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This primer on subnational government in Afghanistan is meant to inform efforts to strengthen local government in recently cleared areas. Among the problems afflicting the Afghan state are the lack of effective service provision and representation, which together should constitute the base of the state's legitimacy. This paper identifies the various entities of local government and identifies opportunities for improvement. It is based on a review of the available academic and nongovernmental studies of subnational government in Afghanistan and interviews with civilian experts, including consultants attached to U.S. and allied government agencies. Opportunities to make the system more participatory and representative should be sought at lower levels to compensate for weak central institutions, and the court system must be strengthened where possible. Good intelligence about local politics must precede engagement. Governance metrics should gauge subjective perceptions of the legitimacy of the Afghan state, rather than objective outputs.
The focus of this paper is on the aspects of subnational governance that are part of the state or significantly regulated by state. This paper has two interconnected, but distinct parts. Part One takes stock of the structural, policy, and legal state of affairs in Afghan subnational governance, underlines the opportunities for improving public service delivery through subnational governance reform, and highlights the challenges, gaps, and areas in need of national deliberation and decision-making. Part Two is dedicated to filling the gap on village and district representation by offering evidence-based conclusions on a potential way forward on the issue. It focuses on the three-tiered structure of development shuras (councils) established under the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, consisting of Community Development Councils, Cluster-Level Development Councils, and District Development Assemblies.
This guide contains information on the administrative and political scene in Afghanistan, including the structures and processes of government. Issues discussed include: the historical and political context of the Afghan State; central and local administration, including budget and staffing aspects; central and local fiscal relationships; and service delivery in terms of the education and health sectors. The guide draws the bulk of its material from six provincial case studies, as well as using additional research undertaken by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) and the World Bank.
"Discusses what Afghanistan and the international community should do to resolve dangerous issues and bolster a still fragile state. Offers a blueprint for moving toward greater democracy and prosperity while arguing that the future success of state building in Afghanistan depends on diversifying the economy and enhancing its economic status"--Provided by publisher.
This report proposes a two-pronged strategy of government action for securing progress in sub-national administration, using the structures, and discipline that form the distinctive heritage of the Afghan state. One strand calls for the center to commit itself to delivering some basic support for provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities, in their functional role as service provider or commissioner, and in their political role as local representative of the unitary state. The second strand of the strategy is comprised of tailored incentives for sub-national administrations, that reflect their institutional and historical roots. The task is to make this de-concentrated system work, through effective incentives at the sub-national level that will entail the provision of valued resources that are triggered by simple measures of administrative effort, not performance, and tailoring the incentives to suit the specific situation of the administration, with distinct differences between the incentives provided to provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities. To this end, the report proposes unconditional commitments from the Government in Kabul to: complete the pension reform, i.e., build, and strengthen capacity within the central administration entities, increasing Treasury authority, and establishing procedures to strengthen the budgetary process. Likewise, it proposes to restore provincial infrastructure, and priority support for provincial health and education departments. By designing specific project support, it is intended to help shift the focus towards pro-province and pro-service delivery objectives.
In the context of a review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan during September-November 2009, the performance and legitimacy of the Afghan government figured prominently. In his December 1, 2009, speech announcing a way forward in Afghanistan, President Obama stated that the Afghan government would be judged on performance, and "The days of providing a blank check are over." The policy statement was based, in part, on an assessment of the security situation furnished by the top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, which warned of potential mission failure unless a fully resourced classic counterinsurgency strategy is employed. That counterinsurgency effort is deemed to require a legitimate Afghan partner. The Afghan government's limited writ and widespread official corruption are believed by U.S. officials to be helping sustain a Taliban insurgency and complicating international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. At the same time, President Hamid Karzai has, through compromise with faction leaders, been able to confine ethnic disputes to political competition, enabling his government to focus on trying to win over those members of the ethnic Pashtun community that support Taliban and other insurgents.
One major pillar of the international community’s diplomatic and development engagement in Afghanistan over the past two decades centered on strengthening subnational governance. After twenty years of an ambitious, costly international state-building effort, the government of Afghanistan collapsed in the summer of 2021 in a matter of weeks. The Afghan security forces’ remarkably rapid defeat earned significant attention, but the Taliban victory over the internationally backed Afghan republic stemmed equally from deep-seated political and governance factors. Across all the facets of the Western state-building endeavor in Afghanistan, there is now an enormous need to assess how the international project fell so far short of its aims.
This report proposes a two-pronged strategy of government action for securing progress in sub-national administration, using the structures, and discipline that form the distinctive heritage of the Afghan state. One strand calls for the center to commit itself to delivering some basic support for provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities, in their functional role as service provider or commissioner, and in their political role as local representative of the unitary state. The second strand of the strategy is comprised of tailored incentives for sub-national administrations, that reflect their institutional and historical roots. The task is to make this de-concentrated system work, through effective incentives at the sub-national level that will entail the provision of valued resources that are triggered by simple measures of administrative effort, not performance, and tailoring the incentives to suit the specific situation of the administration, with distinct differences between the incentives provided to provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities. To this end, the report proposes unconditional commitments from the Government in Kabul to: complete the pension reform, i.e., build, and strengthen capacity within the central administration entities, increasing Treasury authority, and establishing procedures to strengthen the budgetary process. Likewise, it proposes to restore provincial infrastructure, and priority support for provincial health and education departments. By designing specific project support, it is intended to help shift the focus towards pro-province and pro-service delivery objectives.