1. TRANSITION & GOOD GOVERNANCE – Some Thoughts pre-Bonn Conference
December, 03, 2011
Nader Yama, Director IDLG1
Gregory Wilson, Adviser, IDLG
Afghanistan is undergoing a security transition from international forces to Afghans by end of 2014. It is
suggested that Transition of security responsibilities to Afghans will be significantly compromised
without progress on economic transition (less foreign aid dependency) and political stability (legitimate
sustainable political institutions post 2014 elections).
Transition is happening at a time where, after 10 years of massive humanitarian, security and
development expenditure and efforts, Afghanistan is still one of the least developed countries in the
world. There is a perception that security is deteriorating, corruption is systemically pervasive, there are
few changes in a dysfunctional justice system and continuing poor services delivery. All contribute to a
weakening of the legitimacy of the government and popular support.
However, security transition is driven by a military agenda that is trying to fast track ‘good enough’
governance, in a country that is not ready for it. Afghanistan has gone through 30 years of direct
conflict and civil unrest, lawlessness and corruption. The international community, civil and military,
has invested vast resources to try to bring political and economic stability to the country. In doing so,
with an aggressive timeline and some ineffective development cooperation, it has arguably made the
situation worse and weakened governance rather than strengthen it.
The short time frame being imposed by the security transition process expects strengthening of
governance but it rests upon weak foundations. This paper highlights key conundrums and issues that
the international community and the Government of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) face
when trying to balance the need for strengthening good governance in parallel with military
withdrawal. In our view the agendas and timelines for the two processes are out of balance. The
security transition process will go ahead regardless for many reasons; some of these reasons are not
necessarily related to the needs or priorities of the people of Afghanistan. Thus during this period there
is an urgent need to face the political and economic realities and to manage expectations of all key
stakeholders in the international arena.
There is a strong risk that a lack of political will at the centre to promote changes in governance to
support transition coupled with practical implementation issues mean that there remain substantial
risks to the overall process. Many experienced Afghan professionals in and around government doubt
that key ministries currently have the capacity to implement the broader governance initiatives wished
1
The views expressed in this paper are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of IDLG or any other
institution

2. for by the international community, and certainly not in the timeframe that it proposes. Priorities
therefore have to be identified.
For foreign military withdrawal to actually happen, do we require ‘good governance’? I think we can say
no in the case of Afghanistan. Why? Because the transition to Afghan control over security will happen
regardless of what progress is made on budget reform, civil service and administrative reform, local
government and broader governance issues including accountability, justice and rule of law. Indeed,
the international community as a whole, at this late stage of the game, still has no real agreed clear
priorities for good governance, other than the usual collection of norms and assumptions rooted in
Western liberal democracies. That is not to say that individual agencies do not have priorities. For
example ISAF has decided already what its governance objectives are, but it is difficult to see how they
are rooted in the collective prioritization of the Governance Cluster National Priority Programmes
(NPPs), as the latter process has not yet happened.
The NPPs themselves were thought to be the process by which the GIRoA strategic priorities are
established, but for the Governance Cluster the crucial next steps have not yet taken place. It is evident
that all governance cluster projects cannot be completed everywhere in parallel so the Governance
Cluster ought to go through a prioritization exercise linked to supporting the Transition process. This
takes time and will require some difficult discussions.
The goal is, of course, to improve governance in the short term to make the security transition more
sustainable in the longer term. This requires a clear focus on the desired effects (whatever they are
agreed to be) and to get the monitoring and evaluation right to see if we are making progress.
However, good governance indicators, even if we could agree on them, are very difficult to track in the
Afghanistan situation. Monitoring and evaluation of progress is difficult when many places and people
cannot be reached. It is therefore unlikely we would ever be sure we have reached the point of 'good
enough' governance. It is not relevant to look elsewhere for inspiration either, as universal standards,
best practices and ideal 'end states' are all out of fashion due to their lack of transferability, unrealistic
nature and similar mistaken assumptions. Good government in the US looks quite a bit different to
Denmark, and different again to what passes as appropriate and ‘good enough’ in Iraq. We need an
Afghan solution.
