Integrity Score 380
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Situating Workable Response continues....
National Level Approach
From the transitional framework established by the 2001 Bonn
Agreement, Afghanistan is moving towards a longer-term development
framework defined by the Afghanistan Compact and the Afghanistan
National Development Strategy (ANDS) development process. At the
same time, Afghanistan is facing intensifying threats from insurgency,
opium, and popular discontent. While these threats require short-term
action, long-term solutions will only come through comprehensive
improvements in governance and the emergence of a stronger state. The
relationship between international assistance and state building is
complex and long-term state building processes can be hindered by short
term action, as well as by excessive dependence on external assistance.
There is a crucial problem facing Afghanistan that is often referred to as
the “state building paradox.” What is called for is institution building and
fostering accountability in governance.
Afghanistan, after decades of conflict, is a volatile state that has
witnessed watershed elections and important infrastructure rebuilding;
while much work remains, significant progress in human rights, political
and economic reform and infrastructure has been achieved. On the other
hand, a number of extremely disturbing countervailing trends are evident:
the actual influence and control of the new, democratically elected
government of Hamid Karzai extends only weakly beyond the outskirts of
Kabul; ethno-linguistic fragmentation is on the rise; an increasingly
sophisticated insurgency threatens stability; large areas of Afghanistan are
still ruled by warlords/drug lords; and, possibly most damning for the
long-term stabilization of Afghanistan, the country is fast approaching
narco-state status with its opium crop and transport representing 35-60
percent of the country’s licit GDP. Current estimates posit that
approximately 87 percent of the world’s heroin is produced in
Afghanistan. Most troubling of these trends is the persistence of old
patterns of identity politics in the seemingly new Afghan context. The
problem of regional militias and the influence of the warlords, many
fuelled by lucrative drug production and trade, are a colossal problem.
To be continued....