Corruption Here, There, Everywhere

[Afghanistan's Missing Millions - A video report by the Guardian]

I was tempted to title this piece "Journalist Discovers Aid Agency Corruption in Afghanistan, Expresses Shock", but was afraid that title was a wee bit long.  Anyhows, in a recent video produced by the Guardian newspaper (above), their reporter highlights aid agency - and in particular UN - corruption in Afghanistan.

In an appropriately somber voice-over, he uses a decrepit hospital in Kabul to highlight how aid agencies have misspent donor funds, concluding: "This is why hearts and minds are being lost in Afghanistan."

The violins in the background are also a nice touch.

First, credit where credit is due.  Nothing wrong with highlighting the obvious - namely that corruption is a definite problem when it comes to humanitarian and relief work, and one which is all too often swept under the rug.

(I would imagine that, in the hierarchy of NGO management nightmares, a corruption scandal comes in third, just after reports of staff trading aid for sex, or staff running drugs and guns.  Though the latter can occasionally be excused as an innovative source of unrestricted funding.)

According to a 2008 report by Transparency International, "Corruption was generally perceived as an unavoidable part of the emergency environment and the prevention of corruption was often considered as just another routine part of doing business."

Which is really only shocking until you've actually tried to work in a place like Afghanistan.  Not to excuse corruption, but at some point we all make an accommodation with reality, usually of the see-no-evil variety.  Especially if all the paperwork and invoices appear to be in order.

The problem with the Guardian piece isn't that it highlights aid agency corruption - though picking on an Italian NGO (in this case Intersos, which was responsible for the hospital renovation) is a bit like picking on a special-needs student.

At the same time, I'm all for criticizing the UN, which also bore responsibility for the hospital project in Kabul.

That said, pointing out that the UN is inefficient and hypocritical - in this case, decaying hospital contrasted with beautiful new UN offices - is not exactly blazing a new journalistic path.  Sort of like trying to hit the wide side of a barn.

(Further, the fact that the reporter doesn't seem to understand the difference between aid agencies and private contractors is depressing, but so it goes.)

I can live with cliches, and the occasional inaccuracy; naivete bothers me far, far more.  In this case, the reporter's willingness to showcase Afghan Government officials complaining about aid agency corruption without once looking into whether, say, the Afghan Government might be partly to blame.

Perish the thought.

According to the reporter: "The Afghan Government has finally had enough.  They are now openly accusing the United Nations of corruption."

Pot, meet kettle.  Both black.

On a whim, I decided to google "corruption by Afghan Government".

Let's see - the New York Times ran a story in January entitled Bribes Corrode Afghan's Trust in Government.  The article minces few words:

"Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.

A raft of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are cooperating in the country’s opium trade, now the world’s largest...The corruption, publicly acknowledged by President Karzai, is contributing to the collapse of public confidence in his government and to the resurgence of the Taliban, whose fighters have moved to the outskirts of Kabul, the capital."

When the Guardian confronted Bruce McCarron, the Director of UNOPS Afghanistan about the hospital, he blamed the Afghan Government for failing to provide maintenance.  According to McCarron: "What we would question...has there been any maintenance been done on the facility in the last five years?"

A suggestion which the Guardian piece gives short shrift.

Why do I care?  Certainly, the report is right, that there are massive inefficiences and often corruption in UN and NGO activities.  At the least, there's more than enough blame to go around.

Yet these situations are complicated, they're always complicated.  And simplistic analysis - whether it's in Afghanistan (aid agencies bad) or Darfur (Arabs versus Africans) - invariably leads to simplistic recommendations, and simplistic policies.

If we don't even understand the problems, then it's hard to see how things are ever going to improve.

[The video above is a shortened version of the Guardian report - the full version is available here.]