Enhancing the Footprint: Stakeholders in Afghan Reconstruction

Abstract

Afghanistan is so clearly demonstrating, one reconstructs during conflict and stabilization, not after it. Reconstruction is in many ways the essential process that bridges conflict and stabilization. (1) The necessities of reconstruction have frequently drawn the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) into activities that go well beyond its originally intended mission of providing direct security. Examples include contributing security sector reform such as restoring the rule of law or training the national police and army; delivering essential services such as health care, education, or food; and supporting the functioning of the Afghan authorities. Although most military forces would readily agree that they are not the appropriate actors be performing nonsecurity-related tasks within the traditional humanitarian domain, in many areas such as the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand, Zabul, and Uruzgan, tenuous security conditions prevent humanitarian organizations from establishing presence. In some instances these organizations are deliberately targeted by insurgent groups in an effort prevent them from gaining foothold or becoming effective in assisting the local populace. (2) In such situations, the debate on specific domains (3) becomes less relevant, and military involvement in nonmilitary activities is necessary provide temporary gap and gain momentum for reaching the primary military goal: the creation of stability. (4) Based on his deployment as commander of the Australian Reconstruction Task Force in Uruzgan, Lieutenant Colonel Mick Ryan stresses: Consultation with local officials and other interested parties will be critical aspect .... It is worth establishing formal mechanism, involving all stakeholders, facilitate community and government consultation. This interaction should include regular meetings with officials and local inhabitants work out the details of individual projects, ensuring that what will be delivered is what the locals need. (5) The issue of participation by local stakeholders in ISAF's stability and reconstruction activities will be the main focus of this article. As the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) are typically tasked to cover reconstruction within ISAF, they form the basis of this analysis. (6) Since other ISAF units are also confronted with local participation, however, their experiences are lesser extent included. This article's objectives are threefold. First, explain why participation of local stakeholders is essential for the overall success of the ISAF mission. Second, identify the challenges ISAF encounters in local participation. Third, formulate measures improve future participation. Local Participation Reconstruction is fluid process, where social relations and the meaning of institutions are renegotiated while people carefully probe their room for maneuver, waiting see if the conditions of relative peace will hold. (7) It is process driven by local actors: residents, government employees, organizations, and businesses; reestablishing relations; and reconfiguring hierarchies. Within this context, experts distinguish four related areas of meaning regarding participation, namely: (1) participation as right be involved in decisionmaking, (2) participation as autonomous action, (3) participation as development based on local knowledge, and (4) participation as transfer of power. (8) These four elements seem merge in the World Bank's definition of participation as a process through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources which affect them. (9) In reality, the extent which local stakeholders do influence and share control over areas that affect them varies between almost none full participation, as illustrated in Figure 1, an example of different types of participation by farmers in an agricultural project. …