http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/index/ en U.S. Department of State 2008-08-07T18:10:00-05:00 About the Author: Alison Blosser is a State Department Representative/Political Officer with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Asadabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Alison's previous post: Updates From Afghanistan.

Unity of effort in Kunar's central and remote Korengal Valley, host to some of the province's most intense insurgent activity, has recently enabled fruitful negotiations to concentrate more on development and employment than fighting. Although insurgents continue to sporadically threaten local villages and Coalition outposts throughout the Korengal, Kunar government's provincial and district leadership, the Provincial Reconstruction Team, soldiers of the "Battle" Company (2d/503d, 173rd Airborne Division), and key village elders have partnered to inaugurate a road construction project that will eventually link the remote valley to main provincial paved roads.

Roads in Kunar are not only instruments of transportation, but avenues to economic opportunity that give people choices beyond picking up a weapon. Since the Jalalabad-to-Asmar road was paved along the west side of the Kunar River, running nearly the whole valley from north to south, over 30 petrol/diesel stations have popped up where businesses did not exist. A pink hotel stands along this stretch. Numerous open markets line the villages along this main thoroughfare, and money is changing hands. A similar phenomenon is happening heading west from Asadabad along the 32-km Pech Valley Road, which also follows a river. The preparation and paving of the Pech Road was a PRT project, and now other donors including USAID and the Army Corps of Engineers / Afghanistan Engineer District are funding connectors and extensions that will eventually enable Kunar to link into a larger network through Laghman and Nuristan provinces. The ability to traverse these mountainous – craggy places on proper roadways – is unprecedented in this region of Afghanistan. Now the PRT is turning to more challenging pockets of Kunar.

The Korengal project is actually comprised of two roads. One will originate in Chowkay district's Deywagal Valley south of Asadabad, coming off the Jalalabad-Asadabad road. As that road cuts northwest, a similar finger will drop south off the Pech Valley Road from Kandigal Village through the Korengal, meeting the Chowkay road in central Kunar. The entire road will link populations that currently walk or donkey-ride for over six hours to reach a main road, enabling access to clinics, schools, district government centers, and markets.

The Provincial Governor inaugurated the project with a ground-breaking ceremony at the starting point for construction, a full 20-km north of Korengali lands. The Governor has continued to engage Korengal's residents by linking them with neighboring tribes who may be willing to help provide an umbrella of security in the valley. Connection to the local communities, particular the traditional elders of those villages, has been critical. Repeated meetings have become confidence building exercises on both sides. Elders give guarantees of their desire for the road and promise to participate in the project's security, and the District Government and PRT commit to longer-term development and partnership with traditional leadership. Operational military units work with the Korengal shura (council of tribal elders) on security matters, and the PRT helps the shura to develop a local labor plan for the project.

Unity of effort combines military action to go after the most hard-line fighters while the PRT continues to negotiate with those who want security and development. The process is public, transparent, and requires infinite patience on all sides. Setbacks include threats to workers, concern by tribal leaders about how far the road may penetrate into the valley, and land disputes over the route. Through it all, the traditional consensus-building mechanism of the shura is the instrument of mediation.

The road project may go in fits and starts with occasional stalling due to pervasive insurgent threats to valley residents. However, every kilometer widened and paved is a testament to rural people's commitment to joining the social contract, working with their government, and legitimately expecting delivery of basic services.

As commerce increases for local communities, so does the opportunity cost for tolerating violence and intimidation by spoilers. Roads anchor and organize development within the security bubble that extends to either side of the pavement. As the government has improved freedom of movement, it can demonstrate its presence by deploying community police and conducting regular patrols. Basic health posts can be linked to more sophisticate combined health service centers, which feed into the central provincial hospital. Provincial officials such as the Director of Education can travel more easily to check on teachers and identify existing open-air schools for building construction. Although roads are not the panacea to creating stability, in the "ink-blot" approach to counter-insurgency, they are a critical tool.]]> http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/afghanistan_korengal/ 2008-05-06T16:08:01-05:00 Alison Blosser is a State Department Representative/Political Officer with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Asadabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Alison's previous post: Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan.


I've not blogged for over a month and would like to quickly answer some of the questions posed by readers (in no particular order) before introducing a new topic:

-- What is the single most pressing need in Afghanistan for the common people?

