(Mis)understanding the intersection between development policies and data collection: Experiences in Afghanistan

Abstract

There is a misalignment between a development community focused on improving the welfare of vulnerable populations and the challenges of addressing widespread illicit drug crop production in drug producing countries. Drawing on the example of Afghanistan, this paper argues that the reasons for the development communities failure to engage is in large part a function of the way that illicit opium poppy and the illicit economy is currently perceived and understood by policy makers, practitioners and scholars. Much of the problem lies with the various statistics used to describe and quantify opium production in Afghanistan, many of them produced by UNODC and cited repeatedly in media coverage and the academic literature. These statistics shape how we have come to understand the scale and nature of the drugs problem, and thereby have informed policy responses. This paper argues that it is critical that policy makers and scholars fully understand the veracity of drug related statistics, including their methodological and conceptual limitations, before using them as the foundations for development programmes or policy responses. Indeed, this paper argues that many of these statistics have presented a simplified and ‘profit maximising’ model of the factors influencing farmers’ livelihoods choices, which has proven deeply misleading and further alienated the development community from engaging constructively with the challenges of illicit drug production in developing countries.