Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: USAID

USAID

The Afghan Report that Could Have Saved the US Billions

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The Fiscal Times, 13 March 2014 In this article, AAN's recent publication of a 1988 USAID report under the title “Retrospective Review of U.S. Assistance to Afghanistan: 1950-1979” is used as a peg for a story about AAN's Thomas Ruttig quoted as saying, turning around former ISAF commander General Eikenberry's famous slogan 'where the road ends the insurgency starts': […]

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Will We Ever Learn? An evaluation of US aid in Afghanistan

AAN Team •

International assistance is coming under ever closer scrutiny. In response, to understand the impact of assistance and ensure transparency and accountability, thousands of project documents are generated, evaluations conducted and reports written. All contain lessons aimed at informing the development of future assistance programmes. With regard to Afghanistan, as 2014 marks the withdrawal of international […]

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Ambitious U.S. hospital project in Afghanistan faces failure

AAN •

Reuters, 5 March 2014 An ambitious US-funded, $60 million project to build hospitals has run into the ground, with the largest hospital ever planned in the country unlikely to open in full, U.S. and Afghan officials said. "The USAID project started in 2008 and aimed to meet the medical needs of over two million Afghans by […]

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In Kabul, clinic funded by U.S. military closing because of lack of government support

AAN •

Washington Post, 18 November 2013 Another "White Elephant" or victim of Afghan government inability? – the story of the Urgent and Primary Care Clinic in Kabul, "the brainchild of Asad Mojadidi, an Afghan-born doctor" who now is advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), build with Pentagon money and inaugurated by then ISAF commander Eikenberry in […]

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Black & Veatch, with history of problems in Afghanistan, now has another

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McClatchy newspapers, 19 January 2013 Another (failed and USAID-financed) US contractor story, featuring the ‘White Elephant of Kabul’, the Tarakhel Power Plant, a USD 300 million project.

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Playgrounds of Afghanistan, Part 1

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El Snarkistani’s blog, 18 January 2013 US company builds playgrounds for children in Afghanistan, financed by USAID. Snarky adds photos of Afghan-build playgrounds…

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U.S. Winds Down Afghanistan Aid Program

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Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2012 The closure of already five of over two dozen NATO PRTs ‘is effectively turning off the money flow to Afghanistan’s provinces’, the Journal reports. Of the once millions-strong Commander’s Emergency Response Program funds for PRT commanders (the Nangarhar PRT spent $24 million on projects in the province in 2010) […]

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Visit Afghanistan’s ‘Little America,’ and See the Folly of For-Profit War

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The Atlantic, 1 June 2012 Read David Rohde’s long piece about USAID’s work in Helmand province, as it is forced to hire more and more contractors, even to oversee other contractors. With some reminiscences to the 1950-70s USAID project in the same province.

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Why the aid drawdown in Afghanistan could be a good thing

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IRIN, 26 March 2012 The gradual drawdown of US-NATO troops, and the planned handover of full security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2014, has had the aid community worried about a corresponding drop in aid funds. But many aid workers also see the transition as an opportunity to reset aid delivery in Afghanistan, which for […]

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Roads to Nowhere: Program to Win Over Afghans Fails

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Wall Street Journal, 10 February 2012 Dion Nissenbaum reports on the USAID, IRD-implemented campaign to build 1200 miles of road in insurgency-affected areas. A long list of the many things that can go wrong when you start using ‘aid as a weapons system’, including immense wastage, silly projects (think ‘flower literacy’), violence, local conflict, abandoned […]

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Was $73 bn of Afghan aid wasted?

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Politico, 12 January 2012 A former US auditor throws a telling light on US aid (in-)effectiveness, pointing out that USAID ‘has struggled’ to keep NGOs (probably those famous for-profit NGOs) overhead costs ‘under 70 per cent’ and that ‘NGO’s raw accounting data is unaudited and unverified’. He also estimates that up to 15 per cent […]

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Watershed of Waste: Afghanistan’s Kajaki Dam and USAID

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Global Times, 11 October 2011 Jean MacKenzie reports about the history of the Kajaki dam project in Helmand that was billed as the linchpin of the military effort in that province and Kandahar, intended to deliver power to Kandahar – the story of a failure.

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