Day 3 Trees Seen, Wood Glimpsed

I am now beginning to see what is going on. I may laugh at my naivete in two weeks' time but it is beginning to make sense to me.

I think the organisation is pretty well run. They work in rural development in all corners of Afghanistan, most of the work is to provide clean water through digging wells and boreholes, but they also have a national role in monitoring the water table which gives an early warning of imminent drought. As well as all the water projects they undertake wider rural development activities like encouraging farmers to plant saffron instead of poppies. So it all looks like the good stuff that a good NGO should be doing.

Their main concern is that not enough of their money is getting to the final destination and too much is tied up in administration. I think they have a point, but some of the administration is necessary and some really isn't administration at all, e.g. the people who buy and store water pumps and pipes are not administrators. However some of the admin teams do look bigger than they ought to be and there is some duplication and perhaps a lack of accountability from the admin teams to the projects which means that they have been allowed to grow.

On top of that the security situation in Afghanistan increases the costs of working here: security guards need to be employed; cars cannot be left alone in the street due to bombings meaning that if you go to a meeting a driver is needed to stay in the car. Two cars are needed on all field trips, even if only one person is travelling due to the risk of land mines, bombs, attacks from the Taliban and even kidnap if the car breaks down.

I am impressed that they are being vigilant about costs and want to tackle them. On Thursday I will submit my initial findings, at which point some of the people whose status is threatened may become more challenging.