An Afghan Success Story

Every week I or the other IA submit a report about the CNAT team's activities.  We lead the report with our observations for the preceeding week.  Our Kabul office compiles all seven reports, edits them, and sends them out to a distribution list of interested parties.  This week (tomorrow) I intend to submit the piece below.  Editorial type observations are not favored -- it may or may not make it into the final report.  It is, however, a story that deserves telling.
BALKH IA OBSERVATIONS

      This week I we IA’s have been encouraged to write about accomplishments. I am, therefore, going to write about a genuinely amazing counter narcotics accomplishment and how it came to be. It is an accomplishment that I am proud to have been associated with in a small way, though it had been virtually completed by the time I became aware of it. It is something that happened almost overnight and that now goes almost unnoticed. It has been recorded in this space nearly every week for thirty months or so, but it seems to receive little analytical attention from those who examine this report. It is something that everyone in our counter narcotics business wishes to emulate but which very few have studied in detail. You well recognize it when you see it. It is:
                                            The Balkh Province is poppy free.
     As I stated, you have read that message countless times in this space. I want to now tell you how it came about and how it continues.
     Back in the agricultural year of 2005 - 2006, Balkh Province was number three in Afghanistan in the amount of land devoted to the cultivation of poppies – the production of opium – the contribution to the world heroine supply. One year later fewer fields were planted with poppies and almost all that were so planted were eradicated. A year after that, there were virtually no fields devoted to poppy production. Balk was truly poppy free and almost all the residents of Balkh were happy about that fact – and have remained so until this day. Though it happened quickly, this remarkable achievement was not a fluke. It happened by design. It was planned, organized, executed, reviewed, and managed. The major individual details are simple, though their execution and coordination are not simple at all. Here is an overview:
     1. The Governor takes the lead. The Governor, Atta Mohammed Noor, was appointed to his position in 2004. He is a former high school teacher, Mujahadeen fighter, and General officer. About two years after he became Governor, he decided he wanted Balkh to be free of poppies. Without this decision, it would not have happened. There may be ways to accomplish a poppy free province without the active support of the Governor, but most people doubt it. This Governor had already been here for two years. He was here during the time that Balkh Province was number three in poppy production. There is little indication that he ever actively promoted poppy cultivation, but he was certainly aware of it, and he noted both the revenue it brought the province and the problems it produced. No one, as far as I know, is sure precisely what motivated him to change his perspective. There, likely, was no single thing. He weighed the provincial revenue and the difficulties of interrupting this revenue against all the harms that narcotics and the attendant criminal complex produce, and he came down solidly on the side of the law. It is likely that the Poppy Elimination Program (PEP, the predecessor of CNAT), played a roll in the Governor’s shift, as they had actively been bringing him (and others) a counter narcotics (CN) message for a while. Other CN organizations were doing the same. In the midst of these CN programs, various aid organizations were promising aid systems to ameliorate the economic hardships of interrupting the opium revenue and helping move to alternative likelihoods. Whatever the precise components of the Governor’s decision to lead the province to a poppy free state were, all now agree that he, and his cadre of loyal aids, were the single most important component of the accomplishment. His leadership was also the most important factor in establishing the other essential elements discussed below.
     2. The political culture changes. The Governor launched a program of education, persuasion, and political inspiration to bring the District Governors, political leaders, religious leaders, education leaders, and influential citizens to his way of thinking. He hosted numerous meeting with all these groups at which he hammered home his counter narcotics message. He spurred the counter narcotics activities of PEP and the other CN organizations and helped them get the message out. He made sure that all these leaders and organizations were well versed in both the practical harms and the religious wrongs of tolerating the production of drugs. The leaders began to become actively involved. Every leader at every meeting was both receiving and transmitting counter narcotics information. Everyone began embracing the CN and rule of law philosophy. This philosophy included the public promise of plant eradication for those fields found to be engaged in poppy cultivation. They promised eradication and they left no doubt that they meant it.
