ance. This framework must be guided by coher-ent and nationally-agreed goals about the na-ture, role and reach of the Afghan state. Thiskind of holistic view cannot emerge through asingle consultation, but must be arrived at

through a series of carefully sequenced steps,and it must always consider the possibility ofvarying progress and future changes to the de-sign. This process is not a matter of a single pro-gramme or a given institutional design, it is ajourney toward a state in which legitimacy isgradually strengthened through effectivenessand accountability, reach is extended throughlegitimacy, and sustainability is gradually cre-ated through efficiency and steadfast support toa coherent and comprehensive vision.

Recommendations:

A range of disparate subnational governanceissues must be brought into a single policy-development framework. The institutionalfocus of this policy process should be theIDLG, in interaction with the partners out-lined in the IDLG strategic framework.

The IDLG must work to insulate this longer-term process from the demands of short-term security and stabilisation initiatives,and work to ensure that contradictions areminimised.

Some issues that must be included in thispolicy include:

The number and nature of elected bod-ies, their access to resources, and thesystem by which they are elected;

The relationship between those electedbodies and the governors at provincialand district levels;

The eventual nature of provincial andnational budgeting, and its relation toboth elected bodies and governorsshould be developed before elections,even if not fully established;

The final status of municipalities, andthe system of accountability for theirimportant revenue-raising and service-delivery functions needs to be progres-sively narrowed and codified;

Planning at subnational levels must cor-respond to the resources available there

and the procedures for allocating thoseresources. In the long run, consultativeplanning structures as presently beingconstituted will not substitute for therepresentative accountability broughtabout by elected representation; and

The role of PRTs and locally imple-mented governance initiatives in theoverall strategy should be progressivelysubjected to this national policy process.

The key to answering these questions is toestablish a process by which they can be re-solved in a sequence that is conducive tocoherent policy.


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1. Introduction

Issues and challenges surrounding subnationalgovernance in Afghanistan are crucial to thecountrys development, stability, and security.The period since 2004 has been a time of ex-traordinary change in subnational governancestructures. During 2005-06, Provincial Councils(shura-i-wolayati) were elected and seated,Provincial Development Committees (PDCs)were established, public administrative reformefforts reached some provinces and districts,and the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) with its associated Community DevelopmentCouncils (CDCs) expanded into large numbersof communities throughout Afghanistan.

The centrality of governance and state-building

issues to the development agenda of both theAfghan government and its international part-ners, in combination with the number and com-plexity of initiatives affecting subnational gov-ernance, have created a need for improvedunderstandings of governance at subnationallevels. There is a need to assess what changesthe new developments have produced and willproduce in the future. To address this situation,AREU conducted extensive field research onsubnational governance over approximately 18months from April 2005 to November 2006. This

synthesis paper presents findings from that re-search.

The research on subnational governance hasbenefited from previous and parallel AREU workon subnational administration, the NSP, andpublic administration reform (PAR).1 These re-search projects generated some importantknowledge about technical aspects of subna-

tional administration, the implementation ofspecific programmes and reforms, and the chal-lenges to both. These studies have since beensupplemented by important work by other or-ganisations, and combined they provide a broadoverview of the evolving formal institutionallandscape at subnational level.2

This report complements that knowledge withinsight into the political dimensions of the intro-duction of new state structures at the provin-cial, district and community levels. It provides apicture of the interaction between state-building initiatives during the research periodand the complex realities of Afghanistan. It ishoped that this picture will inform policy-

makers about the outcomes on the ground ofgovernance programming and state-building ef-forts, and help them to anticipate future chal-lenges. It is also intended that this research cancomplement the ongoing process of developinga national policy and framework for subnationalgovernance in Afghanistan.

1.1 Background and Rationale

An emphasis on governance in general, anddemocratic governance in particular, is now a

central feature of development practice anddiscourse. Increasing attention is paid interna-tionally to issues of local governance andcommunity-driven development. Much of thisattention, however, focuses on decentralisationor technical aspects of administrative reform areas that are significantly complicated by theAfghan political, constitutional, institutional,economic, and security contexts.3 The contex-

1 I.W. Boesen, From Subjects to Citizens: Local Participation in the National Solidarity Programme, Kabul: AREU, 2004; A. Evans, N.Manning, et al., A Guide to Government in Afghanistan, Kabul: AREU and the World Bank. 2004; A. Evans and Y. Osmani, Assessing

Progress: Update Report on Subnational Administration in Afghanistan, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit and the WorldBank, 2005; P. Kakar, Fine-Tuning the NSP: Discussions of Problems and Solutions with Facilitating Partners, Kabul: Afghanistan Re-search and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2005; S. Lister and H. Nixon, Provincial Governance Structures in Afghanistan: From Confusion toVision? Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2006; S. Lister, Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan: Realities andPossibilities, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2006.

2 See in particular World Bank, Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-National Level in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: World Bank,2007 and An Assessment of Subnational Governance in Afghanistan, Kabul: The Asia Foundation, April 2007.

3 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Decentralised Governance for Development: A Combined Practice Note on Decen-tralisation, Local Governance and Urban/Rural Development, New York: UNDP, 2004; and A. Evans, N. Manning, et al., SubnationalAdministration in Afghanistan: Assessment and Recommendations for Action, Kabul: AREU and the World Bank, 2004.


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tual dimensions of subnational governance havereceived less attention in the international de-velopment literature than technical ones. At thesame time, there is a broad recognition thatcontext greatly influences the outcomes of sub-national state-building initiatives. In fact, at-tempts to create governance institutions thatare functional, legitimate and sustainablethrough external assistance have frequentlyfailed, stagnated or produced perverse out-comes when confronted by the complex realitiesof post-conflict and conflict settings.

This attention to governance has been reflectedin successive strategic frameworks for recon-struction and development in Afghanistan since2001. The 2002 National Development Frame-work (NDF) identified good governance, admin-

istrative reform and financial management askey cross-cutting issues underlying developmentefforts in all sectors, a position reflected in theMarch 2004 update and re-costing exercise, Se-curing Afghanistans Future (SAF).4 Both theInterim Afghanistan National DevelopmentStrategy(I-ANDS) and the Afghanistan Compactwith the international community emphasise theneed to improve governance across the countryand at all levels of the state, highlighting issuessuch as local participation, improved subna-tional administration and service delivery, and

local access to justice. The World Bank consid-ers state-building to be at the core of Afghani-stans reconstruction.5

The Governance, Rule of Law and Human Rightspillar of the I-ANDS sets out to to establish thebasic institutions and practices of democraticgovernance at the national, provincial, districtand village levels for enhanced human develop-ment, by the end of the current Presidency andNational Assembly terms.6 Most recently, theIndependent Directorate of Local Governance

(IDLG) was established by presidential decree on30 August 2007 to take broad responsibility foradministration and creation of policy frame-works for subnational governance in Afghani-stan.7

While significant progress has been made to-wards establishing new institutions, many issuesremain in making subnational governance struc-tures sustainable, coherent and effectiveenough to meet the I-ANDS goal. The revival ofsubnational administrative structures and recentchanges still confront problems of persistentinsecurity, informal power relations, corruptionand patronage, and inadequate state capacity.Beyond these contextual difficulties, the devel-opment of legitimate and effective subnationalgovernance will increasingly depend on a coher-

ent strategy incorporating a shared vision of therole of subnational government entities in vari-ous sectors, and their relations with non-stateactors and informal governance arrangements.

