Despite many billions of dollars, international assistance to
Pakistan, particularly from the U.S., its largest donor, is neither
improving the government’s performance against jihadi groups nor
stabilising its nascent democracy.
Aid and Conflict in Pakistan, the
latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines how the
U.S. focus on military funding has failed to deliver counter-terrorism
dividends, instead entrenching the military’s control over state
institutions and delaying reforms. In order to help stabilise a fragile
country in a conflict-prone region, it concludes, the U.S. and other
donors should focus instead on long-term civilian assistance to improve
the quality of state services, in cooperation with local civil society
organisations, NGOs with proven track records and national and
provincial legislatures.
Since 2002, U.S. funding has been heavily lopsided: $15.8 billion for
security purposes, compared to $7.8 billion in economic aid. Because
U.S.-Pakistan ties continue to be narrowly defined by counter-terrorism
imperatives, many Pakistanis believe that Washington is only interested
in short-term security objectives.
“U.S. support for long-term democracy and civilian capacity building
is the best way to guarantee the West’s and Pakistan’s interests in a
dangerous region”, said Samina Ahmed, Crisis Group’s South Asia Project
Director. “But aid policies must be better targeted, designed and
implemented”.
Because of strained U.S.-Pakistan relations, particularly since the
May 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden near a major military
academy in Abbottabad, donors and their implementing partners face
increasingly difficult conditions. Along with bureaucratic and military
restrictions on NGO staff and activities, rising security threats,
particularly kidnappings-for-ransom, also impede aid delivery.
The Obama administration’s aid policy, which limits U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) and NGO input into program designs and
strategies and stipulates an abundance of rules and reporting
requirements, constrains the capabilities of USAID and its implementing
partners. Short-sighted policies aimed at winning hearts-and-minds
through high visibility “signature” development projects are often mired
in a sluggish and unaccountable bureaucracy. Instead of measuring
success as a bricks and mortar game, economic aid should focus on
supporting democratic strengthening, capacity building for better
delivery of services, economic growth and civilian law enforcement.
All military funding should be rigorously monitored, and the
administration should apply congressional certification requirements
that the Pakistan military has ended its support to jihadi groups, holds
human rights violators to account and does not subvert the democratic
process. Above all, Congress and the administration should not allow
frustrations with the military to restrict economic assistance and
support for the democratic transition.
“Without a change of course, U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001 will
leave a legacy of failure”, said Paul Quinn-Judge, acting Asia Program
Director. “In Pakistan, it will be remembered for failing to provide
effective support for democratisation, and in the U.S. for failing to
deliver on stability and counter-radicalisation”.
International, particularly U.S., military and civilian aid has
failed to improve Pakistan’s performance against jihadi groups operating
on its soil or to help stabilise its nascent democracy. Lopsided focus
on security aid after the 11 September 2001 attacks has not delivered
counter-terrorism dividends, but entrenched the military’s control over
state institutions and policy, delaying reforms and aggravating
Pakistani public perceptions that the U.S. is only interested in
investing in a security client. Almost two-thirds of U.S. funding since
2002 ($15.8 billion) has been security-related, double the $7.8 billion
of economic aid. Under an elected government, and with civilian aid
levels at their highest in decades, the U.S. and other donors can still
play a major part in improving service delivery, supporting key reforms
and strengthening a fragile political transition vital to internal and
regional stability. Re-orientation of funding from military security
purposes to long-term democracy and capacity building support is the
best way to guarantee the West’s and Pakistan’s long-term interests in a
dangerous region. But aid policies must be better targeted, designed
and executed.
Historically, Pakistan’s aid experience has been characterised by
steep increases and sudden cut-offs around specific geo-strategic
events, such as the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
That experience still informs Pakistani perceptions of U.S. assistance.
As the end of 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of combat forces from
Afghanistan approaches, U.S. relations with the military are at an
all-time low because of Afghan safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal
borderlands, as well as the closure of the NATO pipeline after the
November 2011 attack on a Pakistani border post in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Many Pakistani stakeholders fear that
the U.S. – responding to the military’s actions and policies – will
again abandon its partnership with the people, and the civilian aid
pipeline will be cut off.
These concerns come less than three years after the U.S. Congress
passed the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act in October 2009,
authorising a tripling of civilian assistance to $7.5 billion over five
years. The bill’s underlying goal, supported by the Obama
administration, was to broaden engagement beyond a narrow relationship
with the military in order to support civilian institutions and
democracy. But Islamabad and Washington will have to overcome the policy
divide that has defined their relationship particularly since the 2 May
2011 U.S. raid that led to the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden.
The goal to provide $1.5 billion annually for five years has fallen
short by $414 million in fiscal year (FY) 2011 and an estimated $500
million in FY2012. Instead of scaling up its operations in Pakistan, the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is trying to reduce
expectations, programs and projects. As relations deteriorate, the
Pakistani military, with the civilian bureaucracy’s support, has
intensified oversight of and interference in aid delivery. Implementing
partners, particularly international NGOs, face constant harassment,
threats of closure and visa delays and refusals for staff. This has
severely impacted all aspects of their operations, from hiring to
program implementation. Strained bilateral relations have hampered aid
delivery even in areas outside the military’s control. Most prominently,
the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N)-led Punjab government has
refused to accept U.S. assis-tance, suspending government-to-government
programs in Pakistan’s largest province.
