Afghanistan/IraqFocus swift from military to civil affairs needed

One thing which concerns me with today's media coverage from Afghanistan and Iraq is that only military aspect is highlighted and regular headlines are informing mostly (western) military casualties. From my point of view capasity building by civilians would bring sustainable solution. This is not easy, mistakes occur as one can read below - but right approach might create circumstances where people in beneficiary country could see US and EU as practical partner instead of colonialist administrator or mastermind.

When the project is made like desk plan in Washington or Brussels with some cooperation with state’s central government there always is a risk of more or less big gap between beneficiary needs and centralized aims. Some of these failures I have earlier described in my writings “World Bank destroyed Albanian village in joint operation with corrupted Government…” , "UN death Camps, EU money, local negligence” and “Squandering Kosovo’s Aid Funds”.

The key element is the local participation, without it the results can be like in Afghanistan which is going opposite direction than originally intended (more e.g. in my article “Karzai’s administration worse than Taliban”). Same case in Bosnia-Herzegovina where ethnic groups are building their own statehood components against EU’s efforts to strengthen centralized state. Same in Kosovo where despite high-flown statements about developing “European” standards the province is still a tribe leaded protectorate with poor administrative record, unsustainable economy and captured by crime organized crime groups.

To close the gap between centralized (Brussels, state level) aims and practice on field (regional or mission level) the following actions could according my experience be useful:

• improvement of situation analysis,
• developing field experience feedback during missions or program period,
• applying “project cycle management” practice in operation/mission/program planning procedure,
• Logical Framework Approach should be applied through the process,
• Special need is also use Participatory Planning methods so that all stakeholders can commit to actions.

The US and EU funding(programs) should not be too fixed, new – and old – community initiatives should give free space for local challenges because then it is also possible to find some creative solutions, good practices for both participants in donor countries as well in beneficiary states.