Ashraf Ghani rips into the UN in Afghanistan (thank God he spared my unit (UNAMA) as doing a good job)... President Ghani castigated UN agencies for their “arrogance and incompetence”. Few agencies were spared… Among the statements by President Ghani: 1. “It’s a scandal that 1.7 Afghan children are out of school, and many are living in completely unacceptable conditions on the margins of cities such as Kabul.” 2. “School construction in Afghanistan has become a source of corruption. I have met with Gordon Brown (who is an advocate for ‘education for all’) and we will shift to 100% modular pre-fab construction of primary schools across Afghanistan”. 3. “We have 400,000 young people graduating from high schools every year, which is a time bomb”. 4. “We can learn from the Islamic countries of Iran and Bangladesh to effectively address the exponential birth rate in Afghanistan:”. 5. “Please stop teaching us what we don’t need. We need a discourse of efficiency:” 6. “The fundamental issue of women’s rights is economic rights. Women work for 10-12 hours per day, but this is largely unpaid labour. Their earnings if any goes into men’s pockets.” “Your gender mainstreaming initiatives have been complete failures. You produce shiny publications on women’s rights and nothing more. You place gender advisors in ministries who have no impact.” 7. “I want my legacy to include a cohort of women leaders, entrepreneurs, business people and civic leaders.” “You are teaching women 19th century skills that are useless in today’s world.” 8. “We will not have 22 National Priority Programmes, but instead 10 or 12”. “The impact of many foreign advisors imbedded in ministries has been zero. I don’t need any advice from you on policy. I can call up any foreign leader I want. The first draft of my speech for the London Conference was a disaster, so I rewrote it myself” 9. “I met with Prime Minister Modi and he asked me what was our top priority. I told him one word in response: investment.” 10. “We will bring the most talented and qualified second and third generations of Afghans living overseas back to their native land. These are people who have real world experience, and who will be my advisors….not you.” 11. “The President of San Jose State University Mohammad Humayon Qayoumi was my college roommate, and has three PhD’s. I will bring him to Afghanistan to serve as my senior advisor. You will have to listen to him. He will tell you what to do” “We need a clear exit strategy from the UN agencies in Afghanistan. We want to know how you are going to get out of our country.” 12. “We have tens of thousands of Pakistanis working in the construction sector in Afghanistan because we have not adequately trained our own people. What have you been doing to address this situation?” 13. “In the spring the State will launch a labour intensive capital works programme. You might be invited to participate.” 14. “The UN has a legitimate role to play with respect to advocacy on behalf of the most vulnerable elements of society---IDP’s, detainees,street children, female-headed households, and others.” 15. “Our goal with IDP’s is that in five years this category will disappear. Our first goal is to help them through this winter. It takes chutzpah for us to sit in our palaces when women are perishing on the edges of our cities in the winter cold with children at their breasts.” 16. “We need to own the problem of IDP’s” 17. “The Ministry of Land Administration is among the best run in Afghanistan with a dynamic leader. Unlike others they actually understand their mandate. We are going to elevate their status to that of a national council.” 18. “In the spring we want to begin to formalize property rights across Afghanistan.” 19. “With respect to urbanization, the current rate of growth of our cities is unsustainable. We need a national strategic plan for the nation’s cities that’s modern and forward-looking, not something from the Soviet era.” 20. “We need to plan our cities in the most modern way.” 21. “We need to address township planning, and create stronger neighborhoods”. 22. “UN-Habitat in the past has been of no use to us. Between 2002-2008 UN-Habitat and the World Bank failed us. They sent mission after mission of useless foreign advisors. All they could talk about was slum dwellings.” 23. “We will seek out advice from Singapore and other cities that have made the most progress. A Toronto professor has written an important book about ten cities that have made the most progress. These are the cities that we must learn from.” 24. “UNOPS is stealing jobs from Afghans. They have no right to do this. Five years ago they promised to create Afghan Ops, but this never happened. I want UNOPS out of the country in six weeks. Your work is finished. Good bye.” 25. “UNOPS and UNDP take away resources that are meant for Afghanistan and send them to their HQ’s. This will stop.” 26. “The Central Statistics Office is frozen in time. Every document that they publish is useless for policy planning purposes.” 