Evolving security threats, in particular kidnappings-for-ransom, have
further hampered activities and staff movements, compelling some
international organisations to recall staff and scale down and in some
cases close operations. In the most prominent case, the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), after the beheading of a kidnapped
expatriate worker in Balochistan’s provincial capital, Quetta, closed
offices in Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi.
The space for USAID and the international NGOs (IN-GOs) and Pakistani
NGOs it funds is also shrinking as a result of the Obama
administration’s aid policy. These organisations have limited input into
program designs and strategies, and their work is constrained by an
abundance of rules, regulations and reporting requirements. The decision
to channel significantly more funding through Pakistani government
institutions is understandable, since building the state’s capacity to
deliver is vital to democratic transition. So, too, is the effort to go
directly to local NGOs. However, the U.S. must partner with a broader
range of NGOs that have proven, credible records but lack a presence in
Islamabad or the provincial capitals. The U.S. should also consider
extending successful INGO-led programs. Maintaining a balance and
finding ways to utilise INGO expertise is vital to fill in gaps in local
capacity and would also be useful in helping train and support local
government and non-governmental organisations with limited capacity. As
that capacity develops, INGOs should be incrementally phased out and
their projects turned over to government institutions and local NGOs.
The U.S. administration’s focus on large, “signature” infrastructure
projects as the top priority of its civilian assistance program has
similarly limited USAID’s options. The policy is based less on
development goals than a bid to win over the Pakistani public through
projects that have high visibility and leave an enduring legacy. It
depends, however, on a sluggish bureaucracy characterised by opaque,
dysfunctional public procurement processes, official corruption and lack
of accountability. As a result, appropriated funds get stuck in the
pipeline, with USAID consequently coming under intense pressure from
Congress to disburse large, unspent funds elsewhere, which risks greater
waste. While Pakistan desperately needs water, electricity, roads and
telecommunications, projects have to be well designed and should be
balanced with support for democratic strengthening, capacity building,
public education and civilian law enforcement.
Since building state capacity is vital to the democratic transition,
the U.S. and other international partners should not reduce their
measures of impact to a bricks and mortars game, but instead focus on
improving the state’s ability to deliver not just more but better
quality services. In formulating policy with major ramifications for aid
delivery, they should also consult key stakeholders, including local
civil society organisations and Pakistani and international NGOs with a
solid track record, as well as the national and provincial legislatures.
Congress has rightly expressed strong disapproval of some of the
Pakistan military’s actions. It has placed conditions on
security-related assistance in existing and proposed legislation,
requiring the secretary of state’s certification that the military does
not subvert political and judicial processes, has ceased support to
extremist groups and brings personnel responsible for human rights
violations to account. Unfortunately, the administration has yet to
apply such conditions rigorously. Its ability to rubber-stamp
certifications in the future may, however, be limited given increasing
Congressional scrutiny. It would be well served to follow the
legislature’s lead by rigorously applying restrictions on military aid.
Rather than throwing good money after bad in an attempt to cajole an
unreliable partner into cooperating, it should shift the focus of its
counter-terrorism strategy to civilian law enforcement agencies, which
could deliver significant results if properly authorised and equipped by
the civilian government.
For its part, Congress should not allow frustrations with the
Pakistani military to affect either civilian assistance or more general
engagement with the elected government and representative institutions.
It should realise that willingness to spend money on Pakistan on the one
hand but a reluctance to explore creative alternatives to existing
programs on the other sends confused signals to the Pakistani as well as
American publics. It also limits results. Civilian aid levels are still
high, despite bilateral tensions, but if programming is guided by
short-term security goals, the intended beneficiaries are likely to view
the U.S. as at best oblivious and at worst hostile to their needs.
Strengthening democratic institutions should not be seen solely as a
political goal, but also as the means to stabilise a fragile country,
addressing development priorities and shoring up peace in a
conflict-prone region.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To make explicit, in policy and implementation, a re-orientation
of aid from military to long-term support for civilian institutions,
with a focus on democratic strengthening, capacity building, economic
growth and civilian law enforcement
To the U.S. Government:
01. Apply existing conditions on military assistance and refrain from
penalising civilian assistance due to the Pakistani military’s actions
and policies.
