Rebuilding Afghanistan

WITH the war in Afghanistan all but over, one task facing its neighbours and the international community is the country’s economic reconstruction. Over 22 years of war has devastated Afghanistan in the true sense of the word: the human death toll has been in excess of 1.5 million, while five million Afghans have sought refuge abroad, mostly in Pakistan and Iran. This is in addition to the millions displaced within the country. The socio-economic infrastructure — modest even by Third World standards — stands destroyed. Such industry as Afghanistan has is virtually at a stand-still, while agriculture has been ruined, as orchards were destroyed or fruit-bearing trees cut down during the civil war as a matter of policy to punish the people of a given area. Also, at present there is this question of law and order. While a government is in place in Kabul, it is not fully in control of the situation. Besides, Anglo-American military operations to get Osma bin Laden and Mulla Omar continue. This militates against starting a reconstruction programme.

The world community now needs to identify and prioritize areas and sectors so that the task of reconstruction could begin when the moment arrives. Obviously, basics come first, which means the planners must focus on health, education, agriculture, road works, rehabilitation of the homeless and de-mining. Side by side, the process of institution building must continue, because interaction with the donor agencies and the inflow of foreign aid would not be possible without giving Afghanistan the mechanisms of a modern financial, monetary and fiscal system. Besides, the interim government needs technical and professional expertise to help run the system, because trained manpower has ceased to exist in Afghanistan. The task of exploiting gas and other mineral resources — which are not inconsiderable — can be taken up later, when a stable government is in full control of the administration.

At the last UNDP and World Bank-sponsored three-day Reconstruction of Afghanistan Conference in Islamabad, participants seemed preoccupied with their own notions of a ‘civil society’ that they thought Afghanistan needed, and spent time debating the issues that can wait. For instance, the delegates’ insistence that Afghan women must have an active role in the reconstruction effort and that Afghan men must be disarmed before any reconstruction can begin was untimely and facetious. Traditionally, a vast majority of Afghan women have never stepped out of their homes, and carrying firearms is part of many Afghan tribesmen’s attire. Thus, the proposed cultural re-orientation of a nation cannot be made a priority in a country where millions go without food and drinking water and are at risk of being killed by infectious diseases and ubiquitous landmines. Making the reconstruction efforts conditional upon such premises will not serve anyone’s cause, much less that of the Afghan people. Indeed, many Afghans will see any such imposition of the ‘global’ — read western — paradigm of civil society as a cultural intervention, and thus resist it.

Disagreeing with this scheme of things and the similar demands made by other Afghan women’s outfits operating in the west, Fatana Gailani, director of the Afghanistan Women Council, hit the nail on the spot the other day when she said: “Until our country has been rescued (from war and lawlessness), the women’s issue is a non-issue.” The same can be said about Afghan males carrying firearms as part of their attire. The international development agencies, at this point in time, should give priority to the reconstruction of infrastructure efforts and not to cultural re-orientation of the Afghan people.

Recruitment of doctors

THE Punjab government’s decision to hire 4,109 doctors on contract for Basic Health Units and dispensaries seems aimed at strengthening the rural health delivery system. The doctors to be recruited will be given five-year renewable contracts and a salary of Rs 12,000 per month. On completion of 10 years of service, they would be absorbed into regular service. Currently, the BHUs and Rural Health Units are virtually defunct for want of doctors, resulting in a monumental waste of scarce resources and denial of basic medical care to the rural population. Most doctors are reluctant to serve in BHUs for a meagre Rs 5,000 salary package. The new deal may not be very attractive, but many doctors may be willing to join in view of high unemployment levels among the young medicos. What is important is that doctors complete the term of their posting and take full interest in the work assigned to them so that a distinct improvement in the working of the BHUs/RHUs can be made. It is not clear whether completing the five-year term of contract is mandatory, but past efforts to require doctors to serve in the rural areas have failed.

Earlier, the Sindh government had even offered young medical graduates accelerated promotion as a reward for unbroken service in far-flung areas. However,the response was not encouraging. Most of those who took up assignments in the BHUs shirked work in the hope of finding better opportunities in the major cities or abroad. Besides the loss in terms of the heavy investment made in medical education, this attitude further weakened the tenuous health cover in the villages. It is necessary to create conditions in which doctors take a rural posting not as a punishment but as an important part of their professional development. Perhaps provision of accommodation near the place of work coupled with prospects of appointment in a teaching hospital after a rural stint can serve as major incentives.

Efficiency and gadgets

GIVE a fool the most advanced technology in the world and he will make a hash of it, or better still, he might end up destroying the world. By the same token, give a wise and sensible person something obsolete and outdated and he would still manage to extract some good use out of it. After all, if this were not the case we would not have cottage industries in almost every country of the world, including our own, with workers using bare hands or the most rudimentary of tools to fashion exquisite items like carpets, watches, embroidered clothing or jewellery. Increasing modernization — helped by the steady march towards greater technological advancement — and yes, increasing globalization, might have affected many people in urban Pakistan. But there are many who still efficiently use obsolete equipment to good effect.

What has provoked us into writing this piece was the picture of a railway employee in Faisalabad, using a telephone more than a hundred years old, and other instruments equally ancient, to note down the arrival and departure times of trains. No hi-tech gadgetry, no computers, no Internet, the man is simply relying on his sense of observation, alertness of mind and a most useful ability to improvize. Take even the case of next-door Afghanistan, where as soon as the Taliban administration fell, satellite dishes began appearing in Kabul, and these were made of scrap metal using quite basic tools like hammers and nails. This in stark contrast to the use of the state-of-the-art technology the Americans used and bombed not only Afghan civilians but killed their own soldiers in friendly fire.