     3. The societal culture changes. Hard on the heels of the deliberate education of the leadership came the deliberate education of the citizenry. PEP (now, CNAT), and similar organizations, were communicating their subject matter at every meeting and at every gathering of every type all over the province. One of the most successful elements of the campaign was the support provided to and through the schools. Counter narcotics messages were communicated at school leadership meetings, then at the schools themselves. Finally, the students themselves were taking the message to their homes and were participating in counter narcotics events. Students all over the province were holding counter narcotics rallies and even taking the long eradication sticks in hand and whacking the poppies out in the field. Pictures of students and pictures of the Governor whacking the heads off the poppy plants helped produce a spirit of anti-poppy righteousness. Most of the poppy fields that season were, in fact, eradicated, and much, maybe most, of that eradication was done by students and other volunteers. Even some of the poppy growers, realizing the evil they were perpetrating, grabbed sticks and walloped the life from their own plants. Eradication was done, when possible, early in the season so that the farmer might have a chance of successfully growing a substitute crop, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that, where poppies were discovered, they would be eradicated. In just a few months, the provincial attitude about poppy growth shifted 180 degrees. Those who had participated in the poppy industry were now openly ashamed and those who had tolerated it were now in active opposition. The PEP team was helping locate the fields to be eradicated, helping in discovering alternative likelihoods (AL) and putting them in place, and continuing to put out the CN message.
    4. Maintaining the accomplishment. As Balkh became poppy free for the first time, PEP became the Counter Narcotics Advisory Team (CNAT). Along with other CN organizations, CNAT then continued to do the things that had helped move the culture to this level. From the time that the 2006 -2007 anti poppy campaign began until May, 2010, PEP/CNAT has conducted over 2,000 CN projects as well as participating in a countless number of CN related activities. The CNAT Monitoring and Verification Officers monitor the countryside and law enforcement information so as to detect any poppy activity. The Alternative Livelihood Officers try to move ahead with providing more and better alternative livelihoods to those who have forgone their old ways. Meanwhile, the CNAT Public Information Officer continues to bring the CN message to as many people as possible in as many ways as prove to be effective. The Gender Affairs officer takes the CN message to the women of Balkh province and helps them participate in alternative likelihoods. By the way, I am told that, as a result of another of the Governor’s initiatives, Balkh is the only province where women are permitted to own retail businesses. Everyone pays close attention to the strategic leadership of the Governor to assure their messages and activities are in accord with his objectives and that they are not duplicative. Balkh remains poppy free and everyone in Balkh is happy about it. So far, so good.
     That is a rough synopsis of how this marvelous achievement occurred and how it continues. It truly is a momentous accomplishment. There are 34 provinces in Afghanistan and only three are poppy free. The lessons of the Balkh experience are not being successfully employed elsewhere. Of the three, provinces that are poppy free, Balkh was the first and it is the most solidly 100% in that status, as well as the most prideful about it. The only cloud on the horizon in Balkh, that I am aware of, is the one I reported about last week: The growing perception that the aid that was promised for becoming poppy free has not been forthcoming. The Governor frequently mentions his disappointment about that situation, and it is certain that no one’s opinion matters more here than the Governor’s. The other CN cloud in the Afghan sky is the absence of this level of CN progress elsewhere in the country.
     5. Recomendations.  I’ll conclude with two recommendations: 1. Study what happened here in Balkh province in much more detail than I have provided here – so as to replicate it elsewhere; and 2. Try to ameliorate the Balkh Governor’s unfortunate perception about the aid providers.