02. Give USAID a greater say in devising foreign policy development
goals and on key decisions with regard to implementation, including aid
delivery and measures of impact.
03. Give implementing partners significantly more ownership over
USAID projects, including meaningful participation in designing
programs, determining priorities and assessing realistic timetables and
measures of performance.
04. Reset the priorities of civilian assistance to focus on
democratic strengthening, capacity building, economic growth and
civilian law enforcement.
05. Improve aid effectiveness and limit wastage by:
a) working, alongside Pakistani institutions, with local and international NGOs with a proven and credible track record in Pakistan;
b) assuring that investments in large infrastructure projects have strong local and national support so as to reduce the chance that their implementation will be delayed or blocked;
c) developing accountable management tools (by adapting lessons learned in democratic transition elsewhere) so as to increase the number of small grants that reach smaller community-based NGOs;
d) emphasising impact assessments that measure institutional strengthening and are not a simple numbers game focused on output;
e) supporting public-private partnerships, many already in existence, under which the national and/or provincial governments enter into long-term contracts for service delivery with local NGOs that have a good track record;
f) enhancing monitoring and oversight mechanisms by adopting a multi-tiered process incorporating local civil society organisations and national and provincial parliamentary public accounts and relevant standing committees; and
g) conditioning FATA aid on reform of the region’s corrupt and dysfunctional bureaucracy, including abolition of the FATA secretariat and the office of the political agent and transfer of their powers to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) secretariat, relevant provincial line ministries and district departments.
06. Enhance the state’s ability to deliver services and manage projects by:
a) building the capacity of civil service training institutions by providing instructors and teaching materials on best international practices of public policy, fiscal policy, financial management, infrastructure development, human resource management, energy and agriculture; and
b) leveraging assistance to stimulate dialogue on vital fiscal, energy sector and education reforms.
07. Refrain from efforts to publicise U.S. assistance that undermine
rather than improve the U.S. image in Pakistan; and allow local
implementing organisations more leeway in determining whether USAID
branding would bolster or jeopardise individual programs, including
assessments of the security of and community response to services and
supplies carrying the USAID logo.
08. Terminate any funding to influence the opinions of Pakistani
clerics and end any support to the madrasa sector, shifting those
resources to the public education system.
09. Enhance rule of law programs by:
a) shifting the focus of security assistance to making Pakistan a strong criminal justice partner, through support for civilian law enforcement agencies and criminal prosecution;
b) supporting the modernisation and enhancing the counter-terrorism capacity of the police and civilian law enforcement agencies;
c) balancing funding to the police with a robust policy dialogue on modernising the penal code, criminal procedure code and evidence act;
d) urging national and provincial legislatures to pass promised police reforms to ensure operational autonomy and empower oversight bodies such as the national, provincial and district public safety commissions and the National Police Management Board;
e) refraining from providing any support to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, instead focusing resources on improving the formal justice system’s capacity to dispense justice; and
f) sending unambiguous signals to the military that illegal detentions, extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations in the name of counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency are unacceptable, by conditioning military aid on credible efforts by the leadership to hold any persons found committing such acts to account and by vigorously implementing the Leahy Amendment with respect to units alleged to have committed human rights abuse.
To facilitate implementation of projects, particularly by
removing bureaucratic and military constraints on the activities of
local and international NGOs
To the National and Provincial Governments of Pakistan:
10. Send clear signals that they want to continue a relationship with international partners, by:
a) removing restrictions on NGOs and their staff and resuming registration of INGOs;
b) ending the 11th Army Corps’ right to approve no-objection certificates (NOCs) for NGOs and their staff;
c) directing the civil bureaucracy to reduce and ultimately phase out NOC requirements for INGOs; and
d) easing the process for foreign NGO workers to obtain residence and visit visas.
11. Honour the spirit of the eighteenth amendment to the constitution by:
a) ending the role of the finance ministry’s Economic Affairs Division (EAD) to oversee and regulate foreign donors and transferring those responsibilities to the Council of Common Interests (CCI), which is constitutionally authorised to deal with foreign assistance; and
b) prioritising the devolution of resources to provincial governments and line departments, in accordance with the eighteenth amendment, so that resources match responsibilities.
12. Develop in all four provinces coherent development strategies
that include far greater government investment in health, education and
social welfare.
13. Initiate a national dialogue, under the CCI’s lead, about
fiscal, energy and water sector reforms and present a reform package in
parliament.
14. Strengthen efforts to bring FATA into the Pakistani mainstream
by abolishing the FATA secretariat and the office of the political agent
and transferring their authority to the KPK secretariat, relevant
provincial line ministries and district departments; implementing the
August 2011 FATA reforms properly; and continuing the process of
incorporating FATA into the federal constitutional framework, with full
political, economic and human rights. (ICG)
Read Full Report from here>>>
Read Full Report from here>>>