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SAK och vår framtida roll i Afghanistan
Bengt Kristiansson, 2005-11-24
The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) envisages, for at least the next five years, to be running three major programmes in Afghanistan; Health, Education and Rehabilitation of Afghans with Disability (RAD). The main component of these three programmes is currently service delivery. Historically service delivery emerged as a substitute for an implementing authority such as a government or a civil service office. This priority of SCA was logical in the context of the past, but now the situation calls for a thorough review. SCA is responding to the new situation.
The Policy of SCA from 2004, decided by the members of the association at the Annual Meeting, indicates that, besides traditional service delivery activities, both capacity building and advocacy shall constitute essential parts of its future operations, and that future operations shall be targeted towards the rural poor and promote democracy.
Important fundamental principles to be considered in decision-making of future activities are those of human rights, gender and empowerment of the local community and civil society.
SCA has for long time committed itself to capacity building, mostly on the individual level. Extensive educational activities and training of Afghan staff within its own organisation has been carried out during most of SCA’s 25 years of operation. This will not only continue, but also grow further by developing institutional cooperation in both Afghanistan and Sweden.
During the last years, a shift of perspective is taking place, supplementing the needs assessed base with a rights based. However, the old form of service delivery had a value in itself, but implementing efforts are now increasingly explored, analysed and decided more from a rights perspective –
• children’s, especially girls’ right to education,
• women’s and children’s right to life and protection,
• disabled people’s right to better opportunities in life,
• poor people’s right to health care etc.
One appropriate way to strengthen the human rights approach and the activities related to that is cooperation with the emerging Afghan civil society.
SCA has specifically taken up the possibility to give active support and resources to the Afghan Civil Society Forum (ACSF), an important actor on the civil society scene in Afghanistan. This cooperation is expanding, and ACSF is becoming a sort of “strategic partner” of SCA. SCA also regards its activities within NSP (National Solidarity Programme) as a major effort within the civil society and its empowerment. Other traditional manifestations of the civil society (shuras, village councils, ulema groups, etc.) have long been integrated in SCA’s activities. For the strengthening of the local community, SCA has established a special unit in Kabul to promote support to the local community and civil society.
Within NSP SCA has developed a close collaboration with democratically elected representatives of local communities in the so-called Community Development Councils. This work has also led to collaboration with other agencies and local governments.
Afghanistan ratified the UN Human Rights Declaration in 2003, and is thus committed to promotion of human rights (HR). The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) plays a key role in this field. SCA has for a long time had an established contact with AIHRC, a cooperation that now is expanding more systematically. SCA is also a member of ACBAR’s advocacy group and a member of the Consortium for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (HRRAC). SCA’s Unit for HR and Gender constitutes a distinct reinforcement of future commitment. The name reflects the wider mission SCA now has embarked upon.
For the next five years to come, SCA anticipates that the existing platform of service delivery will decrease, at the same time as capacity development and advocacy will constitute an increasing share of SCA’s operations. SCA will though continue to be an implementer. SCA believes that the implementing role to a great extent is the base for the confidence, respect and reputation that are indispensable assets in all advocacy work.
The present situation is characterised by a state of transition: old strategies are phased out and new ones have recently been started or are under elaboration. This can be seen in all programmes.
The Health Programme
With the post-Taliban authorities in place, the ”Basic Package of Health Service” (BPHS) was established as the national strategy for health service. It is a population based medical and health programme which describes the services to be delivered, from village health posts to district hospitals, per province. It thus comprises a simple form of referral to secure access also to hospital care for the rural population, often poor. USAID, EU and the World Bank took on to finance BPHS. However, the entire country was not covered by this simple form of medical care – some 20-30 % are still without BPHS. SCA adopted the new strategy BPHS and is now implementing the programme in three provinces (Kunduz, Wardak and Nuristan).
BPHS is both service delivery and capacity building. The latter is done through education and training on provincial authority level and local administration. In addition to the regular and basic BPHS, SCA contributes with extra resources within Reproductive Health and MCH services, such as midwifery training and special maternal and child care, to emphasise the rights of women and children to survive and be protected. The reproductive health problem and child health are areas where Afghanistan has to be intensively strengthened to perform better. SCA will take its share and responsibility.
A HIV/Aids project ha also been launched on top of the BPHS standard. The spread of HIV is still not a big problem, but now, in time of migration and globalisation, prevention matters.
SCA’s Education Programme is now in a pronounced transition phase: the takeover of 400 and more schools run by SCA by the Ministry of Education (MoE) has started. Starting in 2005, SCA will now establish community based schools in areas where there is no school today, i.e. in more remote, rural areas where the population is underserved, vulnerable and poor. Also model schools will be set up to serve SCA’s teacher training. Teacher training is at present scrutinised on a national level, and SCA has a great interest in continued engagement within this field. An active dialogue with MoE and other actors is going on in order to form a future distinct strategy, and to identify ways of SCA to contribute to capacity building also within MoE. To this shall be added the interest of SCA in working with more child-friendly pedagogies and special pedagogical efforts for children with disability. The twin school programme between Afghan and Swedish schools will expand and also be linked to English schools, in a joint three-year programme funded by EU. Development of the initiated work within the schools with human rights problems will continue, in cooperation with AIHRC.
Rehabilitation of Afghans with different kinds of disabilities (RAD) is already from start a rights driven programme. It was originally established with Community Based Rehabilitation as its base. It means that rehabilitation is made available at home and in the village, and that the local community takes on a great part of the responsibility for its operation and development. Interest groups and associations for and by people with disability are encouraged and several groups have been formed. RAD constitutes a rather distinct combination of service delivery, capacity development and advocacy in a common undertaking by different groups of the civil society, SCA and the donors. Many of the existing organisations within RAD (village councils, disabled people’s associations, parents’ organisations) could be important actors within the emerging Afghan civil society and SCA will, by supporting the right of people with disability and by strengthening the civil society, expand within the field of disability.
Today there is a national action plan together with a national policy and a coordinating body in sight, under the lead of Ministry of Martyrs and Disabled. Many questions have until now been pushed from one authority to another, and issues on people with disability have to a great extent simply been neglected. SCA wants to contribute to a change and also sees such changes within reach.
The future success of SCA is tightly depending on the wider scenario in Afghanistan during the next few years. A reasonable scenario of SCA is that of a continued progress in the field of development, democracy and sovereignty. But security risks will prevail and political and military directions may take an evil turn. Much has developed in the right direction, but the situation is far from stable or secured.
The presence of war faring foreign troops, the Neotaliban insurgency, the opium economy, the warlords, the corruption and the lack of rule of law - each one may be a threat to security and thus to SCA and its efforts to contribute to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
The position of the UN mandated security forces (Isaf) is different from that of the coalition forces, but Isaf suffers from two major problems: too few troops for its mission, and a threat to be put under a united command together with the US-lead Coalition forces. It is hoped that several countries, not least the Europeans will soon put more troops into Isaf. As to the second problem, it is expected that many countries will not accept such an arrangement. Whereas SCA has felt convinced that peace-keeping, security stabilising troops on a UN mandate in Afghanistan may make a constructive contribution, we do not think it is acceptable to bring them under the same command as the troops that are in Afghanistan to pursue a war.
SCA hopes to continue and expand its activities in Afghanistan – and hopes that Afghan authorities together with peace keeping international forces on a UN mandate will be able to stabilize the security, add to the prospects of peace and development in which Afghans have the sovereign power to decide their own political future and reconstruction. In such an environment both Afghanistan and SCA will thrive and fare well in the future.
Bengt Kristiansson
Secretary General, SCA