Note: An adequate level of security in Balkh Province is considered by most to have been a prerequisite to the achievement described above.

The Blue Mosque

The Mazar area is one of the most secure metropolitan areas in the country. And the Balkh province, generally, is pretty secure. It seems, though, that the insurgent activity in some of the neighboring provinces has been on the rise the past couple months. Now, there is some activity in a couple of the Balkh districts to. Two weeks ago they shot up a school warned the kids not to go to school. This week they left the following message at another school: “Dear teachers and headmasters, we request you to close schools and do not go to schools. If we find any of you going to school, We will kill you.” Isn’t that a sweet message. It is impossible to comprehend the thinking of these loons.


The weather is fairly pleasant. It is hot – the past few days have been close to 110 F but, if you can stay in the shade it is not bad, and it cools down quickly when the sun goes down.

This week I visited the Blue Mosque (pictures). It is one of the most holy Mosques in the world. Here, many believe, is the tomb of, Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammad. It is a very beautiful building, and people come from far away to worship there. Others think he (Ali) is buried in Iraq, but where ever he is inturred, this mosque is to honor him and it is a beautiful place. The city name, Mazar-i-Shairf means “noble shrine.”

I have nothing to report about the CNAT situation. Everything remains the same. We are scheduled to be out of here on June 27th, and the Afghans have still recieved no official notice about anything. I hope that the lack of notification for the Afghans means that they (the Ministry of Counter Narcotics) are figuring out how to use them rather than just throwing them away. That’s the only logical thing I can think of.

 

Minor Updates

     I don’t have much to say this week. No further word about our close down. No close down plan. No work instructions. The Afghans have not yet received any official word that the program is ending. The wild rumors are starting. One rumor that may have some substance is that some, maybe most, of the CNAT team members will be moved to similar jobs withing the Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN) and continue what they have been doing. This rumor also says that the CNAT team style of counter narcotics work will be expanded to other Provinces (we are now in eight), the provinces will be organized into regions, and the regions will have someone like me – an “International Advisor” to provide advice, liaison with the foreign donors, etc. to the various provincial teams in the region. Assuming that the funding that is now going to this program is just reprogrammed to go to the MCN, that approach would work and would make use of the already trained and experienced humam resources that exist within the teams.


     Follow up regarding Pam Anderson’s demise from Dancing With the Stars:

     Pam was beaten out last week by Erin Andrews, the ESPN reporter, who I regarded as an inferior dancer. I was wrong. I don’t know if Andrews began taking steroids this week or what. I just know that she gave a steamy tango performance that made my eyes bug out. I think that two of the judges were, like me, so surprised that they just could not believe what they were seeing well enough to bring themselves to award her a score of 10. Only Len, the crusty old Brit, gave her a ten. I though that dance would surely be the performance of the night. Then, however, Nicole Scherzinger, the singer from Hawaii, did a dance that clearly surpassed even what Andrews had done. As Len said, it may well be the best performance ever – in the full ten years of the show. If you did not see the it – even if you do not like the show – I urge you to log onto ABC and watch these two dances. I’m irritated that I can not log on and rewatch them myself – if your outside the USA they will not transmit the shows. Anyway, try to take a look. Anyone who will record the show for me will receive a Big Mac (or similar) whenever I’m able. One thing: Everyone did two dances this week, and I don’t know how to separate these two remarkable ones from the other that each lady did – but the lesser dances were not bad either.
      Evan Lysacek, the Olympic gold medal figure skater, has, until now, been regarded as the favorite to win. This week, however, both these women made him look like a stiff and awkward long shot. Chad Ochocinco, the Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver has broken just about every foot ball receiving record that ever existed. Clearly he is a superb athlete. Unless he shows the kind of startling improvement next week that Andrews exhibited this week, however, he has no chance.

     It continues to warm here. The past two days have both been about 105 F. It is dry, but that is still pretty warm. The absence of humidity, however, allows it to cool to a comfortable level fairly rapidly.

     The French are taking over all, or almost all, of the basic police training at this site. DynCorp now is doing a big share of it. Most of the DynCorp instructors will be moved to other in-country jobs. I am told that this has happened before at another site(s), but they moved the training back to US instructors after a while. There is nothing wrong with the French police instructors, but it is much more difficult to find translators/interpreters/language assistants that speak either of the two predominant Afghan languages and French that finding bilingual a Afghan-English speakers.

Goodby to Pam and My Job.

This week my heart is heavy. My job has been eliminated – the whole program will be closed down as of the end of June. More about that below. The thing that makes me downright despondent, however, is that PAM ANDERSON WAS VOTED OFF DANCING WITH THE STARS! Can you believe it? Sure she has quite a few miles on her chassis, but it is still a stunningly alluring frame. Moreover, she performed well. She is coordinated, flexible, balanced, graceful, and athletic. In short she can dance. Admittedly, this week she gave a flawed performance – not as good as previously. Still, her judge’s scores were good enough that she could have been saved by a decent audience vote from across America. It did not happen. Why? No body has more fans than Pam. I think it was Steve Martin who said it something to the effect that a sure measure of the adoration that she commands could be calculated by a simple statistical survey of the number of American males that hold up her poster once or twice every week. One can only surmise that her fans are simply not watching, and that too is lamentable. The Football Hall of Fame running back, Emmitt Smith, made the show culturally acceptable for manly watching five years ago when he not only participated but won the competition! There were already a few of us who were “closet” watchers (what’s not manly about watching a difficult athletic competition where 50% of the contestants are females and most of those females are firm-bodied, graceful, and wearing skimpy costumes), but Emmitt made it respectable. I guess the word is still not out. So long, Pam. You deserved better from your fans.