This does not stop the international community promoting efforts to improve local governance. The
Afghan experience amply demonstrates the fixation of the International Community with 'seeking
answers and solutions' to extremely difficult questions, then setting wildly optimistic outcomes and
timescales. An example of this is the expectation to get all NPPs largely ‘on budget’ in the transition
period. This simply will not happen. Why? Probably because the government financial systems are not
mature enough, the capacity is not broad enough, and many individuals stand to lose in the process.
Thus we know that it makes little sense to talk about ‘optimal’ solutions unless severe qualifications are
in place first.
Shaping the plan for good governance in Afghanistan therefore has to go beyond reproducing more of

3. the same, it has to be more appropriate to what will work in Afghanistan and be rooted in political
realities. Some donors and policymakers are preoccupied with the risk of failing to achieve
improvements in governance, when far more urgent and tangible threats loom, such as the massive
fiscal gap faced by the country, and the dependence for economic growth on unsustainable, aid-driven
consumption. Similarly, the lack of clarity from donors on their future funding commitments makes
financing and planning impossible, and severely hampers design and implementation of key
interventions.
Massive investment has taken place in Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and their processes, yet
at the same their almost immediate demise is being signaled without clarity on the plans to move the
undoubted capacity in the PRTs to the Provincial Government. We hear buzzwords such as ‘PRT
coherence’ but what seems most necessary is to get their undoubted expertise into the Provincial
Governor’s Offices to support service delivery, and provincial planning and budgeting. That would be
coherent.
One thing we can say is that the Transition Process will keep moving forward. The Transition for
Tranche 1 provinces commenced some months ago and yet still lacks practical implementation plans.
The process and efforts for Tranche 2 are for some still confusing. Parallel institutions and practices,
unclear process, as well as weak political well at the implementation level make the current pace of
Transition more difficult. This state of affairs is worrying for those who perceive Transition to be an
opportunity to practice more ownership and leadership and introduce critical reforms. Confusion
supports those do not want Transition to happen.
What is really possible?
So then perhaps the starting point for considering transition priorities for governance is not what we
'want or need to achieve', however we define that, but what is really possible given the current
circumstances and what we know about how Afghans have traditionally made progress on sorting out
their key problems with government and institutions. By allowing, indeed encouraging, Afghans to
identify what are the real constraints to progress on transition and what is really achievable in the
difficult areas of public administration, transparency, accountability, rule of law and so on, we might
have a chance of setting a transition agenda that is rooted in locally generated and informed
approaches and solutions. The NPPs seem like the obvious starting point.
However, most Afghan institutions know that if they generate a planning document that is low on
aspirations, honest about political stumbling blocks, honest about things that will never change in the
short term and a document that contains 'good enough' solutions that compromise various
international standards of good governance, they will be pushed back. Thus most NPPs are full of good
intentions and platitudes. This way the institutions can demonstrate allegiance to international norms
and priorities however unrealistic they are. A good example is the adherence to merit based
recruitment in the civil service, at the same time as many western nations variously remain adhered to a
‘political spoils’ system and have struggled to promote truly merit based systems in their own countries.
Is merit based recruitment really essential for a successful transition? There are arguments for exactly

4. the opposite in Afghanistan. Stabilisation, at its heart, is a search for political agreements and solutions
and may require unpalatable local government compromises. If progress is to be made at a local level it
has to be linked to recognition of local power structures by GIRoA. Improving the centre of government
and sub-national governance and its management is therefore premised upon both an understanding
of the pre-existing social and political context and recognition that some form of patronage will persist
in the medium term.
Considering the above, what might some of those key considerations and approaches on governance
and transition be?
