Kabul Diary, Reconstruction

Warning: I'm about to get professional.

There isn't enough reconstruction or rehabilitation in Kabul. Or, in other words, there is not enough of the right building being done. This is not a good sign for the immediate future.

What do I mean by "getting professional"? Anybody can come to Kabul and see that there is a lot of building underway. Anybody could go to Kabul, see all the building, and come away thinking that this country was really getting back on its feet, really taking strides toward the prosperous future that Afghans deserve. Anybody could say that all that building is a positive sign. And, in their amateur way, they would be wrong.

They would be wrong because they haven't asked the right questions. To be fair, most people haven't been in one post-conflict situation, let alone in enough to begin to know how to ask questions or to interpret the answers.

The issue is not simply how much building is taking place, but what kind of building. Houses or businesses? Reconstruction in damaged or destroyed areas or brand new construction? Are local people building their own homes/shops or are the projects funded by outsiders (donor governments, NGOs, or even wealthy Afghans who won't directly use the property)?

Most of the construction in Kabul is of businesses or of large governmental infrastructure. A fair amount is new construction and not rebuilding or rehabilitation. And the money being spent is largely international. What this means is that the things being built may not be the things people need right now.

There is very little reconstruction of houses, for example. People need places to live, and many refugees are returning to the city (or coming to Kabul rather than returning to their villages), but people are not building their own houses. This is unusual in circumstances of refugee return and it needs to be explored. There appear to be several factors having an impact.

First, and this is quite disturbing, there seems to be a culture of assistance developing in Afghanistan. People are waiting for the international community to take responsibility for nearly everything. It isn't quite dependency yet, but we are taking steps down that road and that is not a good thing.

Of course, this could not happen without the international community's involvement. And the international community feels guilty over having left Afghanistan alone after they drove the Soviets out, they feel guilty over the development of the Taliban, and over the desultory response to the recent famine (now, thankfully, over). And they appear to be overcompensating. That has the potential to rob the locals of their own initiative and their own solutions. How do we fix this? That is one of the crucial questions facing the international community in the twenty-first century and there are no easy answers (fortunately, Haneef Atmar, the Afghan Minister of Reconstruction and Rehabilitation is a very able, experienced, and committed man: if there is anyone who can begin to define the terms by which nations rebuild themselves, he is one of the best candidates).

Second, and related closely to the first, the types of reconstruction that get good press, that make sense to our media and so get reported as "success stories", are the big projects. If a government doesn't have a building for the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Women's Affairs then let's build one. If a country doesn't have a good, modern hospital (or ten) let's build them. If a capital city no longer has a university, let's rebuild it.

These are certainly worthy goals, but they also aren't necessarily the most important ones in the first couple of years. Yet they are always considered of the highest priority.

Third, and this is extremely thorny, land ownership is a huge and unresolved issue. People may not be able to rebuild because they do not have a clear title to the land. The government of Kabul has changed hands five times in the past twenty-five years and every one of those governments made changes to the deeds.

Let me give you a composite but representative example, pulled together from conversations with a number of Kabulis:

A family runs afoul of the communists back in the early 80s and goes into exile (probably Pakistan, but possibly farther afield). They manage to have a cousin come and move in so that someone in the larger family is still living in the house. However, the cousin then bribes someone in the government to change the deed to his name.

The communists lose the war and the mujahideen take over the city. A fighter or commander decides that he wants the house. He kicks the cousin out, goes down to the record hall and changes the deed to his name.

The Taliban take over the city. One of them changes the deed yet again. And then he sells the house.

Something like this, if not quite as extreme in all the particulars, happened to thousands of people in Kabul. No one wants to rebuild if they might lose the land in court as soon as they've finished - which is a very real possibility. The land ownership is sufficiently confused and confidence in the honesty of the courts is shaky enough to worry people quite a lot.

Fourth, and this goes right to the very heart of the matter, there is very little money in the economy. Not only do people not have very much for reconstruction work, they don't have the funds necessary to take a land claim through the courts. It costs several thousand dollars (people said at least $5000, but usually more) and several months of court time to have a property claim finalized.

Yes, Afghanistan is trying to put systems in place to straighten all of this out. But it goes slowly and the land ownership issue has begun to fester, having an impact on people's sense of the legitimacy of the government. Nearly everyone I spoke with was very annoyed at how slow the reforms were in coming and at how corrupt the courts have become. Currently, there is no assurance of fairness and dissatisfaction is growing.

I must add that when considering reconstruction, people tell me that the difference from even six months ago is immense. Of course, six months ago almost nothing was being done as even those with the ability (legal and financial) to build were still uncertain about the security situation. That, good news!, is no longer considered a hot issue.

So, in my professional opinion: despite superficial appearances, there is not enough reconstruction going on in Kabul. There could be more and it could be done more strategically.

. . .

What would I, speaking in my professional capacity, focus on? Property law and land claims. This offers the most opportunity to the most people in the least amount of time. In addition, dealing with property now has immediate benefits that will extend far into future: one important need is establishing a trustworthy, effective, and efficient judiciary. Do it now, before a culture of laxity and corruption becomes set.

Posted by Martial