Sylvia's Journal

Axel is home in Manchester and breathing, as he told me, the sweet air of Lobster Cove. He is tired but his spirits have lifted. It was good he went ahead of me. We talked in the middle of the night after I had been awakened by an earthquake in Faizabad. Everything swayed gently but nothing fell or broke, at least not here in Kabul. That’s when I called home to see if he had arrived. He had and here they acknowledge that with a ‘Praise the Lord! alhamdu lillah!’

I may finally be successful in getting to the bottom of my email box, what with no one waiting for me at home. As I dig down I am finding reports, some several months old, and I try to at least scan them. This is how I stumbled on a report written by an American consultant about how all donors should coordinate better. It is amazing how many consultants need to be flown in to give that message. The poor coordination, and the repeated calls for better coordination (read: more, different, new structures) is one of those things that baffle me.

My mantra about coordination is that it is easy if people want it and impossible if they don’t. The rhetoric is that everyone wants better coordination but the reality seems to indicate that this is actually not true. As a psychologist I cannot help myself to think that some deeper psychological forces are at work: A fear of loss of control? Forgetfulness (as in ‘Oh, I forget to inform them!”); time pressures (meetings seen as time wasters, which they of course often are); a fear of being held responsible for promises or commitments made, a fear of interference by national or ideological agendas one disagrees with? A fear of getting more work shoved one’s way?

The lengthy report took some stamina to read from beginning to end. It is full of dense language (dense as defined by the number of times my thoughts wander away from the page) and I wonder how many Afghans are actually studying the report and scribbled notes in the margins with questions, comments, observations. My hunch is only a few; those who read English easily and who can read fast to manage the incessant stream of reports coming in from consultants. So what does it mean when few people read but we all pretend the document has been thoroughly vetted?

This particular consultant had work planned out for another 5 months, neatly ‘x-ed’ in a Gantt chart. But something interfered with that plan and it got stalled. And now we are on to other plans, done by other consultants (because the ministry is too thinly staff with people who could write such a plan or they are too busy with other things). And I hear more calls for better coordination in the near and far distance.

I find myself a bit despondent at times, wondering what the heck I am doing here. I have had this sentiment before and it keeps coming back. We foreigners don’t have to live with the decisions we make yet everyone is listening and stamping reports with ‘approved’ and they work their way up the hierarchy until they becomes official policies, strategies, strategic plans, frameworks or what not. And then we go and those who stay have to implement it. And we are surprised that many of these wonderful, comprehensive, complete intentions remain letters on pages.