 Transition, while focusing on bringing immediate reforms, should not distract the
government from working on its long-term governance objectives. These objectives will
include improving transparency, protection of ordinary citizens from petty corruption and
creating a more welcome and stable environment for investors. NPPs by nature are only 3 year
planning periods; we still need to know what lies beyond. Continuing lack of clarity about what
sort of government Afghanistan wants or needs post 2014 remains an issue, but where is the
real Afghan debate on the shape of future government taking place? Dialogue and progress on
decentralization, constitutional issues, elections and representation all have their place in the
transition agenda. Perhaps the time is right to think about balancing our debate on local
government issues by encouraging the establishment of a Local Government Association that
can better represent the views of the sub-national entities.
 Prioritising Governance initiatives. The Governance Cluster needs to step in and finish the job
of prioritizing the governance activities needed to support transition. If it does not do the job
others will step in and set the agenda.
 Transition should be seen as an opportunity for accelerated improvements to basic elements
of public administration reform. Areas that can be reformed include civil service and
administrative reform, particularly working towards a more sustainable figure for the numbers
of civil servants earning wages that are more affordable. The government will have to deal with
the so-called ‘second civil service’ and develop a coherent policy on externally financed staff.
Donors will have to cooperate in development and implementation of a policy.
 Consolidating political will to support good governance and transition – it is apparent that
there is a lack of political will in some quarters to support both transition and changes in good
government and wider good governance issues. Notwithstanding the clear statement in the
constitution on the centralized nature of the Afghan state, attention has to be focused on
GIRoA at a national level to support the development of local government that can in turn
support local solutions and settlements.
 Renewed focus on capacity development, particularly at the subnational level, is necessary.
There is a need for a high level strategy on capacity development that recognizes the current
problems with delivering technical assistance (TA) and offers a coordinated approach and
practical measures to tackle it. There is a need to create demand for a change in practice by
International actors. Some donors have shown that they do not always know how make TA
sustainable and need concrete suggestions for improved approaches.

5.  Afghanistan has to prioritise implementation of sub-national governance policy and then
focus on implementation, particularly the reform of provincial budgeting and planning.
Getting money to the provinces and districts remains a priority. It is also necessary to make the
process of budget allocation fairer and more pro-poor, which will require better use of aid and
better targeting of programmes (since to a large extent this is what drives current allocations).
If aid and government investment at subnational level is not ‘inclusive’ and remains skewed, the
risks to transition are high. At the same time, however, there must be realism about the level of
change that can be achieved in three years: fundamental mechanisms of state such as the way
that budgets are formulated and implemented change only slowly, and bit-by-bit. Some
measure of prioritization has already taken place driven by projects such as District Delivery
Programme (DDP). Further priorities are set out in the NPPs including the importance of
increasing investment in local representation and further development of a local governance
model that provides a key role for local people in determining the allocation of GIRoA
discretionary funding to support local aspirations. This is not just an aspiration of the
international community, it also responds to new feedback from Governors workshops and
Institutional Performance Provincial Transition Readiness Assessments carried out by
Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG).
 The gap between the O&M cost of existing service delivery assets (like schools, clinics and
roads) and future revenues needs to be addressed directly. While many stakeholders are
aware of this issue, few are tackling it head-on, and this needs to change. The difficult decisions
that the large fiscal gap necessitates should be brought to the fore. Policymakers in the
government and the international community need to address the question of how to justify
new capital projects when there will be insufficient funding to operate and maintain existing
ones. The possibility of revisiting and revising approaches to cost recovery (charging of fees for
services) also needs to be considered, however unpopular it might seem.
