Raqim Foundation

KABUL, 29 August 2010 (IRIN) - Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway.

Over 120 new schools have been built in the province over the past few years and 40-50 more will follow in the next two years, with Norwegian development assistance.

“Faryab’s educational needs have been met by the new schools,” said Gul Agha Ahmadi, a spokesman of the Ministry of Education.

For an estimated population of 800,000 there are 423 state schools, 20 religious seminaries, two teacher training institutes and one vocational training centre in the province, according to the Education Ministry.

Faryab is a success story in a country where almost half of the 12,600 schools nationwide do not have a building (classes are held in the open or in tents), officials said.

“We want to concentrate our efforts in a few development sectors. What is important is that Norwegian taxpayers want to see some concrete results,” Kåre R. Aas, the outgoing Norwegian ambassador to Afghanistan, told IRIN.

Norway’s flag and other official symbols are not used on the schools which, according to some experts, have helped keep them immune from armed attacks. Schools, students and teachers have often been attacked and harassed by gunmen allegedly associated with Taliban insurgents.

At least 20 percent of Norway’s US$125 million annual aid budget for Afghanistan goes to Faryab Province, where about 500 Norwegian soldiers are stationed as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The rest of the aid is spent on projects elsewhere in the country, at the discretion of the Afghan government.

NATO-member states have troops in different parts of the country, where they are also engaged in aid activities through the so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs).

Aid agencies have criticized the involvement of PRTs in humanitarian and development projects, labelling the process “aid militarization”.

“Our military has no involvement in our civilian development projects,” said Aas, adding that his country’s aid was strongly “scrutinized and monitored” in order to prevent mismanagement and corruption.

But he conceded that not all aid projects in which Norwegian money was involved, had been corruption-free: “We have closed down some projects after corruption charges against specific projects which we supported,” Aas said.

Education Ministry officials said Norway’s school building projects were planned in collaboration with the government and implemented by NGOs.

Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution insists on geographical equity in terms of development projects and the delivery of services, but the reality is different. In terms of education, the southern province of Helmand, severely affected by the insurgency, appears to lag far behind Faryab Province.

Though it has roughly the same population as Faryab, Helmand has only 282 schools of which over 150 have been closed due to insecurity and lack of teachers, provincial officials said.

But Pierre Fallavier, director of the Kabul-based independent think-tank Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, introduced a note of caution: “Building schools does not mean improving education - any more than building a hospital means improving health care,” adding that the focus on education was good but not at the cost of other important issues.

The reasons children do not go to school include the lack of safe road access, the lack of clean school toilets, parents’ financial situations as well as their attitudes towards education, said Fallavier.

Up to seven million students are currently enrolled at schools across Afghanistan, according to the Education Ministry, indicating significant progress since 2001 when only two million (boys only) were enrolled.

However, about five million school-age children, mostly girls in the insecure southern and eastern provinces, are still being deprived of an education due to war, poverty, lack of schools and social restrictions, the Education Ministry said.

Women and Modern Art in Afghanistan
The New York Times - Asia Pacific By MUJIB MASHAL August 6, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan - Under the watchful eye of a male instructor, a teenage boy is deep in focus, trying to trace and copy from a postcard as accurately as possible. For years, this has been the art scene in Afghanistan: stale, and dominated by men. Realism has long ruled as the only accepted style.

The degree of accuracy in copying from a picture — and occasionally a live model — has been the only yardstick by which artists have been judged.

The tide, however, seems to be turning, even if gradually. For one week in June two spacious auditoriums at Kabul University hosted a large exhibition on the themes of pollution and the environment.

The exhibition had two remarkable qualities: All 18 participating artists were women, and the genre was modern art, a rarity in Afghanistan. Even today Kabul and Herat are the only Afghan provinces — out of 34 — to have a faculty of fine arts in their universities.

“The curriculum at most of our arts institutions has not changed for years,” said Rahraw Omarzad, the director of the Center for Contemporary Arts — Afghanistan.

“Such copying and copying only kills the creativity of our artists,” Mr. Omarzad said. “It gives them no opportunity, no room to develop a style of their own.”

The public, too, has always been skeptical of a formal arts education. “Families saw art only as vulgar song and dance and nothing more,” said Prof. Alam Farhad, the director of fine arts at Kabul University. “A fine arts degree did not lead to a job, or a prosperous life.”

