Yesterday I covered the big-picture issues that make it hard to judge how much we've really accomplished, and whether the rather substantial achievements of this PRT in particular are sustainable and significant in the long-term view of this country.
This post is the short-term, day-to-day view, and it's probably going to seem pessimistic (again). The last two days have been especially frustrating, and have highlighted the three primary reasons I'm counting down the days until I get on a plane and go home. Here they are:
1.) "You promised."
2.) "That's not good enough."
3.) Massive, staggering, incomprehensible ingratitude.
Everywhere we go, we're told that we have promised things to people. At first I thought this might have been a translation issue, and that "you promised..." was a convenient way of expressing a possibility. However, after a year of hearing it, and several conversations with interpreters to clarify the fact that yes, they do mean to say that we have supposedly made promises, it has become clear that it is more than a figure of speech.
I have some degree of sympathy for this one, because I understand that we're Americans, and Americans are supposed to have money and resources. There's no way for most of the local population to have any grasp of the long, slow, restrictive, and inefficient process required for us to get projects funded, so I can easily understand excessively high expectations about what we can actually accomplish. Still, being told that we have promised to build projects, provide money, or give out food (to name a few) has gotten quite old. Without exaggerating, I can comfortably say that we hear about the promises we have supposedly made during at least 75% of the meetings we have with local villagers or government officials.
We make a point of never promising anything, to avoid exactly this type of problem. Unfortunately, we have discovered that simply showing up on a site or having a discussion with a villager constitutes a promise. The most extreme example of this that I have encountered occurred yesterday. At a site with a significant amount of flood damage, several villagers were demanding assistance in building new walls and digging out a riverbed. At one point, the village elder leading the discussion pulled out a sheet of paper, signed by all the locals, the district manager, and the governor. It also had two notes written in English, both from the PRT commander. The first said, in essence, "Please come back after November, when we will find out if any funding is available". The second, dated November 28th, 2007, said that no money was available, and that the PRT could not support the requested projects. You may have guessed already where this is going. The man pointed at these notes from the commander and emphatically told our interpreter, "You promised to build this for us!"
Obviously the man doesn't read or speak English, but I know that those notes were explained when they were written, signed, and handed to him. The fact of the matter is that our presence on a site is seen as a promise by many people around here, even if we specifically and clearly explain or document the fact that we cannot and do not promise to be able to help. It's understandable (to a certain extent) given the high expectations people have about our ability to help. Still, it gets old after a while.
"That's not good enough" is a harder issue for me to rationalize. Token Crazy Guy was an example, since the basic idea is that if we can't do everything they ask for, we might as well not do anything at all. I ran into this again today. We have a small project getting ready to start that will repair a health clinic. The doctor in charge of the clinic changed his mind about what he wanted done, but he never told us that, so we signed a contract for a bunch of work that he no longer claims to need. We got his new priorities, negotiated with the contractor to complete as much as possible with the fixed amount of money in the contract, and thought we were ready to start work. Instead, the doctor told us that if we can't build everything he wants, we shouldn't do any of it. I find this absolutely incomprehensible, but it's a common enough attitude around here that I'm writing a blog post about it. To me, it's a simple equation: Something is better than nothing, even if it doesn't amount to perfection.
Massive ingratitude is the third issue, and the hardest for me to deal with. It's a more extreme version of "That's not good enough", but tends to be more malicious. Completing the trifecta, I also ran into this today. During the summer we completed a building that serves as a printing press. We renovated the building, furnished it with a printing press and computers, and provided maintenance and training for the equipment operators. The Director of Communications has not shown a great deal of competence or motivation, but he occasionally produces decent newspapers for distribution around the province.
Yesterday, a beam came loose in the roof of the building and knocked a piece of suspended ceiling down inside the building. Nobody was hurt, and even if somebody had been standing underneath it when it happened, nobody would have been hurt. It was an unfortunate accident that caused minor damage, which will probably be fixed in a few hours by the contractor, since the building is still under warranty.
Rather than finding the PRT and telling us about it, the Director of Communications decided to take a picture, publish it in the most recent newspaper (possibly the fastest issue ever to roll off the presses, by the way), and include a story highlighting the fact that the PRT was responsible for this catastrophe. Apparently for lack of other subject matter, he also decided to include a half-page picture of himself in another section of this particular issue.
Let me rephrase this situation in the terms that I see it in: The PRT (and more generally, the United States) provided all of the tools necessary for this man to do his job, including the building, the printing equipment, and the training to operate the equipment. When one minor event occurred, this man then used the tools we provided for him, and proceeded to publicize a story about our supposed failures and shortcomings. I have seen villagers reject offers for help, I have seen them accuse us of not doing anything for them, and I have been told regularly that what we are doing is not nearly enough. Today though, the Director of Communications won the prize.