1.2 Key Concepts

Given the attention paid to governance issuesinternationally and in Afghanistan, it is worthclarifying the conceptual framework used in thisresearch by briefly discussing the concept ofgovernance as well as related concepts like de-

centralisation and state-building.

Governance

Governance concerns ways of organising re-sources and responsibilities toward collectiveends. At this broad level, governance can bedefined as the process whereby societies ororganisations make important decisions, deter-mine whom they involve and how they renderaccount.8 All governance analysis thereforeinvolves questions of process, participation, and

4 Government of Afghanistan (GoA), National Development Framework, GoA: Kabul, 2003, 9-10; and GoA, Securing AfghanistansFuture, GoA: Kabul, 2004.

5 World Bank,Afghanistan: State Building, Sustaining Growth, and Reducing Poverty, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004.6 Government of Afghanistan (GoA), Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy, GoA: Kabul, 2006, Vol. I, 122.7 Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), Strategic Framework, IDLG: Kabul, September 2007.8 T. Plumptre, What is Governance? on the website of the Institute on Governance (Ottawa), www.iog.ca (accessed 25 February 2008).


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accountability. The analysis of how governancetakes place, however, is not meaningful withoutconsidering the context and domain that is be-ing analysed. In short, one must always considerthe question of governance where and forwhat? This research examines several subna-tional contexts that is, how decisions aremade and implemented that affect populationsbelow the national level. The contexts thathave been examined are the community, thedistrict, and the province.

The governance domain refers to the collec-tive ends that are the object of governance.These can include a broad range of public andquasi-public goods such as security, health andeducation; an enabling economic environmentincluding infrastructure, social capital and regu-

lation; and more intrinsic values such as justice,citizenship and legitimacy.9

This study focuses on several domains of govern-ance based on two criteria:

What types of decisions are currently madein a given subnational context?

Which of these governance processes arelikely to be changing given current interven-tions?

The domains that are the focus of the researchwere chosen from among those where subna-tional governance was both active and changingdue to attempts at state-building interventions.On the provincial level, these domains are pro-vincial development coordination and planningon the one hand, and representation and ac-countability on the other. At district level, theyare primarily conflict resolution and justice. Incommunities, they are dispute resolution andcommunity development, with some attention

to related areas such as social protection.

Governance systems may differ depending onthe domain considered. For example, the gov-ernance of security in a given context may in-volve local commanders, state security actors,and international military and police personnel,each with a mixture of goals, responsibilitiesand resources. The governance of health provi-sion will be different, perhaps involving NGOs,provincial or regional health departments, inter-national donors, and traditional local actors.Governance analysis thus goes beyond analysisof government to include a range of actors,structures and processes.10 It is this distinctionthat is important in helping understand betterthe outcomes of formal institutional state-building programmes when they are imple-mented in the real world, and the political eco-nomic factors that may support or hinder the

success of such efforts.

State-building

State-building refers to efforts to increase theimportance of state actors, structures and proc-esses in governance systems: to shift govern-ance towards government. It is the attempt toreform, build and support government institu-tions, making them more effective in generatingthe abovementioned public goods. Since govern-ance systems are a configuration of resources

and responsibilities, there will always be inter-ests in both generating and resisting changes tothat configuration. State-building is inherently

political as well as technical. The gap betweenthese political and technical dimensions can becompounded by the urgent imperatives of post-conflict reconstruction which reduce the abil-ity to tailor programmes to local realities, andthe easier transferability of technical lessonsthan complex political or cultural ones.11 A ma-jor theme of this report is the interaction be-tween the political and technical dimensions of

state-building.

9 See, for example, I. Johnson, Redefining the Concept of Governance, Gatineau, Quebec: Canadian International DevelopmentAgency, 1997; and UNDP Decentralised Governance for Development.

10 For more on frameworks for postconflict state-building see M. Ottaway, Rebuilding State Institutions in Collapsed States, in J. Mil-liken, State Failure, Collapse and Reconstruction, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.

11 On the easier transferability of organisational and management lessons as opposed to political knowledge, see F. Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century, London: Profile Books, 2004.


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One aim of this research was to analyse issuesthat emerge when state-building interventionsin subnational governance contexts interactwith the complex governance context of Af-ghanistan. The next section discusses how thistranslated into research objectives and meth-

ods, and the next chapter discusses that contextand the initiatives examined in this research.

1.3 Research Objectives and Methodology

The primary objective of this research was toidentify and better understand key issues af-fecting state-building interventions at subna-tional levels and their implications for currentand future governance programming. This ob-jective is about how governance works in subna-tional contexts, as well as how it is changing in

response to programmatic interventions.

Objective 1: Understand better how governanceworks in Afghanistan at subnational levels and inparticular domains.

Objective 2: Understand how governance ischanging at subnational levels, particularly in

response to programmatic interventions.

Research methods

The design of this research aimed to identifykey issues in subnational governance with par-ticular focus on changes taking place in relationto state-building interventions such as the Na-tional Solidarity Programme (NSP), the electionof Provincial Councils (PC), the establishment ofProvincial Development Committees (PDCs), andPublic Administration Reform (PAR) including

the Afghanistan Stabilisation Programme (ASP)

Box 1.1: Decentralisation and subnational state-building

Decentralisation is one area where technical best practices approaches come into contactwith the political realities of the Afghan context. There is considerable consensus internation-ally that decentralisation is an appropriate way to improve local governance in many domains.Efficiency and responsiveness in the provision of public goods can improve by moving decision-making and resources closer to the affected public. Decentralisation can be political (decision-making), administrative (service delivery) and fiscal (resource allocation). It can also take dif-

ferent forms: in deconcentration, responsibility and resources are moved to local levels whileretaining accountability relationships with the centre; devolution involves the transfer of au-thority to subnational units with some autonomy (e.g. in federal systems); and delegationinvolves the allocation of functions outside state structures (e.g. to NGOs and Quangos).12

In Afghanistan, the appropriateness and applicability of different forms of decentralisation iscomplicated by several political and contextual factors. The first is the limited capacity of the

Afghan state and its low degree of penetration to local levels. Without the generation ofmore state capacity at local levels and consideration of the effects of pre-existing governanceat those levels, decentralisation may undermine both legitimacy and effectiveness.13 The sec-

ond is that in Afghanistan there is considerable desire on the part of both government andcitizenry for strong centralisation, in part because of historical legacies of fragmented powerand fear of further fragmentation, and in part the result of centralised state structures thatwere not destroyed by conflict.14

12 See S. Lister, Caught in Confusion: Local Governance Structures in Afghanistan, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit,2005.

