Developing a Top-down Democracy

With international support, the government in Kabul has launched a programme to set up democratic self-administration structures at the local level. A major challenge will be to overcome the country's tradition of separating men and women. By Hannelore Börgel

​​After serving as geostrategic pawn during the cold war and later having fallen prey to various Islamic militias, Afghanistan is finally attempting democracy at the grass roots. The impetus has come from outside the country and from the national leadership. The first steps are now being made in the villages and districts. Last year, the government started a "National Solidarity Programme" (NSP) with the goal of speeding up development.

The programme is meant to enable municipalities to identify reconstruction and development projects. Elected Development Councils are to do this – and then to go on planning, managing and monitoring the work involved.

Democratic, grass-root development planning

The NSP framework provides detailed guidelines for funding the municipalities, for transparent selection criteria and for the management of reconstruction and development. In each of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, three districts have been chosen for NSP implementation. Each village works out its own development plan in cooperation with the inhabitants. Other villages are to be included in the process after the first year of implementation.

The system is expected to snowball in the districts covered so far and to spread to other areas. It is assumed that the villages will be able to carry on under their own steam after one or two years of initial support. The government plans to involve 20,000 villages in the course of three years. National and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are active as implementation partners in the districts. Per district, US$ 1.6 million are available in the first year.

All implementing NGOs are expected to hire female staff and to develop consultation schemes for village women. These schemes as well as the women's input in terms of defining priorities and choosing official representatives must be elaborated on in the village development plans. The programme is supposed to establish and strengthen social infrastructure at the village and municipal levels.

Transcending gender-based discrimination

So much for the model. The elections for the Development Councils are an exciting issue. They are the means by which the foundations for democracy are laid. Polls are meant to overcome ethnic demarcation lines drawn by civil war and to transcend gender-based discrimination as well. Afghanistan had its first experience of democratisation with the preparations for the Loya Jirga (Grand Council) and for its constitutional assembly in December 2003.

Traditionally, local decision-making processes in Afghanistan have always taken place, and still do, in Shuras. These are forums or councils, which in some cases represent several villages and are organised on a hierarchical basis. For lack of alternatives, they have also served as partners for local development cooperation in recent years. It became evident, however, that Shuras must become more democratic and gain greater legitimacy in order to represent the will of the villagers. After all, influential village dignitaries still dominate in traditional contexts.

Tradition and progress will coexist

Against this background, the Development Councils are a big step forward. Taking a realistic view, Shuras and yet to be elected Development Councils will co-exist. In some cases, they may also merge. Development Councils are to be controlled by village assemblies, to which every family can send representatives.

Wherever purdah (the seclusion of women) is observed strictly, women will not be able to take part in the assemblies and separate forums will therefore have to be established for them. Mechanisms are to be developed to make sure that the decisions of women's forums will be communicated to the village assemblies and taken account of by the Development Councils.

All this is open to manipulation, of course. Who attends village assemblies? Which old local leaders still exercise influence on the villagers, some of whom are deeply in debt due to war and drought? Nonetheless, an attempt is being made to enable entire village communities to have a say in decisions. This is very unlike traditional Shuras. The old elite must realise that village development can only make headway if all cooperate.

Convincing the traditional elite

The NSP model contains sanctions against villages that fail to meet or seriously violate its criteria. The entire process is difficult – not least for the NGOs involved. Not only must the traditional elite be convinced. Men in general have to accept that women have equal rights as participants in the development process.

Setbacks and deadlocks are to be expected. The design of the one- to two-year programme is too optimistic. That is why some NGOs have already said they plan to remain in the villages and districts for a longer time. They want to prevent the crash course in democracy and development from caving in.

Another weak spot is the provincial bureaucracy. Local offices that report to the ministerial bureaucracy in Kabul are miserly funded. In the long term, they are to serve as contacts for village services. But at present their highly-motivated staff are paid only a paltry US$ 32 per month. That is well below the pay of the NGO partners with whom they are supposed to work side-by-side. Government officers depend on the NGOs' goodwill. Otherwise they cannot get to the districts and villages at all. It is the NGOs that have the vehicles fit to reach remote settlements on poor roads.

Commitment of Afghans is impressive

Given this background, Afghans' commitment – both in government offices and NGOs – is impressive. Respect must be paid, for example, to women who have set up women's departments in the government offices in spite of lacking funds. The women who lived in Pakistan for more than a decade and held responsible positions there also deserve admiration. They have returned to Afghanistan, donned burkahs and are now considering how to create jobs for women in the provinces.

Many women, frequently war widows, are desperately seeking income to feed themselves and their children. Few women have enjoyed an education or training, and their situation will change only slowly. Most of all, the conservative environment has to change. Measures targeting women must always also take their husbands and the mullahs into account.

Deploying women, both from Afghanistan and from other countries, as advisers is an important step towards positively influencing the harsh reality of women's lives in rural areas. With some exceptions, advisers can only make indirect contact with women via the husbands. On the other hand, female advisers from Afghanistan can only talk with men in the villages if they wear a burkah.

Married couples as advisors

By contrast, foreign women can interact with both sexes without even wearing a headscarf. Some NGOs send married Afghan couples as advisors to the villages. Acceptably in social terms, the wife can then travel with her husband, stay overnight and talk freely to the women.

In some villages, women's Shuras have already been formed in order to ensure that women's concerns are heard. However, not even women's Shuras can evade attempts of manipulation. Frequently, only a few women take part actively. Normally, they belong to the villages' dominant families or have completed some education or training. Fundamentalist groups are seeking to start their own women's groups in an attempt to gain influence on the elections.

Repressive power structures, which have devastated the country over decades, cannot be eliminated in a two-year cycle. Development cooperation must be prepared to give long-term support – in terms of both personnel and funds. There is no alternative. The democratisation process has been kicked off. Perhaps, several attempts will be necessary in some villages. Of course, failures cannot be excluded. But once the bottom-up development has got underway and the general conditions are safeguarded, they will become less likely. After all, everyone is still aware of past destruction.

In the northern provinces, for instance, individual setbacks in recent months have not provoked any uncontrolled escalation of attacks. On the contrary, worshippers at Friday prayers in Kundus displayed civic sense and ended the provocation of a visiting Pakistani mullah who had called on them to oppose anything western. They very quickly made him shut up – and thus provided evidence of a good starting point.

Hannelore Börgel

Dr. Hannelore Börgel has been a development appraiser and consultant since 1981. She works for various governmental and non-governmental agencies. In November/December 2003, she led a feasibility mission in the three Afghan provinces of Kundus, Takhar and Baghlan.

This article originally appeared in Development and Cooperation 05/2004

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