This is probably the hardest question you could ask. The single most pressing need for the common person varies significantly province to province, even district to district. In the most security-endangered, insurgent-threatened areas, people usually say security is their biggest issue. In remote areas where all the schools within a 10 mile radius are open-air tents, construction of a building that is linked into the Ministry of Education's overall plan for staffing, equipping, and curriculum is the biggest need. In places where drought has struck for multiple years, rendering most [legal] crops failures and causing farmers to turn to poppy, indebtedness to poppy seed providers and smugglers/middle men is the biggest problem. In many provincial capital cities that are beginning to set up functioning bureaucratic institutions that unfortunately lack regular national funding, the implementation of extra-legal revenue collection – bribes, unaccounted "taxes," undocumented fees -- can be the biggest problem.

-- How can solutions to these problems be delivered without interference from corruption?

While I continue to be an idealist about the direction Afghanistan is going and an optimist about incremental improvement, particularly in governance, I do not believe corruption is going to dwindle to zero immediately. Countering corruption is a key element of every program ranging from intensive police training to create a more professional force that is loyal to the country and government of Afghanistan (irrespective of tribe, family, or locality), to encouraging the government to regulate extractive industry exploitation.

-- What can the average concerned U.S. citizen do to help?

Inform yourself. Read multiple sources. Re-read the stories that surprise you. Read media, think tank analysis, academic work by regional experts, history, fiction about the region. Challenge yourself to learn facts that differentiate Afghanistan from Iraq. These are different people, of different histories and cultures, in different circumstances --"The Fight" is not identical in both locations. Tell your friends what you learn.

-- DU poisoning and protection of Afghan citizens:

In Kunar province, I am not aware of a program to specifically deal with depleted uranium. However, the Asadabad PRT is co-located with an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit to assist Afghans to safely eliminate Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) from their land. When local residents discover UXO – often in the form of unexploded rockets, grenades, or ammunition rounds – they can report it to the local police, who in turn contact the base. Local people have turned in everything from 30-year-old land mines discovered in agricultural fields to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that were placed in the road by insurgents only days ago. EOD teams respond by going to the site, determining how to safely destroy the ordinance in-place or remove it, and finally conducting a controlled detonation to eliminate risk of accidental explosion and injury. I should add that EOD teams augment the security of everyone working and living in the region, local people and foreigners alike, because in addition to serving a reactive role in responding to reports of ordnance, EOD teams also go out looking for it – risky, but often fruitful work that saves lives and limbs.

-- Is anyone in Afghanistan using satellite or large footprint technology to deliver primary and secondary education, community outreach, and development information?

One of the biggest challenges to using technology in Afghanistan is power supply. Right now, the most effective way to reach the population in Kunar province continues to be radio. Power supply, even in regional capitals, is still often generator- (and therefore diesel-) dependent. Hand-crank and battery-operated radios are common. Projects such as micro-hydroelectric plants on local waterways can sometimes generate good power supply for remote areas, but tackling the power problem will require national, or at least regional grids. These will be costly and time-consuming to build. Thus, use of technology for education is limited in the short-term, but may be more feasible in the longer term.

-- Fun fact on Afghanistan:

An afghani is a unit of currency – the current rate of exchange is approximately 50 afghanis to one U.S. dollar. An Afghan (Afghans) is a person (people) from Afghanistan.

-- Next new topic:

Unity of purpose was a theme of one reader's comment – I hope that readers have seen recent coverage of one of Kunar's most contentious and non-permissive environments, the Korengal Valley.

Links:
ABC Nightline, "The Forgotten War" series: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/ambush-video-sh.html
Vanity Fair's January 2008 print issue and web special: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/01/afghanistan200801
NPR's "All Things Considered" reports: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16123139 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15889646

I would like to dedicate the next entry to the unity of effort and the collaboration among local people, troops, the provincial government of Kunar, and the Provincial Reconstruction Team to bring opportunities to the Korengal. The referenced media coverage honestly depicts the dangers in the Korengal Valley and the bravery and courage of the troops fighting there. But I would like to draw attention in the next entry to the non-kinetic efforts that the same soldiers are making in the valley with the collaboration of the Asadabad PRT and the government of Kunar. COMING SOON!
]]> http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/update_afghanistan/ 2007-12-11T16:02:01-05:00 Alison Blosser is a State Department Representative/Political Officer with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Asadabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Alison's previous post: On the Ground in Afghanistan

