Speech
25 February 2009
Afghanistan: Our Country Our Future
Speech by Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development at Canada House on Wednesday 25 February
Let me begin my remarks with some words of thanks, firstly to Jon [Snow]. In a time when it is too easy to be cynical about the broadcast media I want to pay tribute to the exemplary coverage that Jon and Channel 4 News have given not only to Afghanistan but to development issues in general.
I would also like to thank the High Commissioner, Jim for hosting us here in Canada House today. It is a great pleasure to be here and I would like to place on record the courage, dedication and professionalism of your countrymen and women whom I met serving in Afghanistan.
And I would like to say a particular word of thanks to the British-Afghan Women’s Society for organising the event and inviting me to speak here this morning.
And on behalf of the British Government, I’d like to welcome those of you who have travelled in some cases long distances to be here with us in London. Indeed it is a pleasure to see so many Afghans here today debating the future of your country.
It is a future to which the United Kingdom is committed. We are both the second largest bilateral donor to Afghanistan, and - with some 8,000 troops – the second largest military contributor to the international community’s efforts within Afghanistan.
Our effort is contributing at national and local levels towards establishing a prosperous and peaceful Afghanistan, led by a government that represents and delivers for all Afghans.
And the last seven years have seen real progress towards that goal. Five years ago, six out of ten Afghans exercised their democratic rights by voting in elections for the first time in more than 35 years. Five million refugees have been able to return home. Where just one in ten Afghans had access to basic healthcare, that figure is now up to eight in ten.
Women, of course a central feature of discussion today, are now playing a more active part in society, in business, in politics. Seven years ago only a million boys were in school across the country – education was denied by the Taliban to all girls. Today, as I have witnessed myself, more than six million children - over a third of them girls - are now in school.
When I visited a school just outside Kabul I met girls who are raising their sights above the wildest dreams of their mothers – girls who now aspire to be doctors, to be teachers, to be policewomen.
So the task now is to build upon the progress made in the last seven years - to enable Afghans to secure and govern their country.
A sentiment that is easy to articulate, but difficult to deliver in a country broken by thirty years of conflict. Hanif Atmar, now Minister for the Interior, summed up the scale of the challenge when he told me that his country is trying to tackle simultaneously four great scourges that would individually trouble any country anywhere in the world: narcotics; poverty; insurgency and weak governance.
Indeed, the day after visiting that school just outside Kabul I saw a very different school in Garmsir, in Helmand province. A school that had not seen children or teachers for many months, but instead stood pockmarked by bullets.
In the last six months, many Afghans have become more pessimistic about their personal safety and their country’s prospects for moving forward. The violence in the south of the country remains grim – including beheadings, kidnappings, suicide bombings and attacks on civilians, including teachers and the girls they teach.
These threats must be met with determination, professionalism and courage – as the international community seeks to build the capacity of the Afghan security forces.
State-building
Yet all of us know that there cannot be a purely military solution to the fight against the insurgency. Our primary objective – through defence, diplomacy and development - must be to support the establishment of an effective, resilient and enduring Afghan state. For as Ashraf Ghani has said - “it is the weakness of the government, not the strength of the Taleban, that is the issue”.
The recent poll of Afghan opinions carried out by the BBC and ABC news organisations underlines this insight. 90 per cent of Afghan citizens oppose the Taliban, and only 8 per cent think they will return to power. 85 per cent of people say the Taliban have weak or no significant support in their area.
Yet the figures also show that people are worried about security, corruption, and the effect that the global economic downturn will have on their country. This only underlines the importance of government that can provide for its citizens.
And in essence that is why the Department for International Development puts 80 per cent of our aid through the Afghan Government – in order to both improve its capacity to govern and to strengthen the connection between the citizen and the state.
In this way, we are supporting the people of Afghanistan in three critical areas of state-building, namely:
- creating a lasting political settlement;
- delivering the basic functions that a state must carry out in order to survive; and
- engaging with the expectations and aspirations of citizens.
