From Afghanistan to Iraq, the perils of overconfidence[
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/from-afgha ... -1.3000495 ]
Canada was way too ambitious when it came to Afghanistan, and we paid a price for it
By Brian Stewart, CBC News Posted: Mar 19, 2015 5:00 AM ET| Last Updated: Mar 19, 2015 5:41 AM ET
As Ottawa gets set to expand our military mission against ISIS in Iraq — likely with the promise of some aid development to follow — it's probably worth considering such past interventions, particularly given the audit just out on how our Afghan aid really fared.
The internal government audit of what has been the largest aid program in Canadian history concluded the $2.2 billion we spent yielded very mixed results, many of them disappointing in the extreme.
Yes there were some notable achievements, particular in education and health services, but nothing like the long-term impact Ottawa hoped would come from this huge infusion of aid, one that diverted hundreds of millions of dollars away from assistance projects in other very poor countries.
A few years after our exit from Kandahar, the audit finds "there is limited evidence of positive outcomes in terms of more jobs, enhanced income opportunities or better quality of services outside of the health and education sectors.
"In fact, there are some signs of potential negative impacts as a rapidly growing group of unemployed, educated youth, especially in Kandahar City, may be turning to drugs (the number of drug addicts in Kandahar City is reported to be growing rapidly), or to the insurgency."
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One dark irony of this period was that the Conservative government and other ardent supporters of the war often criticized the media for being too pessimistic in its Afghan coverage.
The reality is most media were far too pliant and unquestioning of a military-civilian mission that, with rare exceptions, hid behind the false-confidence curtain dictated by Ottawa.
Understandably, many Canadians want to put that far-off war behind us and forget. But we simply can't ignore the lessons learned about the cost of our simplistic over-optimism if we're to avoid similar mistakes in Iraq or other campaigns to come.
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Canada should have handled Afghan aid program differently, audit concludes[
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada- ... -1.2996713 ]
Decade-long program, which cost $2.2 billion, depended on U.S. to carry it forward
By Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press Posted: Mar 16, 2015 10:18 AM ET Last Updated: Mar 16, 2015 11:06 AM ET
Canada walked away from a decade-long $2.2 billion aid program in Afghanistan hoping the U.S. would just carry on with its plan, an internal government audit has found.
Instead, Canada's vision was left in the dust, officials told auditors looking into the largest aid program in government history, one of the three pillars of the effort to stabilize the war-torn country after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
The massive aid program was supposed to bolster the military's work in securing the country and diplomatic efforts to shore up its governance, a whole-of-government approach that in some ways should serve as a model for approaching similar conflicts in the future, the evaluation found.
The Conservative government appears to be considering such a model in its approach to the conflict in Iraq as it prepares to debate the extension of the military mission there.
But there were major flaws in the Afghan aid program's conception and its delivery, the evaluation concluded, including a failure to ever completely understand what was driving the conflict in Afghanistan and in turn be able to really help solve it.
"Canada is recognized as a consistent and reliable donor with a clear results orientation, but there is insufficient evidence to provide a definitive answer to the overall evaluation question related to Canada’s contribution to long-term stability and sustainable development in Afghanistan," the report said.
The ongoing and eventually worsening violence in Afghanistan has been largely blamed for keeping development programs from doing what they were ostensibly designed to do — help secure the peace won by the military.
"In Afghanistan, saving lives and alleviating suffering has been a short-term activity that was threatened by on-going political and military violence," the report said
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While the politics of the Afghan mission may be a thing of the past for Canadian parliamentarians, they reared their head for the evaluation team, who reported feeling some pressure to emphasize the positive results of the aid program in their report.
In the end, they drew nine conclusions from their study and provided five recommendations. In its response to the report, the government acknowledged the program's shortcomings and agreed with many of the evaluation's conclusions.
Canada has committed to spending $227 million in Afghanistan between 2014 and 2017 but the report suggests Afghans are left wanting.
"There are still positive developments at the community level as a result of improved physical infrastructure and strengthened community organizations, but there are also clear signs of frustration and anger, despite the fact that some development activities are continuing," the report said.
The report was published online by the Foreign Affairs department on Friday.
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Be cautious with taking Afghan approach to Iraqi conflict, experts say[
http://www.westerlynews.ca/be-cautious- ... -1.1793639 ]
Stephanie Levitz / The Canadian Press March 16, 2015 01:25 AM
OTTAWA - The Conservative government would be wise to heed the lessons of its evaluation of the Afghan aid program as it contemplates how to handle the mission in Iraq, say former diplomats in the wake of a report that found $2.2 billion in aid money for Afghanistan yielded few long-term results.
Two former senior bureaucrats involved in Canada's Afghan aid program say the underlying message of the evaluation is very pertinent today: Canada compromised its efforts at lasting change because it got involved in a conflict without really understanding what was going on, and then just walked away.
To this day, it's not clear why Canada handled the Afghan mission precisely the way it did but at the very least the experience needs to be thoughtfully considered, said David Mulroney, who was deputy minister responsible for the Afghanistan Task Force, overseeing the mission.
"Failing to look squarely at the last campaign can undermine your chances of success in the next one," he said.
As the government prepares to ask Parliament for a mandate to extend Canada's participation in ongoing air strikes against Islamic rebels in Iraq, Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson wants those efforts to be undertaken in concert with humanitarian aid, saying the process ought to be like what was followed in Afghanistan.
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http://www.westerlynews.ca/be-cautious- ... -1.1793639 ]