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Afghanistan: How the UK is making a difference
25 September 2007
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Afghanistan Factsheet
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Image courtesy of Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror
Last month, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander
visited Afghanistan.
Here he talks of what he saw with his own eyes - the people he met, and the vital work being done - in a country that is rebuilding itself after years of conflict and insecurity.
The importance of our task
One of the many privileges of being Secretary of State for International Development is seeing for myself the difference Britain makes in fighting global poverty. Hearing from the people who benefit from the UK’s support is a powerful reminder of why we are working in countries like Afghanistan.
Image courtesy of Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror
What makes the headlines here is very different from the day to day experience
of people who live there. On my recent visit to Afghanistan, I had this brought
home to me vividly in Kabul listening to women - women who have won seats in
parliament, who run voluntary groups and who hold official positions. These
women symbolise what we stand for in our work in Afghanistan - committed to the
country’s future and bitterly aware of the continuing challenges.
What I found most moving was their tales of life under the Taliban - a life they said simply must not be allowed to return; tales of beatings for trying to go to the doctor without being accompanied by a male, tales of being punished simply because their nails were too long. These tales of medieval barbarity have faded from many people’s memories here.
For these women, those experiences do not fade.
Major improvements made, major challenges to meet
Image courtesy of Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror
The Taliban are still actively seeking to impose their brutal and suffocating
rule on a country that is starting to look to a better future. In one of my
meetings, one of our military commanders in Helmand told me how the Taliban pay
young children a dollar a day to dig up landmines, which the insurgents then use
to attack NATO forces. The Taliban are trading on the poverty and hopelessness of children trapped
without a chance of an education, without hope of building a life.
Afghanistan remains dreadfully poor, bearing the scars of 30 years of conflict. In some senses the task that lies before Afghanistan is not of reconstruction but an attempt to construct a country which has not enjoyed the infrastructure of some developing countries.
The average lifespan for an Afghan is just 43 years. One in five children will not see their fifth birthday. Half the population live on less than a dollar a day. But Afghanistan is a vastly better place than it was when the international community’s effort started in 2001.
You can measure progress in the 2,000 schools built or repaired in the last five years, the 9,000 kilometres of new roads, the 330,000 small businesses and families who have received loans to let them build for the future or the 29,000 projects created to improve irrigation, electricity supplies, roads and bridges.
Providing essential services
Image courtesy of Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror
But statistics tell only half the story. For me, it was the look in the faces of
children offered an education for the first time. I visited a school recently
constructed in Daud-Zai village, outside Kabul. The teacher who runs that school
has taught for 40 years, first under a tree and then under canvas. But his
teaching was interrupted time and again, first by the Mujahadeen and then by the
Taliban.
Now 700 children - girls as well as boys - are learning in bright new classrooms, learning with smiles on their faces and daring to hope - as they told me - of growing up to be doctors and teachers. There were 900,000 boys being educated under the Taliban in 2001. That number has now risen to 5.4 million children, almost 2 million of them girls.
During my visit I announced that the UK will provide £55 million of assistance to the Government of Afghanistan’s development efforts - money that will be used to keep these new schools going by paying the salaries of teachers, as well as of doctors and nurses in local clinics providing health care where none has existed before.
Restoring law and security
Of course, development projects take a long time to build. You have to create a security environment in which the work can be taken forward. That’s why the work of British troops in Helmand is so important. It was humbling to meet soldiers from every part of the United Kingdom in Helmand. When I met the British commanders, they were confident that they are beating the Taliban. The circumstances are very difficult, but British forces are really doing Britain proud.
Their work is vital. You may have seen headlines recently about an increase in poppy production in Afghanistan. But we also saw more than a doubling - from six to 13 - of the number of drug free provinces. Look at those drug free areas, and the complex challenge of defeating drugs becomes a simple equation.
Where you have law, governance and security then it’s possible to tackle opium production. Where you don’t have the rule of law and the security is poor, as in Helmand at the moment, then we have an increase in poppy production. But we have no option. I know from my constituency in Paisley that heroin devastates the lives of users and their families and communities - and 90% of the heroin on Britain’s streets comes from Afghanistan.
No choice but optimism
Image courtesy of Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror
Clearly there is no quick fix. The international community cannot impose a
solution on Afghanistan, however well-meaning. We shouldn’t forget that there is
a democratically elected government in Afghanistan.
The international community’s work is supporting this emerging democracy. That’s why the British Government puts over 80% of its development funding through the Afghan Government’s budget. Not all international donors do the same. I spent some time in Afghanistan urging our international partners to follow our example.
Of course there are challenges. There is still a problem with corruption. Afghans deserve better than corrupt officials and bad policing. That’s why the UK is helping train police and helping reform the civil service. But when it works, it is inspiring. In the village of Tamirat, just $40,000 in funding from the central Government has allowed the villagers to build a road and a canal to link them with local markets. Now they have small loans to buy livestock, and to start business as tailors, carpet makers and welders. The Government is welcome in Tamirat.
Such progress helps to build the hope shown by the women I met on my visit to Afghanistan. When I asked whether they were pessimistic or optimistic about their future, they said there was simply no choice but to be optimistic. A return to the past was too awful to contemplate.
Links
Read the Daily Mirror's story about the Secretary of State's visit
- More on DFID's programme in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan: Development in Action