Let me deal with each of those in turn.
Political settlement
First, and of paramount importance, is supporting Afghans to create a lasting political settlement. The forthcoming elections will be an important step in that process – the opportunity for Afghans to determine, democratically, their government. The United Kingdom is supporting the Independent Electoral commission to ensure that all voters are fully informed about their rights and indeed their democratic choices.
Beyond simply holding elections though, a political settlement requires an understanding between competing groups about how power will be divided. Because unless the Afghans feel themselves sufficiently bound into the political community, there can be no lasting settlement.
So today I specifically want to applaud Governor Mangal’s work in reaching out throughout Helmand through shuras, to help reconnect the people with their central government. His walkabout in the Gareshk Bazaar last summer, and his visit to Sangin, Musa Qala and Garmsir were the first by any Helmand governor for thirty years, and sent an important signal.
Delivering basic functions
The second critical area of statebuilding is the capacity to perform the basic functions of security, raising funds and rule through laws. It was in the 9th century that the Islamic scholar Ibn Qutayba said, and I quote: ”There can be no government without an army, no army without money, no money without prosperity, and no prosperity without justice and good administration”.
That insight remains valid a thousand years later. A key concern for the Afghan people and their Government is the ability for people to move around, to trade and conduct business, and for NGOs and others to deliver essential services.
That is why the foundation of our support for Afghanistan – now and in the future - is defeating the insurgency and supporting the establishment of the rule of law, which of course includes taking on the opium producers that make it the world’s largest supplier of heroin.
In addition to providing security and the rule of law, the state must be able, of course, to raise funds through economic activity. There has been quick economic progress in Afghanistan from a very low base – average incomes have more than doubled since the fall of the Taleban, and the economy has grown on average by 15 per cent a year since 2002.
Yet today four out of ten Afghans today remain unemployed. Four out of ten Afghans continue to live in chronic poverty; and four out of ten Afghan infants are underweight. Afghanistan therefore needs to provide economic opportunities for its people – a task made more, not less urgent by current global economic conditions.
That was why I was so keen to launch the Afghanistan Investment Climate Facility during a visit last July. That programme will help by, for example, cutting the red tape which means a grocer in Jalalabad needs 40 signatures and 60 days to export his fruit across the border – by which time almost half of it will no longer be fit for sale.
Engaging with citizens and meeting expectations
The third pillar I mentioned of a lasting Afghan state must be the ability to engage with and meet the expectations of citizens. That means developing accountable and representative government institutions, which provide the basic services that people need.
British aid has supported one of the Afghan Government’s most high profile reconstruction initiatives – the National Solidarity Programme, launched by Ashraf Ghani. That programme has helped local communities across Afghanistan to set and meet their own reconstruction priorities, funding more than 37,000 projects to improve roads, schools and access to clean water. And, because it is an initiative of the Afghan Government rather than donors, it helps to strengthen the link that I argued was so important between the people and their representatives.
Yet, the recent BBC poll has again underlined that Afghans want their Government to do more to tackle corruption and bribery. The Government’s anti-corruption body, special prosecutor for corruption and dedicated court for corruption must now produce results – in the form of prosecutions – if the Government is to gain the confidence both internationally and of its own population in the face of this vital challenge.
And it’s crucial that at the local and community level, Afghans feel not only that their government is responding to their needs, but also that their voices are being heard. And that’s why the UK is working closely with the Independent Directorate of Local Governance to create stronger, more accountable institutions in all of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces.
Closing remarks
All of these issues and more will be covered in some detail today, and I look forward to hearing the results of the deliberations in each of the sessions and workshops.
As Jon’s introductory remarks reminded us, Afghanistan has faced many challenges in the past. And Afghanistan faces many challenges in the road ahead, but as I think today’s event shows, there is no shortage of talented, passionate Afghans who are determined to give the country a truly better future.
I wish you well in your coming discussions and deliberations. Thank you.
