Strategic coordination in Afghanistan

The purpose of the study is to identify issues relating to the “strategic coordination” of the international assistance effort for Afghanistan at a relatively early stage in its renewal and expansion.The paper argues that the failure to deploy International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beyond Kabul may ultimately undermine the most important working assumption of the international assistance effort, although this is a failure of political will rather than a matter concerning strategic coordination.One strategic issue is the building “strategic” alliances, the paper recommends:UNAMA and the AIA/ATA should adopt a new strategic approach, based upon a combination of a compelling strategic argument and the identification of strategically like-minded UN agencies, NGOs and donors, organised through the principle of voluntary complementarity rather than structurally imposed integration. To begin with, UNAMA and the AIA/ATA should distinguish between the humanitarian agencies that wish to remain politically on the fence or are obliged to be neutral by mandate, and those which are willing and able to support the political/peace-building strategy, and then pursue strategic coordination with these two groups through separate processesthe ambiguous position of the World Bank should be resolved. By statute the World Bank is obliged to be non-political, but in Afghanistan it will implement what is perhaps the most politicised of any of the international aid programmes. Officially in denial of having political objectives, the World Bank is thus constrained as a player within any formal strategic coordination process, to the frequent consternation of others. To a lesser degree perhaps, this argument also applies to UNHCR and WFP. If these institutions continue to be formally prevented from undertaking political tasks, then they should not be funded for such purposesATA/AACA, UN and donors should redirect the management energy currently being wasted in debate about how to “control the NGOs,” towards a more effective process of inter-agency cooperation based upon strategically critical characteristics such as size, reach and functionOther strategic issues (recommendations included within the paper):communications, a strategic vacuumtransition from de jure to de facto government coordinationhuman rights and aid conditionalitiesgender policy confusionhumanitarian issues