13 In a 2003 survey, 75 percent of respondents noted local non-state mechanisms for decision-making were functioning in their communi-ties. See Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC), Speaking Out: Afghan Opinions on Rights and Responsibilities,Kabul: HRRAC, 2003.

14 World Bank,Afghanistan: State Building, Sustaining Growth, and Reducing Poverty, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004.


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and the Priority Reform and Restructuring (PRR)process. It also was designed to build on thetechnical studies of subnational administrationcarried out by AREU beginning in 2002 by intro-ducing a political economic dimension to theanalysis of subnational governance change.15

It therefore focused on the same provinces as

those studies, with the exception of Kandahar,where security concerns prevented local govern-ance research. Paktia was added to the field-work programme, but work was limited to theprovincial context due to security concerns. Theresearch thus focused on six provinces and sev-eral districts within each of those provinceswith the exception of Paktia, where no districtwork took place. The intention was to have 12sample districts, though these were not ulti-mately evenly distributed across provinces. Thecommunity level was defined in accordance with

the definition of community in the NSP opera-tions manual, meaning at times only part of acontiguous settlement corresponding to a single

CDC was visited.16 It is important to note thatthis selection was designed to maximise varia-tion in local conditions within the constraints ofsecurity, but is not a statistically valid samplefor quantitative analysis.

The governance domains selected reflected con-sultations with stakeholders prior to the re-

search regarding areas of subnational govern-ance of key importance and most subject tochange under ongoing state-building interven-tions. In addition, a review took place after thefirst two field trips to refine the governance do-mains that the research focused on. Table 1.2(next page) outlines these contexts and do-mains, and the interventions that formed themain focus of the research. The details of eachof these programmes and interventions are in-troduced in the relevant sections of the paper.

The research objectives of exploring key issuesin subnational governance and changes broughtabout by the interaction of interventions with

Dates Province Districts Communities

June-July 2005 Herat Pashtun Zarghun

Rabat-i-Sangi

Zindajan

Injil

1 community

2 communities

3 communities

2 communities

August 2005 Faryab Almar

Pashtun Kot

3 communities

2 communities

August-September 2005 Nangarhar Surkhrod

Rodat

4 communities

3 communities

June 2006 Paktia None None

August-September 2006 Bamyan Yakawlang

Waras

2 communities

1 community

October-November 2006 Badakhshan Faizabad

Ishkashem

4 communities

2 communities

Total: 6 12 29

Table 1.1: Field research sites

15 A. Evans, N. Manning, et al., A Guide to Government in Afghanistan; A. Evans, N. Manning, et al. Subnational Administration in Af-ghanistan: Assessment and Recommendations for Action; A. Evans and Y. Osmani, Assessing Progress: Update Report on SubnationalAdministration in Afghanistan, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit and the World Bank, 2005.

16 National Solidarity Programme, Operations Manual, Kabul: Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, 2004, 6-7.


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existing governance contexts called for a pri-marily qualitative methodology. Specific quali-tative tools used in this research included semi-

structured interviews, focus groups, oral histo-ries, subject biographies, and journalistic ac-counts (media monitoring). Specific subjectgroups included but were not limited to the fol-lowing:

Key informants: analysts; programme stafffor NSP, ASP, PAR; the ministries of RuralRehabilitation and Development (MRRD),Economy and Interior; donor, IO and NGOstaff.

Provincial officials: Governors, Deputy Gov-ernors, provincial line department staff, NSPOversight Consultants, Afghanistan Inde-pendent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC);provincial IO, NGO and civil society repre-sentatives (NSP and non-NSP); provincial-level electoral officials.

District officials: Woleswals, Chiefs of Po-lice, prosecutors, Department of Rural Reha-bilitation and Development; district NGOstaff, NSP Social Organisers, non-NSP staff.

Community Development Councils (CDCs).

NSP and non-NSP community members, bothmale and female.

The research is based on over 200 interviewsand focus groups. While every effort was made

to contact the appropriate individuals andgroups in all fieldwork sites, this was not alwayspossible. Key informants, officials, and commu-

nity and CDC members were interviewed indi-vidually where possible, and focus groups wereused with social organisers in each district. Thecommunity- and CDC-level data was coded andanalysed using qualitative data analysis softwareaccording to an adaptive coding scheme, whilethe provincial- and district-level data was ana-lysed and coded manually.

Limitations

Several limitations of the research are worth

noting. In social-scientific terms, the units ofanalysis for this study are the province, districtand community. This does not mean that thestudy is a comparison of provinces, districts orcommunities. Rather, it uses a range of prov-inces, districts and communities to explore keyissues in subnational governance for each con-text, and describe the kinds of variation to befound within these contexts. Field visits weredistributed over approximately 18 months, dur-ing which time subnational governance changeswere ongoing; the data from one province may

thus not be strictly comparable to that from an-other. Finally, the municipal context did notform part of the subject of this study, althoughresearch did include visits to municipal authori-ties in Faryab. There is an urgent need for moreresearch on municipal governance.

Table 1.2: Contexts, domains and interventions studied

Subnational Context Governance Domain Interventions

Provincial Representation of interests andaccountability

Development planning

Provincial CouncilsProvincial Development Committees/

Coordination BodiesAfghanistan Stabilisation Programme (ASP)Public Administration Reform (PAR)

District Justice/dispute resolution ASP, District Governor and Courtfunctioning

Community Community developmentDispute resolutionCommunity initiative labour and social

protection

National Solidarity Programme (NSP)


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2. The Governance Context of Afghanistan

The governance context in Afghanistan is aninter-related complex of features relating to itscondition as a post-conflict state experiencingcontinued conflict, the prevalence of povertyand vulnerability, and regional illicit and wareconomies, the functional weakness of its statestructures and penetrability of its borders, andlong-standing fragmentation of power at thesubnational level, exacerbated by the effects ofrecent conflicts.17 These features combine withunique ethnic, tribal, religious and social dimen-sions to generate a challenging environment forstate-building interventions. These factors con-tribute to the dependence on and penetrationby external actors, creating further effects forstate-building activities that are often funded,

designed and implemented by such actors.

