The Political Economy of Customary Village Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

[Schmedlap]

Article: The Political Economy of Customary Village Organizations in Rural Afghanistan

I just read this on the recommendation of Joshua Foust and found this to be a very well thought out paper on the potential of Community Development Councils in Afghanistan. It is not a short article, but it is a very quick read if you are interested in the material (36 pages of text, plus 12 pages of charts and endnotes). In doing some recent searching for information about NSP/CDCs, all that I found was glowing praise (followed by reasons why we need to spend more money on them, which is then funnelled to various NGOs, Afghan officials, and pads the discretionary accounts of various Coalition bureaucrats, and so on - often the same people praising the program or often people closely associated with them). This was the first piece that I found that did not give glowing praise. On the contrary, it gives a fairly thorough rebuke.

Under what conditions can customary organizations provide public goods? I argue that four mechanisms—separation of power among community organizations, checks and balances between organizations, the ability to raise local revenue under a hard budget constraint, and the presence of economic veto players—facilitate the provision of public goods. These four conditions provide a revenue basis and accountability mechanisms that prevent predation and promote the delivery of public services.
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Customary organizations in Afghanistan are not the only local organizations that satisfy some these conditions... Warlords and commanders lack accountability and separation of powers. They may have the ability to tax, but they have no accountability mechanisms... Local non-customary organizations in Afghanistan, whether political parties, warlords and their command structure, development councils, lack many of the conditions outlined above, especially separation of powers and integrated checks and balances that can prevent abuse. For example, CDCs do not derive their authority from the people, despite the claims democratic elections. They are upwardly accountable not to the community but to the NGO that provides them access to funds. They submit paperwork detailing their activities not to community members or to district government officials, but to the local NGO implementing the project in the area. There are no self-enforcing accountability mechanisms present in these organizations. CDCs are also limited in their ability to raise local revenues. CDCs generally do not collect revenues from individuals. These organizations redistribute resources accumulated through non-productive sources, specifically from international financial assistance, and are thus “rentier” community organizations. They are dependent on outside sources of revenue for support. When such support is absent, as it often is, these organizations will have limited opportunities to provide public goods because they have no revenue.

Thoughts?