I was doing some research for the book I am writing, Building Bridges that I have included the Introduction in the link above, and had occasion to come upon some media pages for Dr Ashraf Ghani, the former Finance Minister for Afghanistan during the period I was there with UNDP and who is now Chairman of The Institute for State Effectiveness. He has recently co-written a book with Clare Lochart entitled “Fixing Failed States”. It carries a similar message to that which I am writing about so I thought it might be interesting to add some video of him discussing this idea on the US Night Talk program.

He has kindly agreed to be interviewed by me while I am in Kabul when he returns during October.

This is followed by a video where Dr Ghani is talking about how to fix broken states as discussed on ted.com.

The decline in security and corresponding decline in development of Afghanistan has received new focus in recent days with a reluctant acceptance by the US and NATO forces that the war against the Taliban and to a lesser extent, al Qa’eda is not proceeding as anticipated. In Washington this week, US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates acknowledged that the Taliban had been gaining ground while in London Secretary of State Condileezza Rice called for a greater participation by NATO forces in the region.

It puts to order the relationship between the opposing forces in deciding an outcome. Both have adopted an intransient position, one relying upon its superior technology and military capacity while offering a financial carrot in the way of development to the local populations, the other relying upon its natural relationship with the territory over which they are fighting and the greater understanding of Pashtun allegiances and customs.

President Kazai is caught in the middle, driven in part by a clear understanding of the Pashtunwali and Islamic philosophy of the Taliban yet also understanding that the development of the country is going to be aided by the west.

The Taliban have made a declaration that they are not prepared to enter negotiations unless the western forces withdraw from the country, that the present constitution reverts to an Islamic constitution and that Sharia law is imposed, much as it was in their era of influence. The West declaring that they are not prepared to negotiate with the terrorists.

The difficulty for the people is that much and all as they are predominantly Islamic, they seek a peace that also enables them to develop democratically, economically and intellectually while still maintaining their committed Islamic values.

The democracy currently provided to Afghanistan is one that for the most part is an alien function in this country that for decades has had little in the way of institutional law, supporting the notion of a national strongman endeavouring to balance his ethnic and tribal affiliations, for which he represents around 40%, with the demands imposed by the rest of the country. The constitution itself failed to look critically at its particular mode of application but concentrated on the influence that the various strongmen would retain within it.

Four years after it was initiated, it has signs that it is already in decay with reports of rampant corruption and a gradual return to religious law as opposed to sectarian law as was envisaged.

Where it still maintains a semblance of structure is in Kabul however it fails to seriously have authority outside of that. It is in the historic society structure that continues to establish order outside of the influence of the national government. Pashtunwali as it is known was also an early premise of the Taliban who lost sight of the need for collaboration amongst the communities that it ruled. The Jirga or councils of Elders that had been a predominant organisational structure was set aside in favour of a virtual if not religious dictatorship by the leadership of the Taliban who made direct suggestions of Bay’ah or oath of allegiance by the population in imitation of the Prophet. In the departure of the Taliban these community councils have once more gained greater prominence and eventually are intended to become a component of the functionality of Afghanistan. It is also they who will negotiate with both the Taliban and the government officials. For the moment however they lack the legislation and regulation that is needed to comply with the constitution, in its absence there is a gradual transition once more towards a more religious order under the direction of the mullahs and away from the sectarian democracy.

Apart from the power struggle that exists between these two opposite forces, there is the overriding lack of economic development of the country and the financial security for the individual that besets the nation.

According to a recent report to the US Congress by the Congressional Research Service in January, from 2003 to 2008 the US has contributed more than 21 billion to the economic development of Afghanistan outside of its defence budgets. Given the present climate however the US Congress is well positioned to ask where have those funds gone. The country is still in economic decline, industry is almost non-existent, illicit drugs make up more than 50% of the GDP and unemployment ranges around 40 to 50% of the population.

Since the resurgence of the Taliban, a large part of the funding is distributed through the PRTs or the Provisional Reconstruction Teams. These are private contractors and military partnerships that initiate reconstruction projects in areas where they perceive the greatest need and driven in part by a quest to win the “Hearts and Minds “ of the local communities. I have long felt that there is some conflict in utilizing men in the same uniform that on one day can be kicking down doors in search of terrorists are the next day building roads and schools.

One component of the funding allocation that has not been allocated to date is $300 million that was assigned to an Enterprise Fund, intended to initiate a Venture Capital program in the country. Having worked as a Program Manager in Afghanistan with the UN on large, Cash for Work programs, I am convinced that this is the very capital that needs to be distributed if the country is at all to progress.

