Private contractors are running Afghanistan show, NGOs, once the main player, have either left the country or subcountracted by Luis Berger or Bearing point. Private contractors manage security risks while they are trying to do most of the job. Luis berger and bearing point are great business ideas, bearing point currently has a contract of 237 million dollars with USAID, their Afghanistan operation is run by former managers and directors of development NGOs. NGOs which once had a dominant role in afghan reconstruction had to vacate the stage for large contractors under sever criticism from government (and public), allegation of corruption and security boundaries.
I see this as a big phenomena, I am surprised that non-profit community didn’t predict this. I haven’t seen a single study on this, I remember meeting all these NGO managers in conferences and they were talking about what ways to increase efficiency and, But nobody saw contractors coming in and an organizational strategy to deal with it.
Well, I think this is typical to organizations, they are so trapped with competition and routines that they can’t see the horizon, or they have one lens on when they are scanning the environment. my favorite is the competition between Kodak and Fuji, the official logo of Fuji was ‘Kill Kodak’ and they failed to see digital photography coming and now photography is almost a dead industry with the emergence of digital.
Or another one of my favorite is, Britain assigned a watchman at the south coast to look at the see and alarm London if he sees Napoleon, the guy was looking at the sea with his telescope hoping every minute that he would see napoleon and run to the big bell and alarm London. But it never happened. This job was officially terminated in 1948 and the funny thing is the guy even didn’t notice Hitler bombers J he was just looking at the sea.
NGOs perception of the three issues affected their strategy 1) the problems of NGO security, 2) concerns about the militarization of aid, and 3) the public scapegoating of NGOs for the failures of the overall aid effort.
Security of staff is the number one issue for all NGOs working in Afghanistan today. Afghanistan has become the most dangerous country in the world for aid agencies. The Global Civil Society yearbook shows that “terrorist incidents” targeting NGOs have gone up 1300% from the early 1990s to 2005. Today, international staff of most NGOs remain bunkered down in Kabul, flying in and out for R&R, they have no contact with the people they aim to help. PRTs were the good NGOs created four years ago, NGO views on PRTs run the spectrum from blanket refusal to engage with the military to what some see as “principled pragmatism” on the other – that is that NGOs should engage with the PRTs in order to minimize negative impacts on their work. It would be a mistake to see PRTs as threatening competitors, they are not for development purposes.
Popular anger, at the overall slow pace of the reconstruction effort so far and the lifestyle and behavior of some foreigners, has unfairly blamed the NGO sector. Afghans believe little has been done to date, despite the billions of dollars of international funds pledged. Because they work directly with communities, NGOs have become the most highly visible symbols of the international aid effort. Many in the aid community understand the resentment. While the distinction between international NGO staff, foreign contractors working for government donors and foreign private security companies seems straightforward to those in the aid business, for much of the Afghan public, there seems little difference between these groups.
NGOs have lost the fight for humanitarian space for businesses, private contractor are also facing the same problem NGOs did. Contractors might be able to deal with the situation NGOs are facing but in no way they are improving the situation, as a matter of fact the situation is getting worst since contractor take over. The ghetto lifestyle of hundred foreign workers has created further public anger. Contractors are implementing projects ranging from health to handcraft, areas they have to competences. Day by day people see less and less result for the amount of money spent and cynicism is growing. What is actually destroying my morning is people who work for contractors. They are only there for money, stealing from the 7th poorest country in the world.
