a) Inability to establish local governance
b) Inability to establish a relationship between community and provincial/central government
c) Inability to provide basic services (security, water)
d) Something else
My own assumptions have been challenged these past few weeks, starting with a definition of what local governance is, in terms of a practical framework...put another way, what do Afghans think local governance should be doing for the people, as opposed to what we think it should be doing.

I think that you can't dissect local (or tribal for that matter) governance from essential services piece. But what if the people don't need the essential services that we are mobilized to provide, which run a whole range of things we may believe they need.

You're likely most right about dropping the ball in the build phase, but the problem is, we've built a ton of stuff already. Is it tied to the people in a way to be an incentive to get them over to our side?