Reconstruction of roads and bridges and such provide an injection into the local economy and for the local workforce that is for part of the year in competition to the higher paying opium production however it offers only immediate cash inflow into the pockets of the workers. It does not offer any serious prospect for the future once the funding stops or slows down even. For the most part the people who are not land owners are looking for a more permanent income stream, a regular job and it is only through the investment into medium to large industry that can employ greater number so of workers that this social and economic recovery is going to take place.

The failure of democracy to take up the issue of the landless has become more apparent as it is these who are the principal group that miss out on the long-term benefits of the existing programs.

There is a fine line that needs to be drawn between the two opposing parties in Afghanistan, one that on both sides is going to require some compromise of principals and perhaps even a greater dependency on the age-old social structures that have existed for centuries while those at the top continue to argue over who is going to be in power.

Although the world as we know it is building at an exponential economic rate, it has lived through several decades or more of continuous upheaval born out of poverty, conflict and natural disaster. The process of recovery and reconstruction in the affected countries is largely marred by corruption and poorly co-ordinated special interest programs that fail to achieve noticeable end results and exasperate the minds of donor legislators and their electorates.

Underlying some of the difficulties is the disconnection that exists in the development phase following the conflicts. Various competing institutions and donors have over the past two decades moved away from a unified development program that can be offered by the likes of the UNDP to one that just satisfies specific donor needs and their limited or special understandings of the associated problems. This in itself often leads to the duplication and concentration of development projects without any concern for the overall rehabilitation of the countries infrastructure and social systems.

This discussion paper sets out to identify some the structural problems involved in the development processes in post conflict and crisis situations and how international aid although well intention and meeting the indicators set for them has failed to make a significant difference to the long term economic recovery and development of the specific countries. It will make a recommendation for the development of a full time strategic planning group that engages the principal donors, the international administrative bodies, the relief agencies, the recipient national administration and the various local actors as a means of coordinating the development efforts with a holistic approach to aid delivery and regional development at the onset of international intervention.

Background

My own experiences have been in Kosovo, Afghanistan and the province of Aceh in Indonesia over several years and it is upon these experiences that this discussion will draw.

Kosovo 1999

Kosovo followed a process of ethnic cleansing whereby more than 120,000 houses out of a total housing stock of around 200,000 were either partly or completely destroyed. The majority of the buildings destroyed were those owned by the ethnic Albanians and minority groups such as the Roma and Ashkalia although some damage had also been incurred later in the Serbian areas. Between a half million and a million people were temporarily dispossessed and forced into refugee camps in the neighbouring countries of Albania and Macedonia. The recovery process involved providing shelter and emergency food and medical aid, the largest consideration being the construction of suitable housing or emergency shelter before the winter weather of 1999- 2000 set in.

What had also occurred in the lead up to the conflict and at times as a consequence of the aerial bombardment was the destruction of a number of major industrial facilities either through the bombing or the subsequent vandalising by the departing Serbian army and community. The reconstruction process was immediate and engaged the response of the majority of the free world in providing assistance with assistance being provided by more than 60 nations and more than 400 independent agencies registered along with the more institutional organisations that provided the initial governance and resurrection of the basic administration.

The initial response by funding agencies such as USAid was to engage in several programs that saw the acquisition of emergency reconstruction materials from abroad, including Turkey, Austria, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece as primary sources while food stocks and emergency tents were bought from as far away as the US. Although the delivery of these initial items were well received, what was notably absent was the preparation within the province of developing the capacity to facilitate the reconstruction process from within, a chance to not only rebuild the damaged industrial infrastructure but to also kick start the local economy. Nor was there any overall plan by the major donor individually or as a group or organisations to do this.

Small instances in the programs I was involved with where aid failed were for one in the procurement of almost quarter of a million door and window sets with a procurement value around 12 million dollars that would eventually be required across all programs and all agencies in the country. The delivery of this material was also hampered at the border by the Macedonian government. Convoys were selectively allowed passage after “fees” were collected at the border. Without the fee, the line up of vehicles to clear the borders went for several kilometres and could involve a delay of one to two weeks.

The capacity of the nearby countries to supply was seriously tested allowing large scale profiteering by retail suppliers within the country to take place. What was not being attended to in any serious manner was the recovery of local manufacturing capacity that had also been destroyed during the conflict. Our programs were only one of many and our efforts to redress this were limited however we would as a priority, seek out local providers, even though the quality was substandard and the time scales longer in comparison to that provided from the likes of international suppliers from Turkey. This approach gave rise to aid funding not just being used for the provision of the various fittings it also created jobs in the provincial regions and a stimulation to the local economy by the infusion of cash wherein imported items only provided supply of the end product.

In the following year when the reconstruction projects largely funded by the European Union were undertaken, as a participant in the project delivery, I asked at a preliminary meeting how much effort was being given to facilitate a “Made in Kosovo” recovery was being made. It was apparent at the time that this factor had not been considered as the very next question asked was had the EU resolved the issue of the Macedonian border tax.