2.1 Social and Economic Context

The persistence of armed conflict over the pre-vious quarter-century in Afghanistan has hadprofound effects on Afghan society, drivingmany to leave the country, and leaving a popu-lation that is disproportionately young, and withless than a quarter of adults being literate.18There are constraints on the availability ofqualified Afghans to fill roles in formal govern-

ance structures, and a relative lack of success-ful capacity development within those institu-tions, be they the security forces, administra-tion, public service organisations such as healthand education departments, the National As-sembly, or the judiciary. The porosity of Af-ghanistans borders and the involvement of re-gional and global actors in its conflicts havecontributed to the wide availability of arms and,

in combination with a history of violent conflict,the normalisation of violence as a means of re-solving disputes. The capacity of the state toprovide security and hold a legitimate monopolyon violence is thus heavily restricted.19

The conflicts in Afghanistan have contributed toa politicisation of Islam and new institutionalinitiatives must consider interpretation by com-munities and religious figures in relation to localreligious doctrine and practice. Historically, dis-putes are interpreted and mediated through Is-lamic lenses, and the increasingly internecineconflicts of the 1990s and beyond are no excep-tion.20

The politicisation of the multiple ethnic identi-ties in the country is an important historical re-ality. Nevertheless, simple accounts of ethnicityin Afghan politics are insufficient, due to thecomplex coexistence of ethnicity with othertribal, communal, and patronage relations. Eth-nicity itself is defined relatively, and has be-come increasingly mobilised through years ofconflict: For example, the emergence of a Tajikidentity is relatively recent and has been drivenby conflicts in the 1980s and 1990s.

Tribal identity, important to some ethnic popu-lations but not to others, operates in a seg-mented manner meaning tribal affiliation hasdifferent effects depending on the scale andtype of issue at stake, or the degree of territori-ality of the tribe in question.21 In general, theobservation that the actual operating units ofsocio-political coalition among [rural Afghan]populations are rarely genuinely ethnic in

17 See for example, B. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Karachi:

Oxford University Press, 1995.18 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),Afghanistan National Human Development Report, Kabul: UNDP, 2007, 160-162.19 Research on the opinions of both the Afghan public and officials suggest that disarmament is perceived as a primary security and gov-

ernance challenge in the country. See Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC), Speaking Out, A. Evans, N. Man-ning, et al., Subnational Administration in Afghanistan.

20 J. Anderson, How Afghans Define Themselves in Relation to Islam, in R. Canfield, ed. Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan,Berkeley: University of California, 1984, 266.

21 For a useful discussion of the relationships between ethnicity and tribe and the Afghan conflicts of the 1990s see B. Glatzer, The Pash-tun Tribal System, in G. Pfeffer and D. K. Behera, eds. Concept of Tribal Society, New Delhi: Concept Publishers, 2002, 167-181.


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8

composition remains true.22 Even the politicalunity of the Hazara community in the 1990s inthe face of continued repression, has subse-quently broken down somewhat, with competingfactions evident in the post-2001 period.

In addition, ongoing conflict has depleted thesocial capital of communities, as populationshave been displaced or poverty and economicdistortions brought about by conflict as well asassistance have prompted migration within andoutside the country. Despite these depreda-tions, a wide range of social capital exists. Ingeneral, extended family and kinship, subsumedunder the term qawm, underlie the primaryforms of social capital in Afghanistan. Seen to-gether kinship norms, codes of honour (nang),and rules of sharia as locally understood, to-

gether with language and religious-sectariandistinctions and loyalties represent the essenceof traditional political culture and popular con-sciousness in contemporary Afghanistan.23 Fi-nally, the social context in Afghanistan is af-fected by the degree of international involve-ment in military, political, humanitarian, recon-struction and development affairs. The presenceof foreign military forces in both offensive andpeacekeeping capacities, the introduction ofrights-based and democratising processes, andthe role of foreign non-governmental organisa-

tions and international organisations in serviceprovision, all influence Afghan social dynamicsin the areas of governance, religion, family life,and gender relations and roles.

Afghanistans economic environment is compli-cated by its geographic location and borders,the effects of prolonged conflict, the historical

and continuing weakness of central or subna-tional state capacities in regulation, revenuecollection and allocation, and intensive foreigninvolvement in the country. These factors havecontributed to an economic context character-ised by various types of economies one studyhas identified coping, war and shadoweconomies as the most important.24

In such a context, the importance of patronage,non-monetised goods and services, remittancerelationships, debt and credit structures, andinvolvement in informal or illicit economic ac-tivity, are very important in shaping incentives.These economic dimensions combine with thesocial dimensions of lineage, patriarchy, Islamicknowledge or religious charisma, and patronageto produce complex relationships of social con-

trol and determine patterns of economic oppor-tunity. Traditionally patronage is used by localpower-holders, known as khans or arbabs, tocement ties of lineage and political support,influence the practices of local councils knownasjirgas or shuras, as well as provide some pub-lic goods.25 These relations may exist in combi-nation or in competition with networks main-tained by religious leaders, either mullahs,talibs or pirs, who are members of lineageslinked to the main Sufi schools, or tariqat.26

The economic context is also heavily influencedby the dynamics of the assistance economy. Thissituation goes well beyond the distortions of theeconomy in the Kabul area. The current situa-tion of service provision in many areas, and inparticular health, is one of intensive non-governmental activity, with implications for thedevelopment of state provision and capacity.27

22 R.L. Canfield, Ethnic, Regional, and Sectarian Alignments in Afghanistan, in A. Banuazizi and M. Weiner, eds., The State, Religion,and Ethnic Politics: Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Lahore: Vanguard Books, 1987, 76.

23

M. Nazif Shahrani, The future of the state and the structure of community governance in Afghanistan, in W. Maley, ed., Fundamen-talism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, New York: NYU Press, 1998, 218.24 On coping, war and shadow economies see J. Putzel, C. Schetter, et al., State Reconstruction and International Engagement in Af-

ghanistan, Bonn and London: Bonn University and London School of Economics, 2003.25 B. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Karachi: Oxford University

Press, 1995, 41-44.26 A. Oleson, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan, Richmond: Curzon Press, 1995, 36-52.27 On the structure of health provision, see R. Waldman, L. Strong and A. Wali, Afghanistans Health System since 2001, Kabul: Afghani-

stan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2007.


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Similarly, programmes such as NSP and otherrural development initiatives involve complexcontracting relationships, complicating fiscalrelationships between the state and communi-ties and diluting the accountability of such rela-tionships. The effect of aid flows on state ca-pacity is also increasingly an issue of debate.28

2.2 Political and Institutional Context

The Afghan political context is characterised byformal state centralisation combined with ac-tual fragmentation of power among a variety oflocal and regional actors.29 This fragmentationhas been expressed in recent AREU work interms of the distinction between the de jureand de facto state.30 This model emphasises thedivergence between formal and actual govern-

ance in Afghanistan. Formally speaking, thereare 34 provinces in Afghanistan divided among398 rural districts, although that number hasnot been definitively ratified by national institu-tions despite its determination being a short-term benchmark in the Afghanistan Compact.31

There are approximately 217 municipalities, di-vided among 34 provincial municipalities com-prising the capitals of each province, and an un-clear number of rural municipalities, often butnot always corresponding to the seat of district

government. The number of rural communitiesor villages in Afghanistan is a matter of inter-pretation. The Central Statistics Office counts40,020 rural villages, however, the NationalSolidarity Programme considers the number ofcommunities to be 32,769 for the purposes ofestablishing Community Development Councils.32

Provincial government consists of the line de-partments of the main sectoral ministries, theProvincial Governors Office, the elected Pro-vincial Council, and in some provinces the localoffices of other agencies such as the NationalSecurity Directorate (NSD), the Afghanistan In-dependent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC),or the Independent Administrative Reform andCivil Service Commission (IARCSC).

