Can DFATD learn from its mistakes in Afghanistan?

During a surprise visit to Iraq earlier this month, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced an additional 139 million Canadian dollars ($113 million) in humanitarian assistance to countries affected by the crises in Iraq and Syria, of which CA$39 million will go to Baghdad. An additional CA$23 million was announced in support of development initiatives in Iraq. The renewed aid package came weeks after Harper introduced a motion in Parliament to extend Canada’s participation in the military operation against the Islamic State group for up to 12 months. Further, in 2014, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development made Iraq a “development partner country” for bilateral assistance. DFATD’s “whole-of-government” approach in Iraq, where humanitarian, development, security and diplomacy tools are being used simultaneously, resembles Canada’s past involvement in Afghanistan in many ways, and not just because both countries are Middle Eastern fragile states. Recent declarations by Minister of Foreign Affairs Rob Nicholson indicate the government is looking at Afghanistan as an example to replicate in Iraq. “Being in this for the long term — it’s similar to what we did in Afghanistan, for instance,” Nicholson told local media, adding a military operation could be coupled with significant humanitarian assistance. For development experts, the parallel with Afghanistan isn’t good news. The former Canadian International Development Agency, now amalgamated into DFATD, spent CA$1.5 billion in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2012, as part of what became the largest aid program in Canadian history. Last March, an evaluation of the program published on DFATD’s website came to rather grim conclusions — despite some successes, the long-term impact of Canada’s aid to Afghanistan has been limited. The evaluation found Canada’s assistance contributed to short-term achievements in infrastructure, education, food security, health, human rights and gender equality. However, long-term impacts are mitigated; gains were made in access to health and education services, and landmine removal, but the aid program left no impact on economic growth, human rights and governance. “Generally, there were more short-term achievements than long-term development results,” the report’s authors wrote. The evaluation also highlighted the failure of Canada and the international community at large to understand the causes of the conflict, as well as implementing lessons learned about working in a conflict zone. “The principles for engagement in fragile and conflict-affected states call for a thorough understanding of the context, including the conflict. In practice, the international community, Canada included, was more focused on implementation,” it stated. According to the report, the various strategic shifts taken by Canada over the years were well intended, but left an impression of no policy coherence. In 2008, for instance, the government adopted a whole-of-government strategy to strengthen the integration of resources, and allocated 50 percent of development funding to Kandahar province. In 2011, Canadian troops withdrew from Kandahar, and an exit strategy was designed to hand the projects over to the U.S. Agency for International Development. However the U.S. agency pursued different priorities, threatening the legacy of the Canadian projects. Signature projects The evaluators also looked at the three “signature projects” that were supposed to showcase Canada’s role in Afghanistan: a project to eradicate polio by 2009, in partnership with UNICEF; another to build and repair 50 schools in Kandahar; and one to rehabilitate the Arghandab irrigation system (also known as the Dahla Dam project) in the same province. More than 50 schools were built, but some problems with the quality of construction have been reported. What’s more, a lack of monitoring reports prevented evaluators from measuring the impact of these new schools on local enrollment rates. As for the polio program, many vaccination campaigns have been organized, and the country seems to have contained the infection; however the goal to eradicate the disease hasn’t been met. The CA$50 million Dahla Dam signature project, launched in 2008, is perhaps the most controversial. To begin with, it never gathered consensus from local and international experts, some of whom believed an entirely new dam was needed. A previous report submitted to the former Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 2009 struggled to assess the impact of the project on local communities. It appeared that 50 percent of the area targeted by the project didn’t benefit, because security concerns prevented work from being done on certain canals. And SNC-Lavalin, the Canadian company that was contracted for the project, drew heavy criticism when it was revealed that it spent close to 10 percent of funds on security — the money went to a private firm with ties to former President Hamid Karzai. SNC-Lavalin also failed to finish the project on budget and on time; construction was handed over to the Central Asian Development Group. The March 2015 report noted that monitoring efforts on the Dahla Dam project have now stopped, leaving few clues as to how impactful the project has been. “I think that’s extremely embarrassing for Canada to — against the recommendations of development specialists — have paid these signature projects and not really to have succeeded in any of them,” Stephen Brown, a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa, told Devex. “It doesn’t seem like a very good blueprint for replicating elsewhere.” Brown is just one of the many voices in Canada that have been critical of the Afghanistan program. “Canadian development assistance, however, was politicized into prescriptive and self-serving projects that supported Canada’s short-term political and military objectives,” Nipa Banerjee, a professor at the University of Ottawa who headed CIDA’s Afghanistan program from 2003 to 2006, wrote in January. “In the end, little evidence exists that these investments contributed much to security or development in Kandahar Province.” Banerjee however disagreed with several aspects of the evaluation. For instance, she noted the report failed to include a cost efficiency analysis, and drew the wrong conclusions from the success of the National Solidarity Program. But Christoph Zuercher, also from the University of Ottawa, pointed out how difficult it had been for evaluators to do their job. “Apparently, no baseline data was collected. Aid workers were on the ground for more than a decade and at some point, they could have made an effort to collect data (preferably sectorwide),” he wrote. “No such effort was made, and it is unlikely that field personnel will ever make these efforts until headquarters and political leadership demand better data.” Learning from mistakes Critics of the Afghanistan program worry the mistakes outlined in the report will not be taken into account for future development initiatives. The report indicates DFATD has taken steps to implement five recommendations made by evaluators, including establishing institutional mechanisms to capture lessons learned, but critics say the department has neither the culture nor the will to follow through. Further, Brown told Devex that DFATD inherited CIDA’s culture of “never admit you made a mistake,” fueled by Harper’s increasing push for greater accountability. “The more you stress accountability like that, the more you can’t take any risks, and the more when something bad happens you try to cover it up,” he said. Stephen Baranyi, also from the University of Ottawa, argued that DFATD staff has demonstrated a willingness to learn from the evaluation, but the government is pushing for different priorities. “At the bureaucratic level, DFATD management has responded to the evaluation in a fairly consequential way,” he said. “Yet at the political level, the government is interpreting the evaluation selectively to justify its view that Canada’s intervention in Afghanistan provides a model for interventions in Iraq and elsewhere.” The evaluation of the Afghanistan program raises important questions regarding development assistance to fragile states as well as Canada’s increased role in the fight against the Islamic State group. “The government in the past 10 years has talked a lot about aid effectiveness, and it’s not clear that aid in fact is very effective in a war zone, and the DFATD evaluation of the Afghanistan program recognizes that. If that’s the lesson learned in Afghanistan, where will be spending the money on in Iraq?” Brown asked. Check out more insights and analysis for global development leaders like you, and sign up as an Executive Member to receive the information you need for your organization to thrive.