In all some fifty million dollars of aid was being distributed in the first round of reconstruction yet none of that funding was assigned to stimulate the local economies other than from the position of the local vendors selected for the project, nor did it seem that the project was being offered on the basis of lowest price but had been set to determine that one tenderer could supply ALL the materials for a particular region.

In Skenderaj, a municipality in the centre of the Kosovo province where the destruction and ensuing war had been particularly heavy in the villages, there is a large quarry and brick and tile-making factory that had been destroyed in part and required approximately one million dollars to repair it. The Japanese government had been looking at this project for some months yet had not finalised its planning by the time the first reconstruction programs were to take place. In that event, it lost the opportunity to benefit from an immediate three million dollars in potential orders that would have been made from this one subproject we managed alone that was one of twenty similar subprojects. Had it been so, more than 200 workers and their families could have directly benefited then and still been engaged in the longer-term recovery process. Instead the funds went to foreign companies and the high cost of transport required and the associated border fees.

The absence factor was that an overall economic development plan had not been implemented or envisaged that would involve all the investors in the recovery process and would look at the recovery, not just at the recovery of the structural damage but would include the factoring in the economic and social and community recovery that would accompany it. The EU project also placed into the hands of the few largest suppliers the opportunities to grow even larger when a myriad of smaller suppliers who could have spread the benefit across a wider portion of the community were left unattended.

The philosophy was obfuscated by the need to obtain the cheapest but largest tender as opposed to setting the goal posts more broadly in achieving the most holistic benefit over a wider set of parameters. No nationwide economic recovery strategy was envisaged or planned for. The reconstruction programs were about appearances and reporting the number of completed units even to the extent of the number of nails to the donor electorates, nor were any of the programs running in matched concert with the other donor agencies. Each had as its base a need to be competitive and be seen to be the most visible of all benefactors.

From the UN’s perspective it had a program to re-introduce an administrative sector yet relied upon its own inputs rather than develop an input from the local communities on the manner of its recovery. The vacuum created at the local administrative levels, the municipalities in the first instance were assumed by those who “believed” they had a role based on their position a decade earlier and local councils were thereby initially formed on this basis. The capacity of its officers was seriously lacking and it took more than two years before these institutions became operational in managing the local administrations without the benefit of any prior capacity building.

The consultation towards public administration in Kosovo was experimental to say the least. Almost two years had passed after the conflict before a provincial parliament and leader were elected rendering the process riddled with flaws that belabour the process of democratisation several years later.

Afghanistan 2001

In Afghanistan, the military defeat of the Taliban government saw the installation of a “pro American” central government who where complicit while unprepared and unqualified warlords assumed the power base across the country. Irrespective of the collective will of people the American government appointed the provisional leader. Karzai has popular support but had little influence over the totality of the government of the country since his appointment as Interim President and is derisively referred to as the “Mayor of Kabul” as a consequence. The warlords have also continued to hold sway over the countries regional and even national administration having in part been appointed to Ministerial positions by the President without representation and in turn corrupting the due processes that entails.

From a development perspective, Afghanistan was at the lowest level possible in preparedness to self-administer. The majority of regional and local administrative positions were assumed by force or by the strength of local militias. The decision making process in the regions was unrepresentative and masked a deep distrust from one region to another with benefit being assigned according to tribal influences.

The west had imposed a top down democracy instead of one that was from the bottom up, relying upon the warlords to continue paying homage to the west for their years of financial aid in their quest against the Russians. Five years later the position has denigrated to the point where another revolution between the factions is possible with the Taliban recovering and gaining community dominance in a majority of the provincial regions to the south.

In this case the west failed to understand the strength of the local and village based institutions that had existed before the warlord’s assumption to power and still continues in a fashion to this day. The national emphasis at the onset was on introducing western idealism that included, a democratic process of election, a western style constitution, the rights of women to vote without comprehending the nature of the Afghan community and the social structures that entailed and a myriad of other social issues. Afghanistan had for more than four decades been run on an autocratic socialistic platform and was unprepared for the level of entrepreneurship that the incoming power expected to revive the economy.

Homage was paid to the local infrastructures in the guise of a national shura that decided the “prepared” constitution yet few had input into the development of that structure it entailed. It was an American intervention based once more on American idealism and a need to report to the American electorate but has seen the subsequent electoral process pitting divisive and jealous tribal factions against each other rather than working in conjunction with each other.

As an aside, a more ideal process might have been to see each village shura elect its own representatives and maintain its own electoral roll who in turn would elect or appoint a representative to participate at the district level shura, again electing or appointing a district leader and representatives for a provincial shura. In addition to this would have been the option to formulate a local militia or police force that was answerable to the shura.

