Jonas Gahr Støre, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Change of pace called for in Afghanistan

Dagbladet (Norwegian newspaper) 13 November 2006

Translation from the Norwegian

Our military efforts will not succeed unless our efforts in the civil sphere are far more effective and better coordinated. This must be on Afghan terms, and with a clear sense of Afghan ownership.

The situation in Afghanistan gives cause for deep concern. In public debates and in the media, attention has been on the fighting in the south. This is not surprising. The fighting has been more intense and widespread than most had expected. However, the challenge we are facing is broad and complex. On the military side, NATO and ISAF need to deal firmly with the Taliban and other rebel groups. At the same time, we must be careful to avoid causing the conflict to spread. These aspects of our efforts to stabilise Afghanistan are continuously being discussed in NATO and among the member countries. This is how it should be. We must all continually assess what we can do to help promote stability and progress.

Nevertheless, the main challenges lie in the civil sphere: building infrastructure that promotes economic growth, providing schools and health care services to the population, and consolidating institutions that deliver security and unite the country around the government in Kabul. Yet paradoxically, the international community is not paying the same, constant political attention to these civil challenges. There is no forum outside Kabul that regularly discusses these questions and thereby ensures that efforts to address them are given the necessary political momentum.

We need to discuss the military challenges – and do so continuously. But it is imperative that we focus equally on the civil needs.

I raised this issue with my counterparts in NATO when we met in New York on 21 September. There was broad support for my approach. We need to dispel the current feeling of stagnation and shift into a more dynamic political gear. Since this meeting, Norway has consulted a number of countries and organisations, as well as Afghan authorities and experts. The conclusion is the same everywhere: there is a need for a change of pace.

This is why I sent a letter last week to my counterparts in the countries that have troops in Afghanistan and to the heads of major international organisations. In my letter, I focused on three main areas that are critical if we are to succeed in Afghanistan.

First, there is a great need for better coordination of our civil efforts. They are still far too fragmented. This leads to a waste of resources and an inadequate overview of what is actually being done. Most of the international assistance currently bypasses the Afghan authorities. Parallel foreign structures are being set up, involving costly contractors and subcontractors. A considerable part of the assistance funds remain in donor countries and never reach Afghanistan.

The London Conference convened at the end of January focused on Afghan ownership. There was broad agreement that the Afghans need to take the lead in the stabilisation and reconstruction efforts and assume ownership. In the current situation, we risk “Afghan ownership” becoming more of a slogan than a reality. We need closer international coordination in order to ensure the optimal use of resources and real Afghan leadership and ownership.

In our view, it is only the UN that can take on an international coordinating role, in cooperation with the World Bank in areas where it has particular expertise. We want to strengthen the leadership of the UN, both in its role as coordinator and as the Afghan authorities’ main partner. We have presented specific proposals as to how this can be achieved. At the same time – and equally importantly – donor countries must show a greater willingness to accept such coordination. This is not always the case today.

Second, we must intensify our efforts to transfer expertise to the Afghan authorities. This is currently progressing too slowly and is hampering efforts to build government ministries, provincial authorities, the police, the judiciary and other Afghan institutions. Without a stronger and more competent administrative apparatus, the government will be unable to deliver the services and security the population needs. Weak institutions make it difficult for the government to gain visibility in many parts of the country. The risk is that the people could increasingly turn to other groups that are able to demonstrate power and authority. This would in turn increase recruitment to the Taliban and other rebel groups.

Competing international structures set up to provide development assistance undermine the transfer of expertise to the Afghans, and consequently their ability to take leadership in building and maintaining their own infrastructure and institutions. We should, to a much greater extent, draw on the Afghans’ own abilities.

Third, we should encourage the Afghans to do more themselves in critical areas. The authorities in Kabul must do more to engage all parts of the country in dialogue and to build popular support for the central authorities. In order to achieve this, they must show greater resoluteness in combating corruption in their own institutions, in the police and in the judiciary. They must do more to build a state apparatus based on appointment by merit rather than on appointments that yield political benefit in the short term, but that undermine the credibility and authority of the institutions over time. Norway is prepared to provide assistance in this area.

We consider these three areas to be key elements of a broader Afghanistan strategy. We do not underestimate the military challenge – particularly not in the south. But if we focus too exclusively on one aspect of our engagement or on one region of the country, we could end up undermining, rather than increasing, stability. We must dispel the feeling of stagnation that is prevalent in Afghanistan today. But this will require new dynamism in our civil efforts. There is growing awareness of this in the international community.

The Norwegian government considers it important that the debate on these issues takes a broad perspective. It is imperative that ISAF and NATO are successful. This will require forces in all parts of Afghanistan. Development is contingent on security. But the reverse is also true: our military efforts will only be successful if they are supplemented by civil efforts that are far more effective and better coordinated than they have been so far. Moreover, they must be undertaken on Afghan terms, under Afghan leadership and with a clear sense of Afghan ownership. The international community can never hope to win the confidence of the Afghan people to the extent needed to create lasting peace. Only the Afghans themselves can do that.