Then, in the 1990s, came the Taliban. Music was banned, and art was limited to calligraphy and the drawing of immortal shapes. The first image that one encountered, upon entering Afghanistan from Pakistan through the Torkham Gate, was broken drums and destroyed film tape hanging from a tall mulberry tree.

“When the Taliban left in 2001, we had seven professors and eight students in our department,” Professor Farhad said. But in the past three years, the art scene has changed in terms of inclusiveness and creativity.

“Today, I have 700 students here, and close to 20 percent of them are girls. Quite often, I have to turn down students because we don’t have enough space for them,” Professor Farhad said, his eyes gleaming in triumph.

“We are going through a period in which the society is having a deep realization about art and what it can offer,” he said. “The presence of 20 to 22 television channels, and the market that they bring with them, has really changed people’s perceptions about art and its practicality.”

Professor Farhad and his department have adapted to the demands of the new media. “Today, we know that our people want actual, real jobs for their children, and we also know the market,” he said.

Over the past three years he initiated two new majors in the fine arts department: digital graphic and cinema. The interest has been tremendous. In digital graphic, 94 students are enrolled, 53 of them women, the highest percentage in any of the faculties.

Mr. Farhad believes that the interest among women in the digital graphic course is due to the rising market demand. “Television stations and magazines come to us often, asking for the services of our students,” he said. “The prospect of actual jobs excites people, encourages them.”

Another, and more important, reason for the popularity of majors like digital graphic among female artists is their low profile; the artists remain behind the scenes, represented in their work only by their names.

Appearing on television or in other media still carries a social stigma for women. The low number of students in departments like cinema and theater also reflects the fear in society among women who are artists.

In the first couple of years of President Hamid Karzai’s government, the appearance of women on television was frowned upon. Television channels broadcast only male singers and artists.

Gradually, the presence of women increased, but it cost the lives of several young women in the media to get there. Zakia Zaki, Sanga Amach and Shaima Rezayee are among the many female artists and presenters who were killed for the crime of appearing on television and trying to widen the role of women.

Some female artists continue to battle the stigma, while others have turned to single-sex art centers that are more socially acceptable.

The Center for Contemporary Arts — Afghanistan is one of these centers. Founded in 2004, it welcomed both male and female artists, but Mr. Omarzad soon realized that it was women who were most in need of a safer environment in which to work. For Environment Day, auditoriums at Kabul University were turned into galleries dedicated to the theme.

Mariam Kamal, an independent documentary maker and photographer, had two short films exhibited.

The first one, called “Silence,” portrayed the abundance of noise in the city. “From the howling of the dogs in the morning, to the cries of many children around breakfast, to the ignition of car engines, to the horns and beeps on the streets it is only noise and noise,” Ms. Kamal said.

“If there happens to be a moment of silence in our day, a suicide explosion in a distance reminds us that the silence is only an illusion.”

Another piece was a mud sculpture called “Scream” by Marzia Nazary, a fourth-year psychology student at Kabul University. On a small, loose piling of dried branches and limbs sits a square platform made out of mud. Cracks run throughout the platform. In the center of the platform is a pile of six heads, their mouths open to different directions.

“I read in a newspaper that a boy was killed by his own father,” Ms. Nazary said, describing her inspiration. “All night, I just kept thinking and thinking about the story.”

Although the women of the arts center have made tremendous strides, the future remains unclear.

As our colleagues Alissa J. Rubin and Rod Nordland reported, recent talk of negotiations with the Taliban has caused fear and uncertainty among Afghan women.

Despite the government’s repeated claims that none of the constitutional rights acquired by women will be compromised, there is no guarantee that the progress will not be undermined by integration of the Taliban into the government.

Even now the arts center is already very careful about social barriers within Afghan society, because it is promoting an art form that is taking its infant steps.

“If we do not adhere to the social and cultural norms at such an early stage, what has the potential of becoming a movement could be suppressed and killed easily,” Mr. Omarzad said.

“So we are very careful, very aware that no eyebrows are raised at how we behave here.”

