End of contract and final report from the Chief of Party : Afghanistan agricultural sector support project/private sector agribusiness (AASSP/PSA)

The contractor, Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), fielded a team of thoughtful, patient, and extremely flexible individuals who took on a complex set of assignments and did everything in their power to accomplish what they set out to do. What DAI accomplished over the past 3 years was far more than run an A.I.D.-financed development project. Rather, an institution was created which trained, managed, and supported a staff of primarily Afghan professionals who were dedicated to serving a new generation of farmers emerging after years of conflict. In the absence of a host government counterpart agency and a country in which the impact upon beneficiary farmers could be monitored, the project provided the best of what could be expected from a properly functioning ministry of agriculture. Where it was possible to work, project extension agents carried with them for demonstration purposes "packages of technology" designed to assist Afghan farmers to improve the productivity of their land. While the project worked to stimulate an effective demand for modern agricultural inputs and practices, it also experimented with various means of meeting this newly created demand in which Afghan traders and transporters played a key role. And while the project worked to increase food production for domestic consumption as well as export, it systematically gathered information on agricultural production in order to improve our understanding of the problems and opportunities for rehabilitation. Little went according to plan. The assumption that an Afghanistan free from Soviet invaders would be free to get on with the business of rebuilding never quite worked out. The project"s activities were beset with problems as fighting between rival groups and a general breakdown in law and order plagued the work inside Afghanistan up until and including its closing days. The politics of a bilateral aid program also contributed to the overall complexity of achieving the project"s stated objectives. Moratorium on cross-border activities, threats either real or perceived against those associated with the U.S. financed assistance, controversy over role that A.I.D. should play in supporting the private sector as part of a solution to rebuilding Afghanistan, the problem with poppy, and, in the end, a shifting of priorities away from this troubled country toward places where aid might be used more effectively, did little but divert a great deal of attention on the part of project management away from the technical task of increasing food production. This report, by design, focuses upon the accomplishments of the project over the past 3 years. It is a story of adaptation on the part of the project, its staff, and management to a rapidly changing work environment. While the obstacles encountered were numerous, and in many cases needed to be seen first hand to be believed, the project always looked for what could be done rather than dwell on what could not. If what survives this project is not the tractors, computers, and fertilizer stocks procured with project funds, but simply this attitude of finding solutions whereby problems are turned into opportunities, then the project will have made an important contribution to Afghanistan"s future. (Author abstract)