March 21, 2004, marked the beginning of spring—a season of planting, hope, and investing in the future. In Afghanistan, it was the start of Green Week. The United States government devoted nearly $1 million to planting hundreds of thousands of shrubs around Kabul in an effort to sow signs of hope in a city devastated by decades of war. The greenery would be a visible symbol of how much had changed in Afghanistan since the removal of the Taliban from power in late 2001.

 

Fifty days later, The Kabul Weekly ran a tiny article, “Green Week Turns Brown.” Nearly all the shrubs were dead. No one had researched what plants were best for Kabul’s dry climate. In a place where safe drinking water is in short supply, no one had watered and cared for the plants.

 

This story illustrates that good intentions and large sums of money alone do not result in lasting development. It poses important questions about the future of Afghanistan. Will international organizations work in cooperation with Afghan people and not simply import projects for them? Will the international community lose interest when it comes to working over the long haul to address poverty, education, and health needs in Afghanistan?

 

For nearly 40 years, the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) has supported ecumenical partners, persistently working and serving with Afghan people through times of war and drought, in meeting basic health and education needs. What have we learned from this experience?

 

Cultivating War in a Poor Land

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Three-quarters of the Afghan population is isolated in remote rural villages with no running water or electricity. More than 70 percent of Afghanistan’s people are illiterate, and their life expectancy is 44 years. Among rural women, illiteracy is almost 100 percent. Infant and maternal mortality rates are extremely high.

 

For years, Afghanistan was the deadliest and costliest battleground of the cold war. Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the former Soviet Union pumped billions of dollars in military aid into warring factions. Throughout the 1980s, the CIA armed and funded extremist Islamic groups in the largest ever covert operation against the Soviet occupation (1979-1989). In 1985, President Reagan hosted a group of militant extremists at the White House whom he described as “the Afghan equivalent of the American founding fathers.”

 

While US political leaders celebrated the departure of Soviet troops, the Afghan people continued to suffer ongoing warfare and deprivation as rival mujahideen (Muslim guerilla warriors) fought each other for control.

 

Landmines from the 1980s and 1990s, as well as unexploded cluster bombs from the 2001 US invasion, continue to inflict casualties—especially on children and farmers. Mines, which cost only a few dollars to make and a few minutes to plant, will take millions of dollars, thousands of injuries, and many years to find and remove. Numerous amputees and uncultivated fields with “Do Not Enter” signs are painful reminders of war’s deadly harvest. Still, poverty and malnutrition push farmers and returning refugees into dangerous, uncleared areas.

 

A Trickle of Aid, A Flood of Opium

While the international community devoted billions of dollars to military occupation and covert warfare, Afghanistan has received less international humanitarian aid per capita than any other conflict area in the last 50 years. For years, six million Afghans—roughly one in four—were uprooted as refugees. War destroyed agricultural production, while warlords pressed farmers into more lucrative poppy cultivation to fund further fighting.

 

The Taliban cut opium production dramatically as a way to undermine the financial base of rival warlords. When the US military removed the Taliban in late 2001, many hoped reconstruction would at last come to all Afghans. Yet aid pledges remain unfulfilled and opium production has expanded exponentially.

 

Today, one-third of Afghanistan’s Gross Domestic Product comes from opium trade. It provides large amounts of cash to warlords as well as quick money for many poor rural families. With a steady flow of drug money, there is little incentive for warlords to disarm or join the interim government.

 

The Karzai government and Coalition Forces have undertaken some poppy eradication programs, but few viable alternatives exist for farmers who are pressed by warlords to grow more poppies. Poppy fields are supposed to be plowed under, but there are reports of the government spraying fields with herbicides, which poses additional environmental health hazards.

 

Today’s Insecurity

Security remains a pressing concern for Afghans and international aid workers alike. With the increase in attacks on international aid workers and election officials, 25 to 30 percent of all humanitarian assistance now goes to pay for security before any development work can begin.

 

Unless the international community quickly delivers massive amounts of assistance in ways that enable Afghan leadership to develop, the vicious spiral of violence, drugs, and fear will lead to greater insecurity for everyone. More barbed wire and armed guards may give security to a few, but only the slow work of knowing the language, living among the people, listening to people, and working together to meet people’s needs will offer lasting security for all.

 

Since early 2002, about 3.5 million refugees have returned. Many have come to Kabul hoping that life will be better in the country’s largest city than in isolated rural villages. The added population severely taxes Kabul’s decimated infrastructure. Much of the capital lacks a steady source of safe drinking water and electricity, and there is little refrigeration. Diesel generators, charcoal, and firewood are the primary sources of fuel. No regular garbage collection exists.

