Getting it wrong? Misunderstanding Afghan livelihoods

Have aid agencies understood the impact of conflict on livelihoods? Or do they have a pre-determined range of interventions which have little relevance to local realities? Have they grasped the dynamics of conflict in Afghanistan? Are Afghans more resilient than the aid community realises? 

A report suggests that aid practice in Afghanistan remains driven by simplified crisis narratives reinforced through short-term humanitarian-based programming focused solely on delivery. Evidence from three case studies challenges aspects of the sustainable livelihoods framework and argues that aid planners need to do more to understand the complexity of livelihoods and the dynamics of power relations.

At community level there is little evidence to support the view that 20 years of war has seriously eroded the country’s social capital. Conflict and destruction have been episodic and localised. Though pre-September 11 Afghanistan was routinely dubbed a rogue or failed state, it should not be forgotten that the Taliban was able to maintain security and to implement an unprecedented ban on opium production. Traditional coping mechanisms and community solidarity did not collapse entirely. Distributional mechanisms within communities allowed households to hold together much longer than would appear possible given their depleted asset base.

The report also shows that:

• Conflict has not been solely driven by ethnic identity: ethnicity may have been used by many commanders as a tool to generate support, but it has not been the sole cause of conflict.
• Aid agencies have not used participatory processes to identify needs or deliver relief or development assistance.
• There has been a monotonous landscape of similar infrastructure interventions - irrigation, fruit tree nurseries and seedling distribution - driven by delivery goals: evaluations have looked at inputs, but not asked if projects have boosted livelihoods.
• Some NGOs operating in Afghanistan prior to September 11 have been pushed aside by the influx of new agencies with aggressive territorial agendas.
• Interventions to provide alternative income strategies to opium cultivators have failed because they do not realise why Afghans plant opium poppies - to access land and credit and hence to obtain food for survival.

The report warns that post-Taliban political instability and the re-emergence of local warlords is reminiscent of the early 1990s rather than signposting transitions to peace. An expanded repertoire of agencies - each bidding for space and mandates and following donor agendas - and the complex variety of funding mechanisms have led to growing confusion over co-ordination and inconsistency of programming in humanitarian responses.

The report suggests the aid community in Afghanistan needs to:

• remember that rural does not necessarily mean agricultural: some areas of Afghanistan have always been food-deficient and depended on trade and labour migration
• create a national livelihood monitoring system drawing on field-based practices
• learn from best practice in relation to interventions and impact and consider more systematically issues of scale
• ask whether simplistic applications of the sustainable livelihoods framework deny the relation between human agency and vulnerability under conditions of political instability
• move towards ‘intelligent’ programming able to address specific, contingent and contextual vulnerabilities, develop strategies to address particular threats, identify and address the needs of susceptible households and bolster traditional resilience.

Source(s):
‘Understanding and monitoring livelihoods under conditions of chronic conflict: lessons from Afghanistan’, Working Paper 187, Overseas Development Institute, by Adam Pain, December 2002 Full document.
‘Addressing livelihoods in Afghanistan’, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, by Adam Pain and Sue Lautze, September 2002 Full document.

Funded by: DFID and European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO)

id21 Research Highlight: 1 August 2003

Further Information:
Adam Pain
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
Prime Minister’s Compound
next to AACA
Kabul
Afghanistan

Tel: + 93 (0)70 276-637
Fax: +92 (0)51 282-5099
Contact the contributor: adam.pain@btinternet.com

Contact the contributor: adam@areu.com.pk

Afghanistan Evaluation and Research Unit

Other related links:
'Afghanistan: forever a graveyard for peacemakers?'

'The future of aid? Building peace in Afghanistan'

'Peace in Afghanistan: beyond conflict resolution?'

'Politics v humanitarianism on the front line – can the UN get its act together?'

'A small price to pay: preventing malaria in rural Afghanistan'

The UN focuses on Afghanistan