Districts are currently the lowest level of for-mally recognised administration in Afghanistan.There are three grades of districts, in theorybased on population and geographic extent. Inpractice, however, this grading system has notbeen consistently applied across the country.Their administrative structure reflects that ofthe province, consisting of a District Governor,

or woleswal, and district offices of some centralministries, the number of which is a function ofthe district grade. The number of these depart-ments can vary from only a few such asHealth, Education and Rural Rehabilitation andDevelopment up to as many as twenty. In ad-dition, there is typically a police departmentand a prosecutor in each district. Currently notall districts have primary courts.

Municipal administration is led by mayors,the most important of whom are currently

appointed by the President of Afghanistan.Municipalities have functional and service-delivery responsibility mainly for urban services,and revenue collection responsibilities. Larger(provincial) municipalities are divided intourban districts (nahia), and have varying repre-sentat ive systems sometimes inc lud ing

28 See H. Nixon, Aiding the State? International Assistance and the State-building Paradox in Afghanistan, Kabul: Afghanistan Researchand Evaluation Unit, 2007.

29 For a historical review of centre-periphery relationships see B. Rubin and H. Malikyar, The Politics of Center-Periphery Relations inAfghanistan, New York: New York University, 2003.

30 See A. Evans, N. Manning, et al., A Guide to Government in Afghanistan, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit and theWorld Bank, 2004.

31 The Central Statistics Office, cited in World Bank, Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-National Level in Afghanistan, vi, notes364 districts. To the 7th meeting of the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board in February 2008, the Afghan government reported398 districts.

32 This discussion of formal institutions draws on the World Bank, Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-National Level in Afghani-stan and The Asia Foundation (TAF),An Assessment of Subnational Governance in Afghanistan, Kabul: TAF, 2007.


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10

neighbourhood representatives (wakil-i-gozar)

held over from pre-war administrative systems.Kabul Municipality has exceptional status, withthe Mayor holding a cabinet post, but other mu-nicipalities are theoretically overseen by thenewly formed IDLG via the provincial governorsoffices. As noted above, this study did not ad-dress municipal governance.

Local and community governance

During the twentieth century, the central statewould in many areas have a local interlocutor in

the form of a khan or malik or qaryadar. Theidentification of that individual was based on

different criteria and methods in different

places: In some cases they would be appointedfrom the outside, but in most they would have apre-existing leadership role through heredity,property or some combination of both.33 In mostcases, woleswals maintain some kind of semi-formal advisory councils or liaise with maliks,arbabs or qaryadars where these remain signifi-cant figures. Historically, formal state struc-tures extended at times to the subdistrict(alaqadari or hauza) level. In 2005-06, an areaof settlement referred to as manteqa was re-ported by some district level officials as impor-

tant in framing, for example, security policy atsub-district level.34

33 For discussions of local governance patterns in Afghanistan see for example R. Favre, Interface Between State and Society: Discussionon Key Social Features affecting Governance, Reconciliation and Reconstruction, Addis Ababa: AIZON, 2005; and B. Rubin and H.Malikyar, The Politics of Center-Periphery Relations in Afghanistan.

34 AREU interviews, Nangarhar and Herat (2005-06). For a concise discussion of these concepts, see R. Favre, Interface Between State andSociety.

Figure 2.1: Current formal governance institutions

Source: World Bank, 2007


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Community governance in rural Afghanistan thusremains largely informal and varies widelyacross the country. There are certain generaltypes of institutions and actors that play a rolein most but not all communities. These can be,roughly-speaking, divided into individual actors,collective decision-making bodies, and behav-ioural norms and customs, often mediatedthrough individuals such as mullahs, or collec-tive bodies such asjirgas, shuras, andjalasas.

In some communities individual power-holdersplay important governance roles. These may bemaliks, arbabs and qaryadars that retain au-thority through a combination of community ac-ceptance and linkages to formal authorities.Historians and anthropologists have noted thewide divergences in the motivations, loyalties,

legitimacy and effectiveness of such local lead-ers during other periods.35 In other areas localcommanders have gained influence during twodecades of conflict through their role injihadora combination of protection and predation.

There has been much discussion of collectivedecision-making bodies in the Afghan context,and debate continues over the precise bounda-ries of concepts such asjirga,jalasa, and shura.

Jirga is often presented as an archetypical andimmemorial Afghan institution, the central

traditional means of local governance, particu-larly among sedentary Pashtun populations, butin some form among both nomadic and non-tribal groups as well: The jirga unites legisla-tive, as well as judicial and executive authorityon all levels of segmentary society. By means ofits decisions, the jirga administers law.36 A

jirga is generally understood as a gathering ofmale elders to resolve a dispute or to make adecision among or between qawm groupings ac-cording to local versions ofpashtunwali or tribal

codes. It is thus a flexible instrument with anintermittent and varying rather than a persis-tent membership. Petitioners tojirgas may rep-resent themselves or make use of advocates,and for disputes between family or larger qawmgroups sometimes a third party, known as a jir-

gamar, is called in to assist in decision-making.

Some key features of the jirga are its confor-mity to segmentary patterns, its generally adhoc nature, and its reliance on local enforce-ment if necessary. During the twentieth cen-tury, however, a pattern of contact betweenstate institutions and jirgas began to appear either as state functionaries usedjirgas to com-municate policies or as they referred disputes tothem in place of formal institutions of justice,which remained highly suspect in the eyes of

most local populations.

In non-Pashtun areas, similar meetings may beknown as jalasas or shuras, each conforming tothe local types of customary law.37 In the lattercase, there is conceptual overlap with the con-cept of a local council of elders with more per-sistent membership and leadership under a mul-lah, malik, wakil, or other figure. In addition,during the 1980s and the 1990s, many NGO pro-grammes established local shuras to managelocal input to specific development activities, a

new phenomenon that has frequently been con-flated with more traditional structures. In ad-dition, the Peshawar-based mujahidin partiesintroduced varying changes to local self-government, either along the lines of shuras orelsewhere through the imposition of more hier-archical party and commander-based struc-tures.38 In part as a result of these dynamics,the traditional antipathy for the involvement ofa centralised state in local areas by an inde-pendent periphery has been tempered by an

35 For example, see the distinction between bayand venal arbabs drawn by Barfield in Kunduz during the 1980s. T. Barfield, Weak Linksin a Rusty Chain: Structural Weaknesses in Afghanistans Provincial Government Administration, in R. Canfield, ed., Revolutions andRebellions in Afghanistan, Berkeley: University of California, 1984, 175.

