The Problem With Aid to Afghanistan

A cartoon from an Afghan magazine lampooning the foriegn contractor/Afghan relationship. The thought bubble reads: "I do all the work, he gets all the credit."

Many people are under the impression that Afghanistan is swimming in international aid dollars.

Hang out in Kabul and you’ll think so too. If you’re an ex-pat you can hardly swing a Buzkashi goat without hitting a ruddy-faced Brit working to construct an electrical grid, or a jovial Aussie erecting cell-phone towers. This is to say nothing of the American and European governmental advisers at various ministries or Koreans building a hospital across from the Mustafa Hotel.

But here’s something you might not know about these do-gooding ex-pats: Almost all of them are getting rich.

The lowest salary for most foreign contractors is around $250,000, but many (particularly those working on infrastructure) make as much as $500,000 for less-than a year of work.

I don’t begrudge these people the money they make. Theirs are difficult jobs in a difficult place. But every penny of US or European tax-money that goes into a contractor’s pocket is not getting to the people of Afghanistan.

And salaries are just the beginning.

40 percent of all aid dollars goes back to donor countries, according to this excellent report by the terribly named Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR.)

The US is by far the largest donor to Afghanistan, so what we really have is a US government subsidy program for multi-national businesses. And some of the work wouldn’t even pass fire-code back in the states.

When one US official toured a $240,000 high-school dorm that had recently been completed in northern Afghanistan, he saw exposed wiring, broken doors and overcrowded rooms. “It looked as though the dorm had been built 25 years ago,” he told the AP.

Then there’s the $1.6 million power plant in Khost. When completed a few years back, it was a modern facility. Now, because the Afghans were unable to maintain it, inspectors recently found exposed high-voltage wires and open electrical boxes. If we’re spending money to build the thing, shouldn’t we be training people on how to keep it up?

The problem is that there really isn’t that much donor money to go around, so most of it ends up going to the contractors, who have high overhead.

According to ACBAR, international donors have spent about $7 million per day on average for reconstruction project since 2001. That might seem like a lot (it adds up to 2.5 billion a year) but it is a drop in the bucket when compared to the $36 billion that the US military spends in Afghanistan. When you figure that 40 percent of that $7 million goes right back to the people who donated it, Afghanistan is left with less than $5 million a day to rebuild an entire country.

Chump change. $5 million is less than North Fayette County, PA will spend redoing water lines. It’s less than what Rutgers University will spend on a “deluxe football recruiting lounge.” And it’s waaaaay less than the Philadelphia Phillies will pay left-handed pitching sensation Cliff Lee if they keep him next year.

The world should be able to do better than this for Afghanistan. If it can’t, than everybody should just pack up and go. Otherwise we’re just wasting money instead of investing it and the Afghan people are left with little more infrastructure than they started with.