Afghan Minister Says Chinese-Built Hospital To Open
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty July 16, 2010

KABUL -- Afghanistan' s acting health minister has said a Chinese-built hospital will soon open in Kabul, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan reports.

Minister Soraya Dalil made the announcement while urging that more funds be given for the country's health-care services when an international donor conference is held in Kabul on July 20-21.

The multistory Jamhuriat Hospital, located in the center of Kabul, will be one of the city's largest hospitals and will be equipped with the latest technology.

The total spending by China on the hospital is estimated to be around $26 million.

Equipment for the hospital will also be paid for by the World Bank, the United States, and Turkey.

In addition to its financial support, Chinese businesses were also involved in the construction of the hospital.

In 2004, a portion of the unfinished hospital collapsed and killed several people.

China has become a major investor in Afghanistan. In one venture alone, the Aynak copper mine, China has invested $4 billions.

More than 9 million Afghans, that comprise 36 percent of the Afghan population, live in poverty, according to a report released by the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank

Poverty has forced 8 million Afghan children and adults to work, of whom 18 percent are busy in back-breaking jobs, the report adds.

The report has cited climate changes effective in the level of poverty increase or decrease, and explains that the economy of 36 percent of Afghans is based on agriculture, adding that almost 8 percent of Afghans are unemployed.

It also notes that more than 80 percent of Afghan men and 40 percent of women are busy in the work force, of which 50 percent suffer from insufficient working hours.

It is mentioned that 40 percent of Afghan children are busy in the workforce, and are thus deprived of getting an education.

More than 50 percent of men and 22 percent of women in Afghanistan are literate, and more than 40 percent of boys and 30 percent of girls have access to education, the report adds.

The report also adds that only 24 percent of mothers in poor families have access to birth-giving facilities. Although the figure is known to be two or three times larger in some areas.

The report adds that more than 1 million people are disabled in Afghanistan, of which 400,000 are totally crippled.

Only 20 percent of Afghans have access to clean drinking water. The number is 40 percent in urban areas and 20 percent in rural areas. The report also counts positive changes in some fields in Afghanistan.

Forty percent increase in the number of youngsters going to school, 7 percent literacy increase among youths and the increase of children’s immunity against diseases have been among the positive changes in the Afghan society in the past nine years.

The report also warns that most Afghans do not have a stable income, and are more vulnerable towards bad economic conditions.

Long-lost Russian scientific supplies set to benefit students 25 years after arrival. By Shafi Ferozi in Herat (ARR No. 355, 10-Mar-10)
A vast hoard of school laboratory equipment, chemicals and samples sent by the Soviet Union 25 years ago has been found in a warehouse in Herat province and is now finally about to benefit Afghan students.

Although some of the compounds have deteriorated, about 500 schools will get equipment for a range of chemical, physical, biological, mathematical, geological and electronic experiments. The find even includes human skeletons.

It was all sent at a time when Mohammad Najibullah was the Soviet-backed president of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union had thousands of troops in the country following the 1979 Russian-led invasion.

Now the discovery in a warehouse at Herat's Mahjuba Herawi girls' school has sparked a row over who was to blame for leaving the shipment, valued at 100,000 US dollars, to moulder.

Arwin Taheri, deputy-director of education department in Herat, said, "The materials were supposed to be distributed to all the schools in Herat. However, they were taken to the Mahjuba Herawi school's depot as the depots of the education department were being renovated at the time."

Taheri said a shortage of staff and a lack of familiarity with the Russian language caused it to be overlooked, although he admitted education officials at the time were also negligent.

Some of the materials were expensive and it was ironic that education professionals had often complained about a lack of laboratories in Herat schools.

Taheri is still happy that the schools will finally get the supplies, "After the materials were found, a four-member delegation including the director of the science centre of the ministry of education came to Herat and explained how Herat teachers could use the materials."

Schools will get the equipment in time for the start of the new education year that begins in mid-2010.

However, Nasima Roya, deputy principal of the Mahjuba Herawi school, is not sure that all the materials will be usable, "When they were moving the materials, I noticed that some had turned black inside the boxes as if they were burned, particularly chemical materials which [decompose] over time due to exposure to the air."

The supplies included human and animal skeletons, geological samples, maps, compasses, globes, microscopes, electronics, laboratory equipment and possibly telescopes, she said.