36 W. Steul, Pashtunwali, Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981, 123.37 For a discussion of procedural and substantive variations in legal concepts by region, see International Legal Foundation (ILF) The

Customary Laws of Afghanistan, New York: ILF, 2004.38 L. Carter and K. Connor, A Preliminary Investigation of Contemporary Afghan Councils, Peshawar: Agency Coordinating Body for Af-

ghan Relief (ACBAR),1989.


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does not lay out any specifics, instead focusingon a general commitment to more effective,accountable and representative institutions atall levels of government (See Box 2.1).

The I-ANDS stresses state-building as defined inthe first section of this report, but does not giveclear signposts regarding an overall policy onsubnational governance for example, whatrelative resources, responsibilities and roles dif-ferent subnational units should have in respectto service delivery, resources, representationand accountability. In this sense, the ANDS proc-ess has not yet substantially altered a subna-

tional governance policy environment that isreacting to events and programming rather thanbuilding towards a coherent vision of formalsubnational governance. At the same time, byavoiding issues surrounding the interaction ofthe political and technical dimensions of state-building initiatives, and not emphasising socialaccountability through civil society, the strategydoes not fully recognise the complexity of gov-ernance, as opposed to government, in Afghani-stan. More work is needed to clarify a policy anda coherent framework for subnational govern-ance in Afghanistan, both within and in parallelto the ANDS process.

Box 2.1: Subnational governance in the I-ANDS and the Afghanistan Compact

The I-ANDS political vision for Afghanistan in SY 1400 (2020) includes the following provi-sions relating to subnational governance:

A State in which institutions are more accountable and responsive to poor people,strengthening their participation in the political process and in local decision-making re-

gardless of gender or social status;

A National Assembly . . . that ensures that the needs and interests of all provinces anddistricts are represented at the national level;

In accordance with the Constitution (Articles 138-140), the existence of elected assem-blies at the national, provincial, district and village levels;

An effective, accountable and transparent administration at all levels of Governmentthat can operate effectively to optimize the coordination of national development priori-ties;

A functioning physical and institutional justice framework which adequately protects therights of citizens in all provinces and districts; and

Women will constitute an increasingly important voice in Afghan society and politics. (I-ANDS, Vol. I, 15-16)

These goals are supported in the Afghanistan Compact, which commits the Afghan Govern-ment and its international partners to:

Give priority to the coordinated establishment in each province of functional institutions including civil administration, police, prisons and judiciary;

Establish a fiscally and institutionally sustainable administration for future elections;

Fully establish within 24 months a clear and transparent appointments mechanism . . .for all senior level appointments . . . as well as for provincial governors, chiefs of police,district administrators and provincial heads of security;

Review . . . the number of administrative units and their boundaries . . . with the aim ofcontributing to fiscal sustainability. (Afghanistan Compact, 36)


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14

3. State-Building in Provinces

44 See S. Lister, Caught in Confusion: Local Governance Structures in Afghanistan, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit,2005; and S. Lister and H. Nixon, Provincial Governance Structures in Afghanistan: From Confusion to Vision? Kabul: Afghanistan Re-search and Evaluation Unit, 2006.

45 A. Evans, N. Manning, et al., Subnational Administration in Afghanistan: Assessment and Recommendations for Action, Kabul: Afghani-stan Research and Evaluation Unit and the World Bank, 2004.

46 World Bank, Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-National Level in Afghanistan, 33-34.

The challenge of improving governance throughinstitutional change in Afghan provinces hasthus far been approached in a piecemealfashion. New structures such as Provincial Coun-cils and Provincial Development Committees(PDCs)have been created, and administrativereform and support efforts have taken place.The result, however, has not been an overallstrengthening or clarification of the formalinstitutions of state, but rather simply thecreation of a confusing and incoherent array ofinstitutions with unclear responsibilities, re-sources, and relationships.44

These efforts did not emerge into a vacuum. Asprevious AREU work indicates, a skeleton

structure of civil servants persisted in manyareas after 2001, despite unclear workingresponsibilities, habits, and often unpaid sala-ries.45 Between 2001 and 2005, there were manyvaried efforts to improve representation, coor-dination and planning, and administrativefunctioning. There was immense variation in thegovernance outcomes of these state-buildingefforts. These new structures were introducedinto environments with varying customarygovernance patterns, often with remnants oftraditional systems overlain with newer ones

resulting from conflict or a history of activityby NGOs.

3.1 Formal Institutions in Provinces

As briefly noted in section two above, the for-mal institutions of provincial government in-clude the Governors Office, the departments ofvarious ministries, and the office of some inde-pendent agencies of the government such as theAfghanistan Independent Human Rights Commis-sion (AIHRC) and the Independent Afghanistan

Reform and Civil Service Commission (IARCSC).There are now elected PCs, and coordinatingbodies for the departments known as PDCs.

The ministerial departments have responsibilityfor service delivery in areas such as policing,

health, rural development, and education. Theyreceive a quarterly allocation determined in thebudget request of the central line ministry, andin almost every case have no significant localpowers of resource re-allocation, appointment,or programming. The ministries represented,their staffing, and the size of the ProvincialGovernors office, discussed next, is in theory afunction of the provincial grade I, II, or III de-pending on size and other factors. Recent re-search has shown large discrepancies in approxi-mate per capita spending across provinces, and

also shows little correlation between salary andnon-salary expenditures, undermining service-delivery performance in key areas such ashealth and education.46

The Governors office in each province has hadthe dual role of representing the President andreporting to the Ministry of Interior. While for-mally the Governors role is a coordinating one,exercised through a Provincial AdministrativeAssembly (PAA) or the similar Provincial Devel-opment Committee (PDC), governors also enjoy

Improving governance in Afghanprovinces has been approached in a

piecemeal fashion...The result has beenthe creation of a confusing andincoherent array of institutions withunclear responsibilities, resources,and relationships.


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powers over expenditure approval and appoint-ments that, as the World Bank has recentlynoted, contradict the vertical structure of lineministries.47 As the Presidents representative,and often a significant power holder in his orher own right, the Governor intervenes in plan-ning, expenditure and procurement, disputes,municipal affairs, and other issues affecting theprovince. This contradiction not only representsa systemic contradiction, but also shows how apolitical structure of appointments and powerdistribution led by the office of the President co-exists alongside ongoing technical attempts toimprove the coherence of subnational institu-tions through state-building interventions.