This provincial shura would have elected or appointed a District Governor and his Departmental Directors sidestepping the concentration of one tribal leader or warlords influences as well as providing permanent term representatives to a national Shura or Parliament. In turn these representatives would have elected or appointed a President and the various Ministers and Deputies. Instead, in the model of an American constitution, the President is granted supreme power largely separated from the parliament with an emphasis on international relationships and who is endeavouring to manage a parliament that is divided along tribal and ethic lines. His appointment of ministers at will has seen the process denigrate into a power struggle and favouritism amongst the various warlords. The representation between elected officials in the parliament and the electorate is at best remote and has become ineffective in dispensing democracy that is by and by largely alien to the general Afghan population.

The process of development has also been cast along similar lines without putting in place or adherence to an overall development plan. Donors and non-government institutions have developed along a path of autonomous assistance given the nepotism and tribal favouring that the regional and district governors can impose over their role.

In one instance the projects we were delivering in Nangahar were imposed upon by ill-prepared district department directors, particularly in the educational and health sectors with an administration appointed on a factional or tribal basis and with no one to account to other than the Governor and weak national department heads. The difficulty was that the Directors were often unprepared and unqualified for their roles, competing against each other without a regional development plan for funds that were also at the whim of the donors. In terms of overall rural access or regional flood mitigation or water harvesting projects, there was no donor interest nor were there a sufficient skills base or development plan to draw upon either at a national, regional or district level.

In all regions, pre-war industries that had declined and no longer functioned were evident. Nangahar had an olive processing factory that the management were endeavouring to revive while the capacity to produce olives had been decimated during the Russian incursion such that less than 10% of the trees remained. Cotton was another large crop that was making efforts to revive. Where the local producers were unprepared was in the acknowledgment of the free flowing nature of international production that competed directly into the markets for raw cotton. Even for domestic consumption, raw clean cotton was transported to Pakistan where the secondary processes to convert to cloth took place and then imported back into Afghanistan at 50 times the added value. In this respect, without a clear development strategy, both internal resources and international funding was being directed towards poorly understood development projects.

Competition existed at all levels of the government, even between provinces in the pursuit of external aid without any enforcement or well managed direction by the central administration. This point is moot in that at that time there was no development plan there was also no expertise or capacity within the government in developing one or capacity in directing where funds should be allocated.

During the process leading up to the parliamentary and Presidential elections, the regional Governors acted autonomously and indiscriminately from the national government. During 2004 tensions between the central government and the regional Governors came to a head with a dozen Governors holding back on hundreds of millions in dollars that had been collected as local taxes. The major interest of the national government was to maintain the income levels required to maintain the salaries for the various militias and government office bearers as well as the tax draining requirements to continue paying salaries for thousands of workers at some 200 public utilities and industries even though they no longer functioned.

During the early period after the routing of the Taliban the US became embroiled in Iraq and the pressure for the full attention of the US as the principal donor reached a crisis point with Karzai threatening to resign.

Karzai was compelled to make a number of concessions to the warlords. Even now a number are still retained in the Governments service and other than retaining a strong personal power base are ill equipped for the requirements of office and pushing forward with the Afghan development agenda. The US under Bush was against the idea of the UN forming an interim administration as it had in Kosovo in favour of instilling their designated incumbent with UN support and those that had supported them in forming a US style administration with a view to retaining the existing structure albeit an unelected and unqualified one.

Without any skilled planning force, the development programs were left to a few notables within the government. The President eventually sidelined the Finance Minister, who had a greater capacity and insight than most.

With the rise in hostilities of a resurgent Taliban, the NATO forces led by the US commenced a program of development under the PRTs as the rural areas became more difficult for the aid agencies to implement their programs. These were not conducted to any logical national development plan but served primarily as a “hearts and mind” exercise in those rural areas where the bulk of the insurgency was taking place. In many cases the relevant Minister for the Rural Rehabilitation and Development and even the regional Directors were kept uninformed of the activities even though this now represented a major portion of the international rural investment.

In 2002, USAid made a unilateral decision that saw the majority of its funding expended on improving the highway between Kandahar and Kabul not with standing that its two major military installations were located at these points. From a development point of view, there was some justification on a “farm to market” solution being provided yet this merely disguised the true intent.

During a period when I was an Advisor to the Minister for Urban Development, the US government had also submitted a plan to develop a ring road from the airport and to improve the road access between the square that adjoined their embassy and the airport. As it was approved at Presidential level the Minister who had been sidelined somewhat laconically opined that although he was not in favour and had a number of more pressing priorities but anything they did would be welcomed, as they needed so much.

Again as an Advisor to the Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development, we had discussions concerning the nature of US aid being offered with the PRTs and how these were not being undertaken within a national development plan, not withstanding that there was none formulated that was of any substance. Again the need across the country was so great that anything done was welcomed, the difficulty being that priority projects including essential major projects were left unattended.