Aziza Tokhi, the school principal for the past 15 years, said she was never authorised by the education ministry to check the warehouse or use the materials. The discovery, she said, was made when the school asked the ministry to shift the goods because it needed a prayer room for pupils.

Some of the school's teachers reject the idea that the problem was a lack of teaching professionals or knowledge of Russian, insisting that there were sufficient numbers of adequately trained staff who would have been able to read the labels on the storage boxes. They blame negligent Soviet-era education officials.

Some students IWPR spoke to are bitter about not having access to the Soviet era consignment. Zemarai Barakzai, 19, who is hoping to go to university, says he might have benefited if the materials had been available, "I was unable to enter the medical university which was my chosen field. I curse those who have deprived us of the use of the laboratory equipment."

Other students were happy at the prospect of using the supplies. Mohammad Noman Soltani, 15, who studies at Soltan Ghiasoddin Ghori school, told IWPR, "The past is the past. We should not waste our time trying to find out who is responsible ... It is important for us to think about the future by starting using the laboratory."

Shafi Ferozi is an IWPR trainee in Herat.

KABUL, 14 March 2010 (IRIN) - At least 240 schools have reopened mostly in the volatile south and southeast of Afghanistan over the past 18 months, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has reported.

The MoE said 18 schools have been reopened in Ghazni Province, central Afghanistan, over the past few months.

“Almost all of the 456 schools in Ghazni Province are now functioning and we expect 50,000 extra students will be enrolled in 2010,” Abdul Sabour Ghofrani, an MoE spokesman, told IRIN. He said the breakthrough was achieved with the support of local people, including religious leaders and tribal elders.

Hundreds of schools were closed in these areas because of attacks on them in 2007 and 2008, according to the government and aid agencies.

About a million school-age children do not go to school because of conflict, lack of schools or socio-economic problems, President Hamid Karzai said on 6 March.

Canada aims to hand reins of key initiative to Afghans

The Globe and Mail - International Josh Wingrove Sunday, Feb. 07, 2010

Kandahar, Afghanistan - With 108 schools in his province crumbling and out of use, Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wesa has a long wish list.

He needs money, to refurbish or simply rebuild the schools. Once they're built, he needs thousands of teachers to staff them, for which he'll also need to expand the local teacher training college. And of course, given the volatility of the southern province, he'll need security to protect all the fledgling programs.

Mr. Wesa hosted a shura, or consultation, of local tribal leaders and political figures at his palace in Kandahar City on Sunday evening. Leaders gathered around a large table to hear Mr. Wesa and his acting education director make a pitch for co-operation in education.

I want to change the scene here a little bit. My plan is to involve the community as much as I can, Mr. Wesa said in an interview. We want to train more teachers in Kandahar ... we need more schools to open.

Supporting the development of education programs is one of Canada's three so-called signature projects in the country. With only 152 of Kandahar's 260 schools in operation, Canada has already pledged $12-million to build or renovate 50 schools in Kandahar province by the end of next year. So far, 14 are finished with another 28 under construction.

We're well on track, said diplomat Ben Rowswell, the representative of Canada in Kandahar.

Canada has also pledged to train 3,000 teachers, provide funding for teacher scholarships, and help rebuild the Kandahar teachers' college. The total cost of Canada's education commitment in Afghanistan is pegged at $90-million, the government says.

It is estimated that over eight million children are now in school in Afghanistan, about ten times the total of a decade ago.

But Mr. Rowswell, who attended the shura, said it's crucial that Canada hands the reins of its education initiative to Afghans as the country prepares for a possible withdrawal in 2011.

It's important because it's our signature project, but we played a very minor role [at the shura]. It was the governor's shura. And that's the point it's about Afghan ownership.

Mr. Wesa said an expanded education program, which he described as critical for the long-term development of the country, can only survive with support at the tribal level across the region.

It [the shura ] allowed all the key players to get together and exchange ideas and co-ordinate the way forward so as to improve the level of knowledge of students and teachers acting education director Haji Najibullah Ahmedi added in a statement.

This is the sixth shura held by Mr. Wesa, an Afghan-Canadian, since he was appointed governor a year ago. Past gatherings have focused on security and the justice system, among other topics.