 

At the same time, the influx of thousands of international aid workers, Coalition forces, and UN staff have pushed food and housing prices to exorbitant rates. Ironically, some Kabul residents are being displaced as landlords rent to internationals willing to pay top dollar so they can “help” the Afghan people.

 

Is it any wonder that some Afghans question the motives of the international community?

 

Working in Partnership

Spring marks the beginning of school in Afghanistan. Many schools were destroyed in the fighting, and under the Taliban, girls could not attend school. In Chalikar, children study under tents as long as the weather permits. Girls are attending again (as they did during the Soviet era), but there are not enough tents for the girls’ classes.

 

UMCOR has provided funds for local Afghan workers to rebuild schools so that children can continue their studies in bad weather. Long-term questions about Afghan educational needs remain: How will schools pay for teachers’ salaries, textbooks, and supplies each year? For most Afghans who live in rural areas, not even a tent school exists. Who will train and pay enough teachers so that children in rural villages will be able to learn?

 

Investing in People, Not War

Micro-lending enables poor people to help themselves. Over the past year, a small loan fund—operated by Afghan loan officers and supported by ecumenical partners—has enabled nearly 200 small businesses to expand.

 

Groups of six to ten people from a neighborhood borrow money together and hold each other accountable for repayments. Borrowers help one another so that everyone’s business will survive. In one group, an old man used his loan to buy three months of salt blocks that he then painstakingly ground by hand for sale to families and restaurants.

 

A carpenter used a loan to get wood wholesale to make window frames. “It’s a sign of hope that people want window frames with glass again,” he said. “That means they do not fear renewed fighting, in which windows are easily broken.”

 

A Widow’s Example: Super Flour 

One of the most exciting Kabul projects, known as Super Flour, is run by widows. It is a nutrition, employment, women’s empowerment, and disaster-prevention project all wrapped into one.

 

In places with chronic malnutrition and food shortages, relief agencies send emergency food aid. Yet food aid can also perpetuate long-term “food insecurity.” Increases in imported emergency food can, over time, discourage local food production. Some perceive imported food as “better” than local food. Some have shifted from food to poppy production when food aid is available. Local farmers may not be able to compete with relief shipments, so they stop farming. Imported relief food also does little to help local employment.

 

Super Flour starts with basic ingredients grown locally. Made of equal parts  of corn, chickpeas, and rice mixed together, it offers greater nutrition than wheat flour alone. Poor families often can afford little beyond nan (traditional Afghan wheat bread made three times daily) and tea. Children eating only nan may not feel hungry, but they lack essential nutrients for healthy growth.

 

Imported high-protein biscuits are ready-to-eat and highly nutritious compared with wheat nan, but they are not readily or widely available, which makes communities more dependent on outside aid. With Super Flour porridge, on the other hand, a toddler will get most protein and nutrients needed from an affordable, locally grown food source.

 

In Afghanistan, where it’s difficult for widows to find work, Super Flour provides a place of employment and community for women who must support their families. Women work together sorting, roasting, grinding, packing, and selling Super Flour. Widows also educate mothers on its nutritional value. The flour bags use educational pictures so that illiterate women can see its health benefits to children.

 

As production and use of Super Flour spreads, women will help prevent future health disasters and malnutrition. Mother-Child community health centers are encouraging use of Super Flour as part of prenatal and infant care.

 

Compared with the deadly weapons of super powers and warlords, Super Flour may not seem like much. Compared with the money to be made in opium or oil pipelines, the work of widows may not seem like much. But the women making Super Flour know that they are changing lives—the lives of healthy children whose hope in the future will last long after pipelines and tanks have rusted over.

 

There is an old Afghan story of Mullana Nusradin (a popular folk figure in Afghan culture). Nusradin was seen one day sitting by a lake slowly spooning yogurt into the water. “What are you doing, Nusradin?” someone asked. “I’m adding starter to make yogurt,” he replied. “But you can’t turn the whole lake into yogurt!” his friend blurted out. “I know it seems impossible,” said Nusradin, “but what if I succeed?”

 

Super Flour is low tech, inexpensive, and local. It combines nutritional science with Afghan wisdom to nourish people’s hopes. Working together, Afghan people and international partners are steadily making a difference that will last.

 

To support the projects described above, send gifts marked: Mother & Child Health Project (Afghanistan), Advance # 13352A.

 

* David Wildman is Executive Secretary for Human Rights & Racial Justice with the General Board of Global Ministries. He traveled to Afghanistan in May to visit development projects with longtime partners.