Provincial Councils (PCs) were elected in 2005simultaneously with the National Assembly, with

an unclear mandate comprising advisory, con-flict resolution and oversight roles. A ProvincialCouncil Law has been ratified, after modifica-tion to earlier versions to strengthen PC moni-toring functions. These councils are electedfrom a province-wide constituency on a singlenon-transferable vote with a reservation of one-quarter of seats for women. Issues surround theresources available to them, whether they rep-resent their constituencies effectively, and theirrelationships to provincial government and pro-vincial planning bodies and processes that have

also been established in recent years.

Provincial Development Committees (PDCs) arenot constitutionally mandated but were estab-lished to bring order to a range of disparate co-ordination and rudimentary planning activitiesthat sprang up around the country since 2003,and to create a structure for provincial inputinto national planning processes such as theANDS. They are formally the responsibility ofthe Ministry of Economy and chaired by the Pro-vincial Governor or his representative. The

practical capacity of the PDCs varies; the rangeof quality of provincial plans emerging fromthem attests to this variation. It is not yet clear

in the long term how the planning function ofPDCs will link with the budgeting process, whichis highly centralized, nor exactly how theyshould relate to the PCs or to the Provincial Ad-ministrative Assemblies.

3.2 Provincial Governors and ProvincialAdministration

Provincial governors play important roles be-yond their coordinating mandates, often relatedto their status as local representatives of thePresidency. The Provincial Governor is the sub-national locus of a government of relation-ships that reaches to district level and below.For precisely that reason, the provincial gover-norships are highly valued positions that havebeen used as carrots to gain the cooperation of

locally-based strongmen, just as ministerial andother central government posts have been usedto co-opt regional warlords. In other cases, lessprominent governors have been appointed, butwith the purpose of using relationships to dealwith crises and achieve stability, counter-terroror counter-narcotics goals in given provinces.This government of relationships is moreprominent in areas where the immediate con-cerns of stabilisation, insurgency and counter-narcotics are the most acute, representedamong the case provinces by Paktia, Nangarhar

and Badakhshan. In addition, it seemed to bemost important where strong tribal networksand relationships formed the primary means forthe Provincial Governor to influence localevents, as in Paktia and Nangarhar.

The provision of relatively unaccountable fundsto reinforce relationships through governors hasbeen an important feature of this system ofgovernance. These funds include so-calledoperational funds or hospitality money (Box3.1 on next page), as well as portions of Com-

manders Emergency Response Funds (CERP)given to or directed by governors towards par-ticular beneficiaries.48 The provision of such

47 World Bank, Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-National Level in Afghanistan, 31-32.48 B. Stapleton, A means to what end? Why PRTS are peripheral to the bigger political challenges in Afghanistan, Journal of Military

and Strategic Studies vol.10, no.1 (2007).


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16

funds can counteract efforts to build account-able institutions and reform provincial and dis-trict governance. In 2005 and 2006, these fundsstill represented an important aspect of thedual system of government, though it is impor-tant to note that the reliance on such funds isreported to have diminished in 2007.

Public Administrative Reform and theGovernors Office

Similar contradictions have troubled formalstate-building efforts focused on provincial anddistrict administration. One prominent examplewas the Afghanistan Stabilisation Programme

(ASP). ASP, to be led by the Ministry of Interior,began in 2004 with an ambitious agenda of in-frastructural development, provincial blockgrants, and administrative reform of provincialand district governors offices.

The purpose of ASP was to link the centralgovernment to the provinces, the provinces tothe districts, and the districts to the villages.(Provincial Official, Herat, September 2005)

When it began, ASP had components for admin-istrative reform as well as district infrastructuredevelopment, and a block grant for develop-ment projects, but it soon became predomi-

49 AREU interviews, Paktia and Nangarhar (2005).50 See, for example, hospitality by tribal khans, B. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 41.

Box 3.1: Governing relationships: Hospitality49

One manifestation of the governors place in the political government of relationships is inthe provision of an independent budget, sometimes known as hospitality money, to gover-nors in provinces based on their size and the problems they face in terms of insecurity, in-tended to be used in supporting the appropriate clients. This term, while not official, echoesthe historical role of hospitality in securing patronage relations in Afghanistan.50This money,delivered during the research period through relatively opaque channels of the Ministry ofInterior, may have amounted to US$100,000-200,000 per month.

In Paktia, the case province where this system seemed to be most significant, the funds wereused to convene meetings of tribal leaders. In other provinces of the southeast region, the

funds have been used for these leaders to travel to Kabul to lobby the Office of the Presidentdirectly. In general, without good data, it can be assumed that the role of hospitalitymoney is primarily to encourage local leaders to support the Governor and in turn the cen-tral governments efforts to meet stability, counter-terror, and counter-narcotics goals. Theresearch was unable to determine what systems of accountability exist to monitor the use of

these funds. One source noted that governors paid a significant kickback to the Ministry ofInterior on receipt of the money, and that in fact only some 20-30 percent of the money maybe spent in the provinces in question.

A concern raised by some respondents was that the lack of accountability regarding thesefunds provided other actors with a kind of ammunition to constrain the reform efforts of gov-ernors. In one province, informants noted that despite the generally positive impression ofthe decency of the Governor, his use of these funds provided the means for police chiefs in

particular to threaten him with revelations about its use when reform efforts placed theirown positions at risk.


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nantly focused on infrastructure projects. InHerat, in 2005, ASP had funded through its Dis-trict Infrastructure Development window theconstruction of five district governors buildingsand refurbished others, but had not initiatedsignificant administrative reforms within any ofthose offices.51 In Bamyan it was noted that thiswindow of ASP was building district infrastruc-ture without it fitting into any coordinatedplans for maintenance and staffing.52

The block grant, known as the Provincial Stabili-sation Fund (PSF), consisted of US$1 million perprovince for use in development projects largelyat the discretion of the Governors office. As ithappened, such funds were only distributed tosix provinces in 2004, and it has been supposedby some that the primary aim was to provide a

kind of slush fund to secure support in ad-vance of the 2004 Presidential election, a con-tention supported by the fact that the promised$34 million dropped off after the election, andin the end only six provinces received the PSF.In Herat, the only case province where the PSFhad been delivered at the time of research, ithad funded the construction of some schools. Intheory, the process of project selection was toinvolve delegates to the Constitutional LoyaJirga ordepartment heads, the Provincial Gov-ernor, the central line ministry and the Ministry

of Interior. Respondents noted, however, thatASP projects were chosen more by frequencyof petition by local officials or consultativeshuras than coherent planning with line minis-tries.53

The experience of the ASP demonstrates thedifficulty of a purely technocratic approach tostate-building at the subnational level, whenthis agenda co-exists with the Governors role inmaintaining or creating relationships with indi-vidual officials and local power-holders. While it

did not yet play a prominent role in the caseprovinces, similar contradictions appear to haveaffected a different public administration

reform effort, the Priority Reform and Restruc-turing (PRR) programme. In cases of PRR in Gov-ernors offices or line departments, the pro-gramme was very much focused on salary in-creases over the replacement of personnel or

redefinition of their roles.