The issue is not that the US or any other donor undertakes projects on a unilateral basis, but that the process of government is undermined and that there is no central focus on what is to be the end result, on how it affects the national industrialisation or rural centre development or the process of farm production to end product process.

The report, “Securing Afghanistan’s Future” was a report compiled in March 2004, fully 28 months after the fall of the Taliban in November 2001 during which time more than one billion dollars had been expended on a range of self interested ad hoc relief measures. This draft although it took into account the probable course for Afghanistan, it failed to address in a strategic manner the best use in which foreign aid was being provided. The government required that agencies detail their projects and probable expenditure yet still did not have the capacity to set guidelines on how and where funds should be best be directed to arrive at a common solution. In this process much aid funding was committed to projects that had a short-term outcome with no concern for what was to follow. The donor electorates were setting the agenda for redevelopment based on popular perceptions.

The Afghan National Development Strategy that has been the outcome of this initial paper has been initiated to draft ministerial objectives and to set policy however was still in draft form as late as 2006. This next long term phase is certainly the realm of the elected government but in its absence and without the necessary capacity as was apparent during 2002 to 2004, a well developed and skilfully prepared common approach by donors, implementing agencies and temporary administrations needs to be initiated at the onset.

Aceh 2005

In late 2004, following the tsunami in the Indian Ocean there was an immediate worldwide response to the affected areas of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and the east coast of Africa.

During this period in Aceh the UNDP was engaged to establish a recovery and reconstruction program, initially engaging affected people of the region in massive employment programs and clean up. The follow on was to be the reconstruction and redevelopment of the affected communities. During this phase, numerous private agencies had attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and being independent of the usual major donors fell outside the conventional planning schemes that donors might otherwise have initiated. In one instance seeking a major organisation to submit a tender for a UNDP project I was told that although the holistic and managed approach was a good one, they did not require any additional funds and that they had their own independent program agenda.

This was apparent in many of the clean-up cash-for-work programs along the coastline. Although a number of international donor countries had contributed to a Flash Appeal under the UN, aiming to set a common direction when there was so much financial independence by the non-government sector proved exceedingly difficult. So much so they were operating almost in parallel and competitively to the government.

On my arrival some 14 days after the tsunami, I was at the hospital where I could see Doctors from some 50 countries vying to offer their services, so much so that at one point some Doctors with nothing else to do were seen sweeping the yard.

At an early meeting in Sigli with the local administration, well before the Aceh Reconstruction Authority was formulated, several NGOs were intending on implementing their project in the same region and some level of competition was arising. The difficulty was that other affected areas along the coastline were being omitted as too being difficult or too inaccessible.

The local government services and even the national government were overwhelmed first by the catastrophe and secondly by the enormity and scale of recovery work required with little if any capacity on how to manage resources or inputs in the most meaningful way. Internal fiefdoms had developed in the military services and in what was left of the regional government as well as the national government.

At a “co-ordination” meeting, vested interests played a significant role in defining how and where programming needed to be directed. The coastline inhabitants were primarily fishing communities surviving at subsistence levels with only small-scale fishing related secondary industries being involved. One essential aspect of this industry was the daily need for the production of ice. Without ice, the fishermen were unable to preserve their catch other than by drying. The difficulty arose however because the damaged ice factories were a privately “controlled” industry as they had been for decades.

From the position of the aid agencies, assisting a single individual or business was anathema as their mandates were to assist the most vulnerable however proposals were submitted to develop co-operatives to manage a new found ice factory industry. By itself this was flying in the face of private investment and recovery of the economy. The majority of the aid agents were from capitalist countries yet they were proposing to socialise the larger essential industries of Aceh. Clearly this was a case of poor judgement and lack of development planning skill on their part yet was all that was available in the absence of any other authority.

With so much funding floating around and a demand to demonstrate visibility and action, agencies were implementing programs that fell completely outside a national recovery development strategy. In the ensuing period, a great sum of funding and benefit was lost or badly engaged due to poor or inadequate planning and competitive implementation.

A Holistic Approach to Economic Recovery.

In each of the above cases, the intent has been to provide an effective immediate relief program with long-term recovery as an ill-defined ambition. Looking critically at each situation some several years later, development of the magnitude that could have been afforded has been lost primarily because the absence of the establishment of a definitive recovery and development strategy that went beyond a basic assumption of the relief needs at the onset. Missing also was the capacity or structure of directing private agencies towards those projects that would aid the long-term national economic recover or development strategy.