Thanks to those who have commented already. Many of the questions so far are about the State Department's role and the pace and process for development activities, so I'll try to address those. The situation in Afghanistan is one of simultaneous fighting against insurgents and also post-conflict and preemptive-conflict development and reconstruction. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) are designed for the latter activities. The teams are constituted under NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and are staffed by Coalition partners across most of Afghanistan's provinces. American troops are stationed at the PRTs in the Eastern Region, but many other troop-contributing nations have PRTs across the country (for example, the Germans run the PRT in Kunduz, New Zealand has troops and a PRT in Bamiyan, among others), and we all fall under NATO/ISAF purview. Since the PRTs are mandated to work on primary pillars of security, development, and governance, policy makers decided early on to blend civilian expertise into the military mix. We now have a U.S. State Department and a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spot at each PRT, not only the ones with U.S. soldiers. In some places, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has also contributed personnel to assist with agriculture, forestry, and hydrology since a large part of Afghanistan's population relies on farming or agricultural industries for subsistence and livelihood.

Most PRTs have now aligned their management in an "executive team" comprised of PRT Commander, Department of State Officer, USAID Officer, USDA Officer, Civil Affairs Lead, Engineering Lead, and Information Officer (the military's equivalent of a Public Affairs Officer), or a similar mix of the PRT's personnel. This team is essentially the decision-making and vetting body for the PRT's activities.

The Department of State officer serves in this executive team in several roles. S/he is tasked with getting to know the key personalities, leadership, and inter-personal dynamics of the province to serve as an advisor on how the PRT's activities might fit into the political, economic, tribal, and historical local landscape. On mentoring and working to improve transparency and effectiveness of provincial government, the State representative's role overlaps with Civil Affairs to some extent. Luckily, in most PRTs this partnership works well (and there is plenty of work to do), so the Civil Affairs team and State rep can work closely to avoid duplicating efforts. Much of the mentoring is about connecting the provincial government to itself, to its districts, and to the respective national ministries. It's also about helping the province to extract nationally-controlled budget resources so the provincial government can provide the services to its citizens that a government is supposed to provide (sometimes this is called "extending the writ"-- convincing citizens that their government works for them, thus gaining their faith and support for the government rather than insurgents). The State representative is also the province's link into U.S. Government-sponsored opportunities -- officers stationed in the field can help the Embassy to identify candidates for exchange programs such as the International Visitor Leadership Program or other training opportunities. From the field, diplomats can also engage the Afghan people from local TV, radio, and print media, reaching a completely different sector of Afghanistan's population than national programming to explain U.S. foreign policy objectives, or more often, U.S. Government engagement with Coalition Forces on local rebuilding efforts.

As to development prioritization, I'm happy to say we are beyond simply asking elders for a "to do" list (though we often do spot-check whether local priorities are being captured in provincial planning). It is critically important to note that Afghanistan's own government is leading the development efforts -- the Coalition, through the PRTs and other national-level mentors, serves as a facilitator. After adopting the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, the Afghan Government required that the provinces create Provincial Development Plans (PDPs). During the initial phase of creating provincial strategies (a process facilitated by the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, UNAMA), many provinces came up with "laundry lists" of detached projects without any priority order. However, through the process of the PRTs and UNAMA working with Provincial Development Councils, Community Development Councils (representative bodies of local populations at the district and provincial levels), and "shuras" (traditional councils of elders, often by tribe or by village) culminating in a PDP brainstorming and drafting exercise, the provinces now have strategic plans that were created through grass-roots consultations, community participation, and finally consensus voting on prioritization.

Now, the PRT takes very few direct-applications for projects from local communities. When villages ask for a project, the PRT tries to link the village leadership or elders with the relevant Line Directorate (Health, Education, Irrigation, etc.). The project proposal usually then goes to that provincial Line Director, who aligns it either within the existing infrastructure or the Provincial Development Plan. Once the project "passes muster" through the Afghan Government, it comes to the PRT for the executive team to evaluate and request funding. Whether the Department of Defense or USAID funds the project is another matter, often linked to the timeline or the scope of the project.

Here's a concrete example from Asadabad. The Directorate of Education (which falls under the national Ministry of Education) already manages and staffs approximately 315 schools in Kunar Province. These are not all hard structure schools - some are open air. Many villages have applied to the PRT for a school building, so the PRT first took these requests to the provincial Director of Education. He saw that most of these school requests were among his 315 - i.e., he could confirm he has the capacity to staff them with teachers, supply them with books, give them a curriculum, etc. The Director of Education compared the request list to his list of Afghan Government-funded development projects already committed through the National Solidarity Program (another development mechanism), and came back to the PRT saying, "OK, we'll build these 21 schools. Can the PRT help to build these other nine?" Projects in other sectors (roads, irrigation schemes, wells, micro-hydroelectric projects, district centers, health services) are similarly vetted.

