I agree completely. I was trying to express above that it’s nice to say “let’s build capacity,” but it’s damned tough to implement an actual solution to do so. The Americans in Afghanistan have mostly sidestepped this with CERP funds, and think simply throwing handfuls of cash at construction projects with little coordination in Kabul and little local control is a great idea. It may be in the extremely short term, but it’s not sustainable.

The British, on the other hand, have taken a longer view toward capacity-building, at least officially. But since no one deems it necessary to release effectiveness studies or to publicly establish success metrics, we don’t really know if there is improvement under all the noise generated by their running battles with militants (or AAF, as the U.S. calls them this week).

The two method obviously need to be combined: the breathing room afforded by hundreds of millions of dollars in CERP funds to hire away potential paid militants, along with a deliberate, systematic, sustained long term strategy at establishing and effective, reasonably non-corrupt native bureaucy to handle future projects.

Alas, and you say this too, no one sticks around long enough to see it through, and no one in charge can look beyond the next election cycle to do it. This is one way the old British Empire was so damned successful: they’d commit to an area for years, and their agents would spend many years living locally and carrying out policy. We have become more short term in outlook as time had dragged on, and this is turning into a serious weakness.

She argues that donors and implementing agencies lament the lack of capacity in Afghanistan and prescribe programs and efforts to increase capacity. Fair enough. But she says that unless the rules and procedures concerning how things are done are changed then the additional capacity will be manipulated for the same nefarious ends.

Donors adore capacity-building training programs and seminars. But if those who are trained are thrown back into the same morass, then it shouldn’t be surprising that little changes.

Lister, who is one of the best when it comes to understanding the challenges faced with respect to sub-national administration, makes it clear that it’s far more difficult to understand, much less tackle the way things are done at the sub-national level. It’s complicated, requires extensive and protracted involvement.

It’s far easier to say that x number of people were trained and sent out and that’s evidence of progress. Those who are trained may get nice shoulder bags and there’s plenty of opportunity to take photographs of the training sessions to adorn annual reports.

In the case of the U.S. on both the civilian and military side, the personnel don’t stick around long enough and don’t have the means to understand what is (or is not) happening to disabuse themselves of their pride in bringing tangible change to Afghanistan through such efforts. It looks good in their annual evaluations and in the home-town newspaper.