27. “We need a 21st century information management programme. I have spoken with Bill Gates, and he will help us with this.” 28. “ I want one office that will be a source of information about Afghanistan and our development issues and not 20. We will monitor all the sources of information of the international agencies and shut them down.” 29. “ I am indeed proud of my role with NSP, but this model is not sustainable. We will create a new Urban NSP that will be merged with the current NSP into one programme, not two.” 30. “Most of the cost of the NSP is for the FP’s. With the new NSP there will be no facilitating partners. There is no need for them.” 31. “UN –Habitat has done excellent work with respect to the management of municipalities that has demonstrated the importance of community participation. I have seen this for myself in District 11 in Kabul, and met your talented engineers. This programming will be expanded and will be a template for all municipalities across Afghanistan.” 32. “ We need to find ways to bridge the rural-urban divide. This will be a priority for us. The model we will follow is that of South Korea.” 33. “With respect to environmental issues water management is crucial for Afghanistan’s survival. Iran is terrified that three of its provinces are turning into deserts. The Helmand River is the only river in Afghanistan that is governed. Harnessing of water is the key.” 34. “We must deal with the fundamental issue of urban water management. Our cities are running out of water.” 35. “I want to get a power system going based on the harnessing of our rivers. We will rely on the World Bank to learn how many dams we can build, and where.” 36. “Power is a driver of regional peace; water is a source of regional conflict.” 37. “Over the next five years we want to construct 20 dams.” “We desperately need technical assistance to develop the power potential of our rivers.” 38. “The objective is to resettle our internally displaced and nomadic population, and better water management is part of this.”“In situ resettlement of IDP’s is the key, based on the Japanese system of land readjustment.” 39. “We need to learn from the experiences of Ankara and La Paz on land management” 40. “Between 2000-2005 WFP completely destroyed our agriculture system. We don’t want your food hand outs. Keep your surplus grain in America. You are killing our farmers.” 41. “WFP should pack up and leave the country. Now!” 42. “We know that food aid is in fact a front for powerful US corporations that use poor countries to dump their surplus grain.” 43. “I want to establish a grain storage capacity of 1.5 million MT in Afghanistan. Now we produce wheat which we ship to Pakistan, and they sell it back to us as flour.” 44. “If UN agencies can prove that they are relevant you can stay. Otherwise please get out. Leave us alone.” 45. “With respect to UNDP I am going to bring Afghans who have directed UN country offices to replace you.” 46. “The current model of paying millions of dollars to UN agencies to fund your HQ’s costs is finished. Afghanistan has funded UN HQ operations for the past decade. Now it’s over.” “Why do you send funds back to your HQ from Afghanistan? What do they provide? How do they help this country?” 47. “Nepal can provide more relevant technical assistance for Afghanistan than all of the UN agencies at 10% of the cost.” 48. “If I need services or technical assistance I will go to the market and purchase it.” “I don’t believe that the technical UN agencies have demonstrated their relevance in the 21st century.” 49. “I accept the political role of the UN in the form of UNAMA, and their advocacy role.” 50. “You are “assistance mechanisms” and you will be judged by how effectively you have delivered, and at what cost.” 51. “Five years ago I asked that all UN agencies ‘deliver as one’, but nothing has happened.” 52. “We will ask the UN empire agencies to leave. If you are not willing to ‘deliver as one’ then you will be thrown out.” 53. “Your cost of transactions are too high. We can do without you. There are now a lot of global networks.” 54. “In my government no UN agencies will be permitted to make individual deals with ministries. If I learn of any examples the agency will be asked to leave.” Dec 10, 2014
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:57:58 +0000
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