Samiullah Wardak, EC Delegation to Afghanistan
Mr. Samiullah Wardak was born in Kabul in 1976 and migrated to Pakistan at the age of five. In 2002 he returned to Afghanistan where he had been engaged in reintegration and refugee issues. Mr. Wardak has worked as a program administrator for the United Nations Human Settlement Program (2003 - 2004), as a program officer and advisor for the United Nations Development Program (2004 - 2007), and is currently a refugee and rural development project officer with the Delegation of the European Commission to Afghanistan.
1. What are your priorities in your work for the European Commission in Afghanistan?
My work concerns refugees, rural development, mine action and environment. I am involved in policy formulation for these issues, including project monitoring and evaluation. We at the European Commission Delegation to Afghanistan support UNHCR, Norwegian Refugees Council, UNHABITAT, IRC and HELP, which are organizations working for the sustainable return and reintegration of refugees. Our work with these programs includes developing land allocation schemes for returnees, improving refugee and returnee settlements, fostering political dialogue between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan to find durable solutions for Afghan refugees, and providing legal assistance to returnees and refugees in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Through HELP we are also providing vocational training for refugees in Afghanistan.
2. What is the most under-reported progress you have seen in Afghanistan?
After the collapse of Taliban, Afghanistan remains the center of attention of international media, and I think most progress has been well reported: increased access to social services (health, education, drinking water, etc.), the successful return and reintegration of about 5 million refugees, administrative reforms, legal reforms, and social reforms.
Progress in communication deserves more attention. Currently 9 out of 100 Afghans have access to telephones, and this number is quickly expanding; in 2002 only 1 out of 100 Afghans had access to telephones. Furthermore, the media itself has made great progress: there are scores of radio stations and private TV stations and some 100 active press titles.
The mine action program is also very successful. Afghanistan destroyed its last formal landmine stockpile in 2007 and has made a commitment not to produce, use, or stockpile anti-personnel landmines, in accordance with the Ottawa Convention. The country is also committed to rid its territory of mines by 2013.
3. What should the international community focus on in Afghanistan in 2009?
The international community should focus on long term development projects that are socially, economically, and environmentally feasible and which give employment opportunities to the greatest number of local people. The second focus should be to inject funds through government machinery rather than implementing projects through the UN and other international NGOs, where the majority of funds go back to the donor country in the form of salaries, commissions and procurements. This means that government agencies and ministries should have the capacity to use these funds properly. Therefore, we must implement a merit system, giving funds to those agencies which prove themselves effective and uncorrupt, able to use funds for effective development.
Recent analysis suggests that the conflict in Afghanistan cannot be won by military means, so personnel and funding should be used for rehabilitation and development rather than increasing the number of troops or sending new armored vehicles. Hunger and the Afghans' feeling of being isolated from the current international development process drive the insurgency.
4. What do you say to those Europeans, who would like to pull out of Afghanistan and spend more resources on domestic problems?
If anything happens here the effects will reach your door step. Poppy produced here in Afghanistan is later sold in the streets of Europe in the form of heroin; the money collected through poppy sales is then used to buy arms and ammunition; and these arms and ammunition are then used against international troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.