Early planning meetings arranged by the UN in Afghanistan met with district leaders producing a planning result with direct benefit largely for themselves. These were primarily for the supply of irrigation water, drinking water, schools and heath clinics that failed to take into account the wider social demand for the development of employment opportunities across the board. In each of the countries mentioned, there was a natural presumption to offer immediate relief assistance to the most vulnerable and to offer more development projects targeting those that owned property or land holdings that failed dismally to provide long-term support or economic recovery to almost 30 to 40 % of the populations who didn’t. The basic infrastructure has evolved and will continue to evolve but the economic recovery for the most vulnerable in each of these countries has fallen into an abyss. In Kosovo eight years after the intervention, the unemployment hovers around 50%. In Afghanistan five years on it is around 40%, and in Aceh after two years it is around 30% while those in employment are surviving on the most basic salary rates. Iraq, which is still a state in conflict after four years, has an unemployment rate around 60% even though the US has invested hundreds of billions of dollars of Iraqi and US money in the recovery process. Most has been allocated to social welfare type programs or the major infrastructure relating to the power and oil production sectors. Little has been offered to aid the small to medium private enterprises.

Clearly the huge investment in resources and aid has left little in the way of a long-term legacy to the landless and even to many of those with arable land. In Afghanistan it is the illicit drugs market that now provides a reasonable return for more than a million people producing almost half of the national GDP. The consequence is that it will be extremely difficult to offer a satisfactory replacement. In these agrarian societies the basic capacity to grow produce has been met yet the primary markets and the secondary industries to maintain those markets are still absent. Wheat can be grown but it requires a national wheat marketing board to firstly find national or regional markets and then to facilitate the distribution or transport to them. Entrepreneurship and small to medium industry are largely without assistance whereas in western economies it is this sector that will engage around 60% of the non-government employment resources.

Generally the strategies for assistance have failed and failed dismally with billions upon billions having been invested into each of these four countries that still retain such poor social indicators and little prospect of satisfactorily climbing out of their predicament with considerable further assistance seeming even more remote. They are now consigned to the reliance of free market development without the assistance afforded to international competitors.

The prioritisation from the government perspective would appear to be the establishment of sectors that generate high wealth yet do not correspondingly generate high employment. Although it would be nice to forecast that in the future there will be no more war or natural catastrophes, realism says there will be. What begs the question is has the west and the developed world learned any material lessons from all of this relative failure?

The Millennium Development Goals while themselves an admirable aspirations, are targeted at affording relief aid to the most vulnerable of the economic equation and fail to acknowledge that stimulation to the economies of these developing countries to the extent that industry can flourish will expand employment and the opportunities for the MDG goals to be met simultaneously. In effect they are issues that will require constant additions to the baseline and do not aspire as a priority to promote self-sufficiency either economically or socially.

Many international organisations target these issues as a matter of course, yet in the country situations discussed above, they too have failed to cause economic recovery following the civil or natural trauma that each endured. Each agency or organisation works independently expressing its own agenda in the recovery or development process, acknowledging in part the agenda of other agencies but more often than not, without a concerted vision for recovery that meets the national expectations.

The Solution.

In each of the relief programs I was personally involved in as mentioned early in the background, a fundamental issue behind the success of each of them was that they employed as many people as possible in labour intensive activities. These programs however were short-term relief projects and lacked the full capacity of developing a comprehensive skills base and an employment continuum. There was no serious intent on the part of the donors to expand local industries or industry bases although small aspects were constantly being aimed at. There was no capacity to integrate the projects into the complete production-process-market cycle beyond providing immediate relief. That was the most glaring observation in the post project period.

The local politics also constrained the projects to those who were landed owners and had defined the regional primary development issues to be water, education and health, problems that affected them individually but not the community as a whole. Obviously they were issues needing to be addressed. Those without land ownership and who as a consequence were normally left out of the deliberations and comprised up to 40% of the population correspondingly defined long-term employment as their number one priority. With access to readily available cash they could meet and attend to all the other issues mentioned as priorities, they could stay within their communities without the need to urbanise and they could generally meet their survival, social and community requirements. What was also absent was the ability of those programs to extend beyond the emergency phase and accordingly it is those same large sectors of the community that are now left in limbo.

Although this discussion is directed towards the immediate aftermath of a civil or natural crisis where the government is in total disarray or unprepared to deal with the proportions of the catastrophe, it could also be applied to undeveloped countries that lack the skills or capacity or is affected by corruption to construct a workable development strategy for international intervention.

Previous Successes

In 1945 at the cessation of hostilities in Europe and the Pacific, two alternate plans were implemented albeit not taking effect until after a period of years. The first response in Germany saw recrimination and vindictive punishment of the population as a whole and the provision of emergency aid only although the country had been sectioned and controlled by four different victors. Across Europe recovery was slow as incoming aid from the US which of all the participants was the only country that had not been materially affected by the war was limited to relief. In 1947 under the direction of the US and Secretary of State General George Marshall, the ensuing Marshall plan saw the production of a comprehensive development plan that although it may have been seen as US dollar imperialism by its critics it was in the long term the best course of action in revitalising all of the affected countries and their economies. 50 years hence, Germany as have most countries of Europe developed one of the strongest economies in the world and has become a responsible and highly beneficial trade partner around the globe.