He is not representative of most of the local government or most of the local population. Most people want more, but they also appreciate whatever help we can provide. A lack of gratitude goes hand-in-hand with aid work, but it is an issue that has worn on me the longer I have stayed here. The past two days have been unique; I don't generally encounter so many negative issues all at once. It's also possible at this point that my threshold for these sorts of things is critically low. I do know that a year is definitely enough; many people on the team feel the same way, and we saw the same issues with the previous team as they got ready to leave last year. The new team will arrive soon with a fresh perspective, and hopefully they will continue the progress we have been able to make this year.
My next post will be more upbeat, don't worry. It may take another week, but I'm going to try to document the progression of a new school building, as a sort of construction success story. Keep nagging me about it, because if it takes any more than a week to write the next post, it may never get done, since at that point our replacements should be almost here. That, by the way, is the best news I've heard all year.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Nearing The End
I'm getting closer to the end of my tour here, and at this point I wanted to provide a little feedback and a few of my thoughts about what I've seen and what I feel like we accomplished. There seems to be a common misconception out there - fed largely by what I admit is growing and often vocal cynicism on my part - that I'm bitter and upset about being here, and that I don't feel like we've accomplished anything. For the record, that is not true. Yes, I tend to be cynical, and yes, there are days that make you wonder what the point of it all actually is, but overall I do feel like this PRT has been successful, and has contributed to making a difference around here. I say contributed because the reality is that reconstruction and development are long-term goals (as in multi-decade), so seeing the process in a year-long slice doesn't do justice to what still needs to happen for long-term success.
Just from a numbers standpoint, the Panjshir PRT has more than tripled the amount of funded projects that have been approved for 2008. For 2006 and 2007, it was pretty much a linear progression in the amount of funding for new projects. So far in 2008, we have three times as much as last year, which includes two major roads, plus several million more in projects that haven't been approved yet. Numbers don't tell the whole story, but it's a start.
We have six large schools nearing completion that will be done shortly after spring starts, when the weather warms up. We have public health projects all around the valley, including both new construction and renovations or additions to existing clinics. Two new roads will probably start this summer, which will extend the main road (finished last year by USAID) by a total of about forty kilometers. The list goes on, but you get the idea. The next team of engineers will have plenty of work to do.
As an engineer, I've been busy all year. It's extremely satisfying to see a school go from an empty field to a completed building, but it does not necessarily indicate progress. This is what I think frustrates many people, myself included, about the type of work that this team does. Aid work comes in all kinds of different forms, but I suspect that the types that require the longest range of vision are also the types that require the most patience and perspective from the aid workers. At a homeless shelter, you can work one-on-one with those in need, and with luck, you can see improvement: overcoming an addiction or holding a job, for example.
On the level of a PRT, it's extremely difficult to see that sort of impact. We can build and open a girls' school, but it's only a nice looking building until it has qualified teachers to fill it. We can open health clinics in every district in the province, but again, without qualified doctors and nurses, infant mortality isn't going to change. In a sense, we have the easy part. Supervising a contractor and getting a good quality building requires persistence, but it's certainly achievable. Mentoring a national ministry like Public Health or Education requires years of persistence and training. Afghanistan lost a generation to the Russians and the Taliban; it's going to take the better part of a generation to fill that gap.
In the meantime, what happens to the schools and clinics we built? They get used, but there's no structured curriculum, and there may not be teachers with more than a high school education. That's not exactly a foundation for success for the thousands of children whose only hope of doing more than just survive is to get some sort of decent education. The Governor can afford for his children to go to school in Kabul, but it will be years or decades before the central government is able to bring quality educational opportunities to children who don't have the good fortune to be born to the tiny fraction of the population with the means to circumvent the local problems.
What happens when Pakistan disintegrates and the infection of extremists in Afghanistan goes from simmering to boiling? Panjshir is in many ways a model PRT because of the security situation here, and the fact that the local government is capable enough to maintain a safe, poppy-free province. That security is the essential factor in enabling the PRT to successfully complete projects and interact in a positive way with the population. Panjshir may be a model province, but small pockets of security and development don't necessarily represent the direction of the country as a whole.
These types of issues are the reason that I've come to the conclusion that I don't possess the patience to work on an enduring basis in the developing world. Some people do; I would call them saints. Maybe it comes with age, but my ability to deal with the long-term, strategic-level timescales required is just not adequate for me to stay sane around here. Fortunately, in about two weeks, the next team will start to arrive and I will start the process of going home.
Compounding the big-picture type of patience that I don't entirely possess is the fact that I have to deal daily with the Army, an organization that is not designed for the type of work it is currently managing by handling the PRTs. I could go all day on this subject (and someday I probably will), but for now I'll just leave it at the fact that this type of aid work requires a flexible organization capable of adapting to unique and dynamic circumstances. Despite a recent emphasis on "Civil Affairs", the Army is a kinetic organization, fundamentally designed to hunt down and kill people. Most of the time, this doesn't breed the troop mentality, institutional patience, or leadership required for nation-building. In all fairness to the Army, they have been thrust into a role they don't really belong in, which is not a recipe for success.