After a slow start, Canada's school-building program continues to take hold. In the past four winter months, Canada has finished two schools and started construction on nine more. Work is now done or in progress on 42 schools.

Canada has also trained 144 master teachers, putting it well behind pace on its goal of training 3,000 teachers by next year.

By 2011, Canada also hopes to have 20,000 people who have received literacy training. Progress on that initiative is stronger, with more than 13,000 people who have received the training, according to a fall report to Parliament. Canada also pledged $1.5-million to strengthen anti-corruption measures in the department of education.

With Canada set for an Afghanistan pullout in 2011, Mr. Rowswell said shuras such as the one held Sunday will help the community take control of this so-called signature development project.

Frankly, it's a more complicated problem than just infrastructure. What we need to do is have Afghans identify solutions to their problems exactly like we did today, helping the governor, he said in an interview. Our role was just in providing some of the support and helping Afghans have that conversation.

Irish Sun - Editorial 28 Dec 2009

The Obama administration, which has pledged a new and improved approach to development aid, could learn a lot from the experiences of successful social entrepreneurs.

The Obama administration has outlined a three-pronged strategy in Afghanistan, focusing on security, governance and economic development. But the implementation of those elements has been woefully lopsided. Since 2002, 93% of the $170 billion the United States has committed to Afghanistan has gone to military operations.

As the country prepares to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, we also need to focus on providing a surge in the quality of life for the Afghan people.

U.S. Agency for International Development workers are tremendously dedicated, but there are not nearly enough of them, which means the agency is heavily dependent on private contractors. There have been some commendable achievements, such as helping reduce Afghanistan' s infant mortality rate and rehabilitating nearly 1,000 miles of roads. Still, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lamented in March, the lack of results for the Afghan people is "heartbreaking."

The Obama administration has pledged a new, improved approach to development aid. Yet USAID has been without an administrator for 10 months, and the president's nominee, Rajiv Shah, has yet to be confirmed. It's now time, with the president's commitment in his West Point speech to "focus our assistance in areas, such as agriculture, that can make an immediate impact in the lives of the Afghan people," to heed the experience of successful social entrepreneurs who, with far fewer resources at their disposal, have achieved impressive progress on the ground.

Take Greg Mortenson, president of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute, or CAI, who over the last 16 years has built or supported 130 schools in remote Pakistani and Afghan villages. These secular schools provide education to more than 30,000 children, the vast majority of them girls. CAI's revenue in fiscal year 2007 were a fraction of what we will spend every day in Afghanistan over the next 18 months.

Or take Sakena Yacoobi, a U.S.-educated public health professional, who returned to her homeland in the 1990s to found the Afghan Institute of Learning, or AIL, now a network of 45 centers in seven provinces that provide comprehensive health and education services. Seventy percent of AIL's staff of more than 400 is female. With an annual budget of $1 million, AIL reaches more than 350,000 Afghan women and children.

Or Connie Duckworth, a former partner at Goldman Sachs, who was so moved by the hardships of the women she met on a visit to Afghanistan in 2002 that she created Arzu -- which means "hope" in Dari -- a rug-making enterprise focused on female weavers that is one of Afghanistan' s largest private-sector employers, with 90% of its jobs in underserved, rural areas.

What are some key lessons from these social entrepreneurs' success? First, ask, don't tell: U.S. assistance programs must be tailored to meet local needs, not our own. Over the last eight years, too many well-intentioned U.S. programs have been driven by what America thinks is best, which is how we wasted millions trying to launch a 25,000-acre plantation on soil that was too salty for crops, and initiating cash-for-work construction of cobblestone roads that Afghans rejected because they hurt their camels' hooves. The Afghan people know what they need. Second, invest capital outside the capital -- and devise and direct those projects from the field. Mortenson is successful in part because he spends months every year living with the villagers in the communities his organization serves. That model has not yet penetrated the thinking of U.S. government programs. As Amy Frumin, who served as a USAID worker in Panjshir province, wrote in a June 2009 report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies: "