In Japan, the need to de-Nazify and dismantle the social structure was not so apparent. Although the country was defeated, the vast extent of its infrastructure and internal economy was also not so badly affected as it had been in Europe. Under the Potsdam Declaration MacArthur was enabled to restructure the economy unilaterally without the need for collective punishments, as had been the policy in Germany, his mandate was to separate the militarists from the bulk of the population and then to rebuild the economy and administration. The social and customary systems were broken, large private fiefdoms were broken up and the government and the democracy were reshaped to resemble American values albeit many have not survived as planned and many traditional values have since returned. Economically the country floundered however it was not in the same state of disrepair as was Europe or indeed any of the conflict zones mentioned above.

It was not until the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in 1950 that a massive surge in the economy borne by the US and UN force occupation that saw a resurgence in the Japanese economy. Companies such as Toyota who had been floundering prospered with large orders that exceeded their production for the previous years to meet the military demands. In the end, more investment was injected directly into the Japanese economy through trade during this period than had been provided in the way of aid under the Marshall Plan in the whole of Europe.

Within the space of two years, the Japanese economy had begun to burgeon. Once more 60 years later it is now has the second strongest economy in the world and provides the US and the world with an enormous and beneficial trade partner.

Translating World War 2 successes to contemporary conflicts

The imperative is to look further than the basic relief that reflect the Millennium Goals and to provide a strong leadership in the path to reconstruction and economic progress of an economy in crisis. Invariably although the concept of giving the recovering country the democratic responsibility to define its own development is the most desired, the capacity and infrastructure to achieve this is normally absent. The question posed is, can these communities afford to wait the required number of years for the capability and structures to be assembled. In each of the cases I have mentioned above, long-term economic issues still prevail while the incoming administrations endeavour to rebuild their governments and their capacity. It is the role of the aid providers to offer an immediate planning facility that takes account of the countries resources and varied capacities, establish a development path and invests in long term strategic development programs and investment programs that will continue across the administrative restructure periods and makes capital of the opportunities to extend the programs contained in the Millennium Development Goals.

By its formulation, a core of permanent actors or experts proficient in defining a primary country-wide recovery and development strategy would be presented as a “Strategic Development Program” (SDP) nominally attached to the UNDP or the World Bank or a combination of both representing the aspirations of major international donors, the UN, the implementing partners and the provisional or functioning government prepared to accept a best case development scenario for the immediate, short term, medium term and long term forecast. The purpose would be to formulate a rapid and consolidated or holistic approach to recovery and reconstruction. This would look not just at the immediate farm production demands but look at the markets and secondary industries taking into account all industrial, social and community aspirations that can be defined and prioritised keeping the process open to revision at all times.

Markets need to be defined for agricultural pursuits if production is to have significance and the secondary industries that market forces and short-term international partnerships that provide expertise and resources need to be formulated that can take advantage of these resources further.

Low cost-low input-high risk industrial investment should be introduced to facilitate the small to medium secondary industries and employment centres necessary to take up the dependence issues of the vulnerable and landless. Small-scale partnerships between existing foreign businesses with the necessary technology and business compatibility in association with local entrepreneurs would provide more long term benefit that many well intentioned and well funded but poorly executed relief projects fail to achieve. The foreign industry partner or business “angel” who would impart technical skills and industry know-how however also needs financial security and the opportunity to profit at a commercial level over a defined period. In this regard foreign donors agencies strive to avoid profit making at the project level yet expect the economy generally to recover in accordance with market forces and normal expectations of profitability. What is required is not always welfare but well formulated rapid development assistance, which is the key difference between an economy recovering and one that is destined to rely on constant relief aid.

Each donor country will have and does have conditionality or linked aid program however that could still be invoked within a comprehensive development plan. The strategy is primarily not to define how a donor country should commit its funds but to provide guidance on an essential country direction or strategy that is going to support and build the countries industrialisation and long-term economic recovery.

In the present situation, many local actors are involved in the discussion process, as it should be, however the need for employment in many cases is immediate, it cannot wait as in each of the cases mentioned above for 1, 5 or 10 years for a working document to be prepared and deliberated, particularly while the necessary professional skills are absent.

It should be pointed out, this is not intended to be a recovery or emergency response initiatives, as that already exists in a form within agencies such as UNDP nor is it meant to usurp the relationships and political frameworks between governments. It is primarily to function as an international planning agency that defines a countries resources from all known sources and their best use for long-term economic recovery that are achievable within the context of post relief aid. It would function simultaneously and assume the focal strategy shortly afterwards hostilities conclude.