 Citizens need to know they are getting value for the money spent on security. The security
budget is such a large part of the overall investment in Afghanistan that citizens need to know
the money is well spent and not wasted. Greater civilian engagement in analysis and oversight
of this expenditure will help. Good governance has to extend to increasing civilian oversight of
security apparatus. This is not wishful thinking, the consequences of a continuing disconnect
between citizens and the country’s security forces are being played out on the world’s TV
screens every day. Increasing ‘value for development money’ is sought but it is not really
possible to accurately define what is spent on development aid in Afghanistan now, let alone
estimate future needs. The conflation of security expenditures with the overall ‘aid’ budget
creates a confusing picture of where the money really goes.
 The way that donors and the aid system work should be evaluated and improved. It is not just
what you decide to do but how you do it. Recent surveys, such as the OECD 2011 Fragile States
Principles Survey, amply demonstrate that the international Community remains way off
meeting the targets they have set themselves to work appropriately in Fragile and Conflict
affected States. Whilst donor programmes have delivered many of the post-Taliban successes,
such as the health and education systems, they have also created the “second civil service”,
they have supported overlapping programmes and overlapping of functions by multiple

6. Ministries, and have created an environment of almost continual re-definition of priorities,
where these priorities are usually set in foreign capitals. Work is needed to align with sound
principles for providing aid in fragile and conflict-affected states, possibly based on the
outcome of the 2011 4th
High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan. The basis for
improvements, increasing the amount of aid on-budget and aligning donor-funded activities
with the National Priority Programmes, exists on paper, but both the government and the
international community must demonstrate the will to make this a reality.
 Transition is not just about security, economy and governance – post 2014 transition may take
many new forms, new leadership, new policies, new ways of doing things, changing geo-
political configurations. GIRoA will have to undertake its own scenario planning exercises to
look into the future.
Ultimately the biggest threat to transition is from those that do not want it to happen. Therefore we
assume that the GIRoA and the international community will continue to focus on addressing the
grievances of those outside the government. Donors also need to invest more in identifying the
immediate needs, vulnerabilities and risks for local governance institutions created by Transition and
then manage those risks. Improvements to governance are important but for the long term, but
bearing in mind the stage of development in Afghanistan, we need to make a clear distinction between
developing good government and sound public administration and the longer term ideals around good
governance.
Transition is an important commitment of both the Afghan Government and International Community
post London Conference. The Transition process we hope will shape remarkable progress in improving
security, whilst consolidating the achievements of the past 10 years and setting the foundations for
strengthening democratic systems and practices, as well as sustainable development. It will not be
achieved without strong political well at all levels, and implementation of holistic and balanced
interventions rooted in Afghan knowledge and priorities. The Transition should also pave the way for
development of long-term strategic partnerships for development as well as security. However, good
governance cannot be rushed.
Author Notes
Mohammad Nader Yama has served the people of Afghanistan for the last 13 years in a number of
different capacities with the United Nations, Afghanistan National Development Strategy, the Human
Rights Commission and for the past three years working with the Independent Directorate for Local
Governance (IDLG) as Director for Strategy and Programs. In his latter role he has worked in operations,
program management and coordination, policy analysis, strategic planning and leadership. Most recently
he helped draft the National Priority Programme for Local Governance and has led on managing the
extensive IDLG Program Portfolio for effective coordination, implementation, and M&E of the Priority
Programs. He has worked extensively on transition issues, contributing to civ-mil integrated approach,
support Peace and Reintegration process and efforts for implementation of subnational governance policy.

7. Gregory Wilson is associated with the Department of Management and Security, in Cranfield University at
the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. His current research interests focus upon understanding the
limits to public administration reform in conflict and fragile state situations. He also currently acts as an
Adviser in the IDLG with Adam Smith International. He has worked extensively for the UK Government,
the UN system, the IFIs, OECD, and many other governments on projects involving institutional and
organisational development, public administration, and post conflict recovery and stabilisation operations.
He has had an ongoing engagement with Afghanistan since 1996, working with the OAA - OoP, IARCSC,
IDLG, Municipalities and a number of other ministries. More recently he has supported OECD DAC in
undertaking the 2011 Fragile States Surveys for South Sudan and Timor Leste.