The vast majority of USAID funds are invested in programs that are designed from Kabul" -- even though more than three-quarters of Afghans live outside the capital. Third, ensure that U.S. assistance reaches the Afghan people. This sounds obvious. Yet last year, the nongovernmental Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief reported that 40% of official aid to Afghanistan goes back to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries. Fourth, make women the focus, not the footnote, of aid programs. It's no accident Mortenson, Yacoobi and Duckworth all target their limited resources toward women and girls: In Afghanistan, as elsewhere, investing in women pays dividends many times over. Women are more likely to prioritize the education, nutrition and health of their families, creating a multiplier effect that lifts entire communities. Finally, approach development as an evolution, not a revolution. As Afghan expert Rory Stewart recently argued in a PBS interview, "Afghanistan is very poor, very fragile, very traumatized. To rebuild a country like that would take 30 or 40 years of patient, tolerant investment."

We should invest in programs that will be sustainable, long-term -- and be prepared to commit for the long haul.

Mortenson called his book "Three Cups of Tea" in reference to a rural village leader's advice that slowing down and building relationships over tea in the traditional way is as important as building projects. As 30,000 more U.S. troops prepare to depart for Afghanistan, let's hope we also have the stomach for 30,000 cups of tea.

Stanley A. Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington.

Epolitix via Yahoo! UK & Ireland News - Dec 14 4:58 AM

Baroness Rawlings, opposition spokesperson for international development and foreign and commonwealth affairs writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her question in the House of Lords on aid to Afghanistan. Skip related content.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan the confluence of our moral commitment to development and our national interest is particularly clear. Building the capacity of the state in both countries to guarantee security and stability, deliver development and reduce poverty is absolutely central to defeating violent extremism.

Improving the quality and impact of our aid there, as part of a joined-up British regional strategy, will be a top priority for an incoming Conservative government. Progress has been made in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban: more children are in school, and girls are being educated.

Health services have improved. Previously one in ten people had access to basic healthcare, and now that has increased to eight in ten. But more needs to be done. Afghanistan is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Life expectancy is only 43 years.

The average annual income is, in real terms, under a dollar per day. Poverty and unemployment are direct contributors to the ongoing Taliban insurgency and to opium cultivation. Similarly, Pakistan faces acute problems of poverty, and the deteriorating security situation threatens to stifle future development and creates a fertile ground for radicalisation.

DfID spent £109m in Afghanistan in 2007/08, less than it spent in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Tanzania. It spent £87m in Pakistan, less than it spent in Ghana.

The government has recently announced plans to increase support for both countries. But there are still questions as to whether it has really grasped the urgent need to intensify and reinvigorate our development efforts there.

As part of our review of British bilateral aid spending, a Conservative government would look particularly closely at our work in Afghanistan and Pakistan to see whether it would be possible to raise support further and faster. There are limits to the capacity of these countries to absorb more aid without sacrificing quality, and we will measure success by outputs and outcomes, not inputs. But our mission in these countries cannot be allowed to fail for lack of effort.

It is striking that a recent review of US policy in the region calls for "a complete overhaul" of the American civilian assistance strategy in Afghanistan. The international aid effort in Afghanistan is too often confused and poorly co-ordinated. Although there has been progress in some areas (notably the army and the ministry of rural affairs), corruption and weak capacity remain enormous problems.

A Conservative government would continue to work closely with the Afghan government to build its ability to deliver the basic prerequisites of peace and development: Secure borders, law and order, and basic services.

This is a project of state building that will take generations to complete, and no one should be under any illusion about the scale of the challenge.

Reuters, 11/18/2009-Most Afghans see not Taliban militants but poverty, unemployment and government corruption as the main causes of war in their country, according to a report by a leading aid group released on Wednesday.

After three decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It is also one of the most corrupt. Unemployment stands at 40 percent and more than half the country live below the poverty line.

On top of that, violence is at its highest levels since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

The report, based on a survey of more than 700 ordinary Afghans by British charity Oxfam and several local aid groups, found that 70 percent of people questioned viewed poverty and unemployment as the main drivers of the conflict.

Nearly half of those surveyed said corruption and the ineffectiveness of their government were the main reasons for the continued fighting, while 36 percent said the Taliban insurgency was to blame.

The 704 respondents from around the country were allowed to give multiple answers on reasons for the conflict.

"The people of Afghanistan have suffered 30 years of unrelenting horror. Afghan society has been devastated," said Grace Ommer, Oxfam Country Director for Afghanistan.