This probably sounds like exactly like the type of pessimism I've been accused of all year. The fact of the matter is that on a provincial level, this team has been successful. Projects have gotten done, children have been able to go to nicer schools, roads have opened up economic avenues that never existed before. We have made a difference, and I am proud to have been a part of it. On a national level, I don't know what is going to happen. The political environment in the United States and around the world will determine the outcome, and the best I can hope for is that smarter and more patient people than myself will be able to spend the years and decades required to make substantial and lasting improvements to this country.
Just from a numbers standpoint, the Panjshir PRT has more than tripled the amount of funded projects that have been approved for 2008. For 2006 and 2007, it was pretty much a linear progression in the amount of funding for new projects. So far in 2008, we have three times as much as last year, which includes two major roads, plus several million more in projects that haven't been approved yet. Numbers don't tell the whole story, but it's a start.
We have six large schools nearing completion that will be done shortly after spring starts, when the weather warms up. We have public health projects all around the valley, including both new construction and renovations or additions to existing clinics. Two new roads will probably start this summer, which will extend the main road (finished last year by USAID) by a total of about forty kilometers. The list goes on, but you get the idea. The next team of engineers will have plenty of work to do.
As an engineer, I've been busy all year. It's extremely satisfying to see a school go from an empty field to a completed building, but it does not necessarily indicate progress. This is what I think frustrates many people, myself included, about the type of work that this team does. Aid work comes in all kinds of different forms, but I suspect that the types that require the longest range of vision are also the types that require the most patience and perspective from the aid workers. At a homeless shelter, you can work one-on-one with those in need, and with luck, you can see improvement: overcoming an addiction or holding a job, for example.
On the level of a PRT, it's extremely difficult to see that sort of impact. We can build and open a girls' school, but it's only a nice looking building until it has qualified teachers to fill it. We can open health clinics in every district in the province, but again, without qualified doctors and nurses, infant mortality isn't going to change. In a sense, we have the easy part. Supervising a contractor and getting a good quality building requires persistence, but it's certainly achievable. Mentoring a national ministry like Public Health or Education requires years of persistence and training. Afghanistan lost a generation to the Russians and the Taliban; it's going to take the better part of a generation to fill that gap.
In the meantime, what happens to the schools and clinics we built? They get used, but there's no structured curriculum, and there may not be teachers with more than a high school education. That's not exactly a foundation for success for the thousands of children whose only hope of doing more than just survive is to get some sort of decent education. The Governor can afford for his children to go to school in Kabul, but it will be years or decades before the central government is able to bring quality educational opportunities to children who don't have the good fortune to be born to the tiny fraction of the population with the means to circumvent the local problems.
What happens when Pakistan disintegrates and the infection of extremists in Afghanistan goes from simmering to boiling? Panjshir is in many ways a model PRT because of the security situation here, and the fact that the local government is capable enough to maintain a safe, poppy-free province. That security is the essential factor in enabling the PRT to successfully complete projects and interact in a positive way with the population. Panjshir may be a model province, but small pockets of security and development don't necessarily represent the direction of the country as a whole.
These types of issues are the reason that I've come to the conclusion that I don't possess the patience to work on an enduring basis in the developing world. Some people do; I would call them saints. Maybe it comes with age, but my ability to deal with the long-term, strategic-level timescales required is just not adequate for me to stay sane around here. Fortunately, in about two weeks, the next team will start to arrive and I will start the process of going home.
Compounding the big-picture type of patience that I don't entirely possess is the fact that I have to deal daily with the Army, an organization that is not designed for the type of work it is currently managing by handling the PRTs. I could go all day on this subject (and someday I probably will), but for now I'll just leave it at the fact that this type of aid work requires a flexible organization capable of adapting to unique and dynamic circumstances. Despite a recent emphasis on "Civil Affairs", the Army is a kinetic organization, fundamentally designed to hunt down and kill people. Most of the time, this doesn't breed the troop mentality, institutional patience, or leadership required for nation-building. In all fairness to the Army, they have been thrust into a role they don't really belong in, which is not a recipe for success.
This probably sounds like exactly like the type of pessimism I've been accused of all year. The fact of the matter is that on a provincial level, this team has been successful. Projects have gotten done, children have been able to go to nicer schools, roads have opened up economic avenues that never existed before. We have made a difference, and I am proud to have been a part of it. On a national level, I don't know what is going to happen. The political environment in the United States and around the world will determine the outcome, and the best I can hope for is that smarter and more patient people than myself will be able to spend the years and decades required to make substantial and lasting improvements to this country.
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