On security and operational effectiveness: the security scenario varies from province to province. I won't disguise that Kunar Province has significant, regular insurgent activity. That said, the PRT is still able to cultivate partnerships with local elders of villages, local leaders, District Administrators, and provincial government officials. We have projects in some "dodgy" areas. We've noticed though that local buy-in makes an enormous difference in the sustainability and the protection of the projects, and thus in most of our contracts, contractors are required to hire 75% of unskilled laborers from within a 10km radius of the project site. The PRT's engineers hold "how-to" sessions with unskilled laborers in masonry, carpentry, and other trades, developing skills that increase the chances of people being re-hired in future projects. Doing quality assurance monitoring requires that we get "out of the wire." So we do, and we take what precautions we can.

I'll be in Afghanistan for a year, so please keep the comments coming!
]]> http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/prt_afghanistan/ 2007-10-25T02:19:00-05:00 Alison Blosser is a State Department Representative/Political Officer with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Asadabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Alison's next post: Priovincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan

Flying in a Chinook helicopter up the Kunar river valley into mountainous Asadabad is a spectacular way to arrive at post. I have come to Afghanistan following a one-year tour as a Political Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, ready to develop a truly cross-border perspective of tribalism, development, insurgency, and Pashtun hospitality.

My home/office has become a dorm room at the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Asadabad, Afghanistan, where I am the State Department representative (and currently sole civilian) liaising with a Naval Commander, a robust military Civil Affairs team of officers and NCOs, and a professional and experienced force protection element to address provincial and local governance, infrastructure development, and overall security.

After a week of orientation briefings and check-in at Kabul Embassy, where I lived in a "hooch" (read: modified shipping container split into two rooms and faux-wood-paneled with bathroom, TV/DVD, mini-fridge, Ethernet, phone, microwave, twin bed, and shelves), I flew out to Jalalabad Air Field (JAF)....

...As a stowaway on the flight carrying Deputy Secretary John Negroponte, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher, and staff. They paid visits in early September to Afghanistan and Pakistan, key allies to the United States in the War on Terror and critical partners to improving regional stability in south Asia. (Needless to say, the C-130 was plenty spacious for a "strap-hanger" and her three giant bags plus body armor issued by the Embassy.) From Jalalabad, I boarded the Chinook and landed in Kunar province.

Since arriving in Asadabad in mid-September, I have removed about 2 pounds of dust from my room, unpacked, set up like a college student, and re-met all the guys and the few gals I met last March during civil-military training at Ft. Bragg. The night stars here are stunning, and there are hardly any lights on the hills nearby (no electrified villages). The mountains are craggy, dusty, deforested, and enormous.

Ramzan, the Islamic month of fasting, began just as I arrived, and with it the season of fast-breaking at sundown. The PRT hosted an Iftaar reception and dinner with the provincial governor, who allowed us to use his downtown compound and invited most of the provincial cabinet. At Iftaar, those who have been fasting all day await the sundown call to prayer. As the call to prayer is sounded, everyone takes a date and some "sharbat," usually juice or rose-flavored fizzy water. Then everyone goes to offer prayers. Once they return, the group eats dinner together – the table was heaped with mounds of rice, goat and mutton meat, chicken, sweet late summer grapes, and fruit chaat (a dish common on Ramzan tables – pomegranates, bananas, apples, grapes, and fresh yogurt). Although Afghanistan's cuisine is blander and uses fewer spices than further southeast on the subcontinent, the fruits, particularly pomegranates, are the sweetest in the world and add exotic flavor to many meals.

The Provincial Reconstruction Team took foodstuffs out to each of 14 provincial districts to augment food supplies for the neediest people during Ramzan, with the hope that their Eid tables would be bountiful. We also included religious items such as prayer beads and extra new copies of the Koran for mosques in remote areas. District Administrators worked with the PRT and local elders to appropriately distribute these items among villages.

Our engagement is much broader than simply humanitarian assistance during holidays. As I continue my tour here, I will describe some programs to assist the Afghan government to be able to provide security, stability, service delivery, and effective governance. These include training the Afghan National Police, encouraging the transformation of former personal militias into security protective forces that can join legitimate law enforcement entities, working with the governor and line-ministries to publicize their efforts on radio and television, and building or re-building schools, mosques, wells, river-control walls, roads, and more.
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