"Repairing this damage can't be done overnight. It will take a long time for the economic, social and psychological scars to heal ... Afghanistan needs more than military solutions," she said in statement.

AFGHANS FRUSTRATED

There are some 110,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, 68,000 of them American, trying to quell a strengthening Taliban insurgency that has spread to previously peaceful areas.

U.S. President Barack Obama is in the final stages of deciding whether to send up to 40,000 more U.S. troops.

But ordinary Afghans are frustrated at the slow pace of development, endemic corruption and the inability of Afghan and international security forces to stop the violence.

Despite the billions of dollars in aid poured into the country, most Afghans have seen few changes to their lives. Afghanistan relies on aid for around 90 percent of its spending.

"Many individuals felt that though much had been promised to the Afghan people, little had actually been delivered -- creating frustration and disillusionment and ultimately undermining stability," Oxfam said in its report.

"Individuals called for better measures to ensure that economic development and aid reach those who need it the most," it said.

After the Taliban, the reason most people gave for the continued fighting in their country was foreign interference, 25 percent of respondents saying other countries were to blame.

Washington Post By EUGENE ROBINSON 1 Nov 2009

The opium poppy was introduced to Afghanistan more than 2,300 years ago by the armies of Alexander the Great. His forces were eventually driven out, like those of every would-be conqueror since. The poppy has proved more tenacious.

On Monday, three U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents ? Forrest Leamon, Chad Michael and Michael Weston ? were killed in a helicopter crash in western Afghanistan. The aircraft reportedly was shot down following a raid on the compound of a prominent Afghan drug lord.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the CIA has been making regular payments to Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai and a suspect in the Afghan opium trade. The newspaper quoted sources alleging that Ahmed Wali Karzai ? who denies any involvement in the drug business ? collects huge fees from traffickers for allowing trucks loaded with drugs to cross bridges he controls in southern Afghanistan.

So is it our policy to attack the Afghan drug trade while we also line the pockets of one of its reputed kingpins? Who is going to explain this to the families of agents Leamon, Michael and Weston?

Afghanistan' s status as a narco-superpower is another reason why President Obama would be wrong to deepen U.S. involvement there. Opium is the one booming sector of the Afghan economy: Poppy fields in the south and west of the country produce the raw material for an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin. Money from the opium trade supports the resurgent Taliban, which is fighting to expel U.S. and NATO forces. Therefore, a blow against the drug business is a blow against the enemy.

Except when it isn't. Except when the ?good guys? who are supposed to be our allies ? and many of the Afghan citizens a counterinsurgency strategy would try to protect ? are dependent on the drug trade as well. Except when the corruption that is an intrinsic element of the drug business blurs the line between friend and foe and obscures the difference between right and wrong.

As The Washington Post's South America correspondent during the administration of George Bush the Elder, I watched firsthand our government's costly and futile crusade against cocaine. We tried attacking the problem in the coca fields ? I visited a U.S.-financed military base in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley, where at the time 60 percent of the world's coca was grown. We tried going after the processors ? in Colombia, police took me to a jungle camp where chemists had been hard at work just hours earlier. We tried breaking up the trafficking cartels ? I was served lunch at a Medellin prison by three cocaine bosses whose comfortable incarceration was almost like a hotel stay.

Nothing worked. All the U.S. managed to do was shift the coca fields from one valley to the next and break the big cartels into smaller ones. As long as some people want drugs, other people will find ways to supply them.

DEA officials have said they are sharply increasing the agency's presence in Afghanistan. Wisely, the Obama administration is abandoning the strategy of trying to eradicate the poppy fields; eradication, which robs rural communities of their only livelihood, may be the quickest and surest way to turn apolitical farmers into anti-American insurgents. The focus now is on the middlemen who buy, transport and process the drugs ? which creates a different kind of problem.

Those middlemen logically seek, and obtain, official protection. In Latin America, they approach police and government officials with an offer to accept bribes or be shot. In a country as poor as Afghanistan, with such weak central authority, the U.S.-backed government is vulnerable to bribery at almost every level.

The inevitable future is one in which we attack and support the Afghan drug trade at the same time. Is this a policy for which we can ask DEA agents to give their lives?