The rules of PRR are that if someone passesthe examination, then their salary will goup. (Deputy Provincial Governor, 2005)

The heads of three departments werePRRed, and now receive a salary ofaround 10,000 Afs per month. The same

people were appointed again, mainly due totheir relationships with high officials, andthey have not introduced any changes totheir systems. I myself was approved for

PRR without an examination as I was pro- posed by the governor and there was nocompetition. (Deputy Provincial Governor,2006)

In two case provinces, the Governor was allegedto have interfered in PRR decisions, opposingthe replacement of certain personnel. In addi-tion, in one case province, it was observed thatthe partial or incomplete application of PRR sal-ary scales in a given provincial line departmentwas creating internal problems in that office.

Governors offices themselves noted the contra-diction between the relationship dimension ofgovernance and the technical one. Some provin-cial governors or deputy governors noted thathaving all appointments approved by line de-partments in Kabul limited their ability to coor-dinate and appoint competent local staff or re-tain those they wanted.

These problems are frequently compounded byunderstaffing according to the existing tashkil,

the staffing establishment detailing the numberof sanctioned posts at each grade level. InBamyan, only five of 18 posts in the Governors

51 AREU interviews, IO and provincial officials, Herat (June 2005).52 AREU interview, IO official, Bamyan (2004).53 AREU interview, IO official, Herat (June 2005).


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office were filled at the time of fieldwork.Badakhshan was at the other end of the spec-trum, with 73 of 82 posts in place. Low govern-ment salaries were consistently given as the pri-mary cause for understaffing, suggesting thateffective pay and grade reform remains a cru-cial challenge to increasing subnational capacityin government offices.

The long-term institutional health of provincial-level administration will eventually depend onfurther clarification of the role of the ProvincialGovernor in relation to the executive, the pro-vincial line departments, the Provincial Council,the budget process, and expenditure processes.In this clarification, it will be important to con-sider the balance between formal responsibili-ties, availability and sources of resources, and

the systems of accountability both upwardand downward in place for Governors offices.

3.3 Provincial Development Committees:Coordination and Planning?

During the period of research, considerablechanges were introduced at the provincial levelto improve planning and coordination among thedifferent line departments and the Governorsoffice. While Provincial Councils (discussed be-low) were given some role in this regard, the

principal mechanism was to be the introductionof Provincial Development Committees (PDCs),established by a decree approved by the govern-ment in November 2005.

The role of PDCs, as outlined by the decree, in-cludes coordination and communication amonggovernment departments, with Provincial Coun-cils, and between the government, NGOs, inter-national organisations and Provincial Recon-struction Teams (PRTs). They are also taskedwith planning responsibilities, including estab-

lishing a provincial budget though in fact nosuch budget is currently foreseen. Other PDCresponsibilities include approving provincial de-

velopment plans and public and private invest-ment strategies, and supervision of counter-narcotics work. The decree states that the Gov-ernor or his representative chairs the PDC, whilethe local Department of Economy should providesecretariat services, though resources for thatwere not specifically identified.

As noted in an earlier AREU briefing paper, theplanned organisational structure of PDCs en-tailed some potential complications or contra-dictions.54 Probably most important are a poten-tial duplication of responsibilities with electedProvincial Councils. The relationship betweenthe two bodies is left unclear. The provincialDepartment of Economy is to serve as a centraloffice of the development committee but haslimited capacity to do so, and it is unclear

where the Ministry of Economy and the Provin-cial Governor exactly divide their duties in rela-tion to PDCs. Even the membership of the PDC isnot clear, with some variation being observed inthe inclusion or not of Provincial Council mem-bers and the role of international actors.

The research behind this report, about half ofwhich took place prior to the order establishingPDCs, demonstrated that these bodies were inmost cases not being introduced into a vacuum.In all the case provinces some form of coordi-

nating forum had been in place before a PDCwas introduced, but the nature, origins and ef-fectiveness of such bodies varied widely. InHerat in 2005, bi-monthly meetings took placeamong the department heads and the Governor,with representatives of donors or implementersinvolved in projects also invited. The resultsvaried, with the Provincial Health Office estab-lishing with NGOs and the PRT a system forclinic project selection that allowed donors tobuild off-budget but on-plan clinics. Mean-while, the Herat education department still

noted a lack of coordination among the provid-ers of school construction funds (ASP, PRT, NSP)and the Ministry of Education.55

54 For a more thorough discussion of the PDC establishment process and issues with their formal constitution, see S. Lister and H. Nixon,Provincial Governance Structures in Afghanistan, 9-11.

55 AREU interviews, PRT, Provincial Departments of Health and Education, Herat (June 2005).


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In Faryab and Nangarhar, the PDC was precededby Provincial Coordinating Bodies (PCBs) thatmet monthly, but these did not work well. Inboth provinces, weak leadership by the provin-cial governors was evident, and efforts were ledby either UNAMA or PRTs. In the absence of do-mestic leadership, it was noted that thesemeetings could be for information sharing atbest, and one official noted that there is aneed to create teams, not support only individu-als in establishing coordination mechanisms.56In Paktia, where the PDC was not operational atthe time of research, the late Governor heldweekly meetings with the department heads inthe province and invited UN and other agenciesworking in the province to attend.

In provinces where PDCs had been established

at the time of fieldwork, their roles and func-tioning varied. In Badakhshan, the PRT and theGovernors office had established a system ofcoordination meetings to develop a provincialdevelopment plan beginning in 2005. While thestaff of the Governors office admitted that theresulting provincial development plan lackedprioritisation and costing, its existence orientedcoordination efforts heavily to the Governorsoffice and very much placed the newly formedPDC in a secondary or duplicative role, particu-larly as the Department of Economy did not

seem to have taken up a leadership role in run-ning the PDC.57

In Bamyan, by contrast, a bi-weekly or monthlymeeting of the PDC had become established bylate-2006, including heads of departments andProvincial Council members. Here the Depart-ment of Economy had been very pro-active,adding a defined membership role for the Pro-vincial Council into its plan for the PDC, thuslocally clarifying one of the major ambiguities inthe enabling orders. This relatively successful

coordination effort was achieved despite consid-erable understaffing in the Department of Econ-omy, which with only 9 of 17 staff in place

noted that we have a Grade III tashkil butGrade II work.58

PDCs can be seen as an attempt to standardise aresponse to the tension of sectoral expenditureat subnational levels and the supposed coordi-nating and planning functions of the ProvincialGovernors office. They were i