Recruitment, retention and training of qualified staff hindered the 20-year, $150 Billion Afghanistan reconstruction effort, according to a recently released report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). Frequent turnover of staff prevented State and USAID from building institutional knowledge which is critical to long-term political reconstruction efforts. The better resourced DoD found themselves leading the reconstruction effort as security became more dire, often leading to conflicts between immediate military priorities and long-term reconstruction activities.
Recommendations from the report include:
- Detailed exit memos for replacements
- Begin now to increase the pool of qualified, motivated candidates for reconstruction efforts
- USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) should increase its pool of on-call advisors for future contingency operations
- USAID should hire more Contracting Officers, even quoting USAID’s FY 22 Budget Request that USAID COs manage on average four times the funding of their DoD counterparts
- Better pre-deployment training
- Encouraged Congress to review employment and compensation practices for reconstruction and contingency operations by civilian agencies.
SIGAR acknowledges that these are long-standing challenges. Even the proposed 1,000-member Diplomatic Reserve Corps was considered too costly at $42 million/year. The report notes a 2016 figure that 6,600 military musicians in bands across the military cost DoD more than $300 million/year. USAID officials acknowledge that the development and humanitarian expertise they rely upon to accomplish its national security objectives are with the implementing partners. Fortunately, the programs in Afghanistan were implemented by qualified and motivated staff, as they are in Ukraine, Gaza, and other challenging places to work.
Read the report here.