The primary intention of this strategy is to see that the funds invested during the relief and the transition between the relief phase and the establishment of an autonomous government has a positive and long-term outcome defined at the earliest practical opportunity. To ensure that the recovery of the industrialisation is as rapidly repairs as the more basic human need issues. With this in place the communities are more likely to find the opportunity to assist in their own reconstruction demands.

In the case of civil strife it could be prepared during the course of those events such that at the appropriate moment it was available to put into place. For the developing world where its main economies can constantly develop “primary defence scenarios” for most other countries, it could also produce “primary development scenarios” with less cost or consequence.

Such a strategy should also take into account the input and requirements of those sectors of the community that will drive the economy forward, the small, medium and large industries promoters and the international partnerships that could be developed beforehand. The specific path defined need be fluid but well established in order that donors and implementing agencies have a concerted direction in how funds can be allocated with the maximum effect while at the same time all inputs need to be monitored to avoid unnecessary duplications and the creation of unfavourable short term economic abnormalities.

Simultaneously, the SDP would actively engage the government and donor-funded projects to rebuild its capacity to assume the role of defining where and how future industrial development takes place. Within a managed period and at the dictate of the funding agencies the transition to the incoming government should be facilitated and modified accordingly as the normal process of government resumes its role and develops its capacity.

H. L. Mencken wrote passionately about life and society in America one hundred years ago yet he may as well have been writing about events and the people of the United States today as his words still in many respects retain their import. Citing from his reference in Wikipedia,

It is no coincidence he regarded Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be the finest work of American literature; much of that book details episodes of gullible and ignorant people being swindled by Confidence Men like the (deliberately) pathetic “Duke” and “Dauphin” roustabouts with whom Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi River. These scam-artists swindle country “boobs” (as Mencken referred to them); by posing as enlightened speakers on temperance (to obtain the funds to get roaring drunk), pious “saved” men seeking funds for far off evangelistic missions (to pirates on the high seas, no less), and learned doctors of phrenology (who can barely spell). The book can be read as a story of America’s hilarious dark side, a place where democracy, as defined by Mencken, is “… the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.”

The pressure on American society to subscribe to the threat of terrorism has conducted the world into an open schism between societies, one that harks back to the time of the Crusaders, the need to lead these people out of their religious oppression and into whatever salvations that the American ideal can offer them. For the most part however and largely unseen by the people of the US, Islamic communities are content with their belief and perhaps with some modifications, also with the processes of life that it entails. It is not so much a clash of religions but a clash of cultures, defining the differences what it is about good and evil, a lack of understanding of the others acceptances or dismissals in the way we live our life and they live theirs.

The American psych has been captured in part by the politically inspired media and molded into a compliant morass, the daily denigration of liberal thought and sentiment and the corresponding glorification of all that is conservative promoted as the new gospel. Objectivity on the part of editors and writers has been destroyed by a well founded but misused sense of nationalism and super-patriotism and a strong desire to not be castigated as un-American at a time of war or conflict, to limit the questioning of policy and the principals that lead to them and to fail their own impartiality first and more importantly to fail their readers at large by a lack of honesty and transparency in their writing.

Issues of historical significance are quashed under the false mantles of racism or treason yet allow the conservative impressions of those issues to be further imprinted into the minds of the public, a daily feast of “Soma”, as was applied to the population in George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four” without question. The spirit of the intent of the “freedom of speech” enshrined in the US constitution is impinged daily by the conservative writers and the political and judicial processes of taking the legal understanding further along the road towards its neutralization.

In contemporary politics, the issues regarding the Middle East, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran fail to render sufficient questioning of the wisdom of the rhetoric espoused by the politicians. Their message is giving full credibility for its truthfulness with a clear lack of commitment by journalists to delve behind the words, the expose what underlies their meaning and the policies that are driving them, a clear lack of incredulousness and sense of gullibility that Mencken described satirically of those writers and readers in the nineteen twenties.

Americans, as does the world at large, have to redefine their national intellect, to move away from the supermarket variety of news and information and seek out that which defines the spirit of their forefathers who proposed their constitution and embellished it with the freedoms of liberalism. For its part, the media needs to reevaluate its role in American society, is it to be the foil of the jingoistic or is it to be the promoter of all those values of liberty, freedom that are so prominent in the minds yet lost in the intellect.

The ability of the public to speak freely within the confines of the internet has the capacity to change thought if the individual message can surface through the barrage of competing views. It still requires the mainstream media however to correct its perceived lack of independence and freely provide a cross section of opinion and public debate that is worthy of the mantle of “free press”.

The world waits on the prospect of the present debacle of the Middle East crisis being extended into Iran. The public rhetoric is convinced daily of America’s invincibility and military might yet fails to acknowledge that its public policy may well be flawed, as Mencken said, it is America’s hilarious dark side, and that it may well be igniting a catastrophe across a cultural divide that it is unable to quell for decades to come.