With that nod to beauty, culture, and smut, I’ll move to a serious topic.

As I reported a few days ago, the US State Department, in concert with the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN), has decided to close down the program that I am employed in. I was surprised. The CNAT program has some problems, but it is structured in a way that insured that most of the funding is likely to make it to the aid projects. There were three, somewhat vague, reasons given: 1. To more fully reflect the current Afghan environment, 2. To better support the Ministry of Counter Narcotics in their goals and desires for help from the USA, and 3. Because the Minister has made it clear that he wants to concentrate on capacity building in Kabul (capacity building is the current term for increasing capabilities). Well, these reasons could mean just about anything. One thing they surely mean is that the funds that would presently go to these Provintial CNAT teams will now go somewhere else, and they will flow through the MCN.

During the years I spent in South East Asia in the Vietnam War era, I became aware of some of the massive problems with dispensing foreign aid, particularly when obliged to dispatch it in association with corrupt local officials. I was elated, therefor, to learn that this program employs a model that bypasses most of the favorite corruption channels. Basically, the administrative funds for offices, supplies, transportation, etc. go through the contractor, CPI, and the salaries are paid by the Embassy directly to the CNAT team members. Project funds are dispersed by the CNAT --- with some accounting controls and some monitoring by the International Advisors. CNAT is accomplishing some projects for about 35% of what other organizations are paying contractors for similar jobs. This, I think, is a design that should be studied, refined, and replicated rather than tossed aside. Worse, some think it is being tossed into the potential cash-skim drawer of a central agency that cannot possibly be controlled. It is no secret some observers feel that the newly sworn present Minister of MCN was involved in the disappearance of massive amounts of aid money at his last position.

One of the saddest part of this situation is the fact that, although the CNAT program may, indeed, contain problems, it also contains personnel assets trained and experienced in most of the undertakings of a counter narcotics strategy. These persons also have community development experience and professional contacts. These are capabilities that take substantial time and effort to develop. So far there is no sign of any plan to try to move them into other CN elements.

The most apparent problems with our present program is its lack of clear direction. But these problems are administrative and could be corrected. I was very intrigued as I answered the qualification questions in the application process. It was apparent that they were looking for persons with experience in successfully implementing central policy at the field level. This is a topic that I have worked on, researched, and written about. I am (truly) a minor expert. In my view, the State Department (and CPI) has failed CNAT by not having an administrative template for the program that contains operations manuals, procedural directives, and all the other Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) that everybody bitches about, but that keep ninety five percent of what an organization does in line with its strategic direction. Everything about CNAT has been vague, so it is inevitable that different persons, and different locations, will behave in different ways – mostly with genuine intent to fulfill perceived policy.

Did you ever think you would hear someone standing up for rules and regulations? They are a pain in the neck, but they are important. It is not easy to write good ones, but it is better to have poor ones than to have none. Without SOP’s, mid and upper level managers typically become uneasy about what they think is happening at the field level and try to gain control by issuing orders and memos controlling minutia. They often require their personal approval for routine things like travel, supplies, working-level contacts, etc.

One of the most frequent negative remarks I hear about the contracting in Afghanistan is this very situation (at least with respect to Department of State contracts) That the contractors are being given a contact to accomplish a overarching objective (like train police officers) without the kind of detailed specifications that would help guarantee performance to a certain standard. The big contracting companies will likely dust off some manuals they already have from a past project and do OK. The smaller ones, or the ones with projects that have not been accomplished elsewhere, have problems.

By the way, during my working career, I had the opportunity to work within two agencies that had very different results in accomplishing headquarters objectives at the field level. The Forest Service (USFS) is (or was) probably the most successful agency that has ever been studied in this regard (see the book The Forest Ranger). The Forest Service Handbook contained detailed direction about almost anything that was done at field level and those who did those tasks regarded the Manual as a Bible – they would not dream of deviation. Meanwhile the US Customs Service (USCS) also had fairly detailed directives. At the field level, however, the USCS personnel regarded a headquarters directive as no more than a suggestion. Deviation was great in magnitude and frequent in occurrence. The reason the USFS was successful is that the workers regarded the direction from headquarters as sensible, authoritative, and necessary, The USCS workers thought their SOP’s were stupid and annoying. An explanation of this difference would take a long time, but the USFS success had a lot to do with most of the mangers coming up through the ranks and genuine input from the field to all policy and directives.