What we can achieve in Afghanistan

As governments reconsider strategies in Afghanistan, stories abound about why achieving progress in this “graveyard of empires” is so challenging: The country is racked by violence and opium production; confidence in the government is weak; its neighbours meddle; and fiercely independent tribes distrust any intruder -- whether from Britain, the Soviet Union, Nato or Kabul.

The World Bank Group’s experience in Afghanistan reflects all these problems.

This is one of the most difficult environments in which we work.

Yet we have seen real, measurable progress: in the health sector, education, community development, microfinance and telecommunications.

Since 2002, the World Bank has committed nearly $2 billion to these and other projects and manages, with partners, a $3.2 billion trust fund for 30 donor countries.

Here are some of the lessons we have learned: First, we need to “secure development” — that is, create a strong link between security and development.

Each reinforces the other, especially when we focus on communities and on resolving local-level conflict.

A dysfunctional police force, justice and prison system feeds a lawlessness that breeds disillusionment with the government and sympathy for its opponents.

Second, corruption can be fought better through design than through calls for virtue or even a slew of investigations.

Afghanistan’s drug trade risks the criminalisation of the state.

But there are steps one can take to make corruption harder and less likely.

Afghanistan’s reform-minded finance ministers have taken practical steps to simplify government processes and add transparency to reduce opportunities for corruption, already raising government revenue 75 percent in the first part of this year.

Recently the government slashed the number of steps to register vehicles from some 55 to just a few, reducing opportunities for bribes and increasing revenue.

Third, locally led projects are the most effective.

The National Solidarity Program, which the World Bank helped launch in 2003, empowers more than 22,000 elected, village-level councils to decide on their development priorities -- from building a school to irrigation to electrification.