The Hindu Monday, May 13, 2002
Rebuilding Afghanistan By M. S. Swaminathan Any help in the regeneration and revitalisation of Afghanistan's agriculture touches the lives of the majority of the population. THE GOVERNMENT of India and the UNDP are jointly hosting in New Delhi on May 23-24 a conference on South-South Cooperation for Rebuilding Afghanistan. This is a timely initiative in terms of Afghanistan's needs, as well as a test of the ability of the countries in the South to help each other in times of need. Afghanistan's economy has been shattered by years of conflict, drought and recent bombings. Therefore its needs are many and varied. Under such circumstances, there will be a tendency for drawing up a large shopping list of collaborative programmes, many of which may remain only on paper after May 24. The challenge lies in drawing up an implementable portfolio of tasks, based on the one hand Afghanistan's priority needs and on the other, the comparative capabilities of the participating countries of the South to meet them. I suggest a few items for action by India, where we can make a difference in the lives of the common people in Afghanistan, particularly children, women and men suffering from hunger and loss of livelihood. Making a difference to day-to-day lives reminds me of the first children's hospital put up in Kabul by India in the 1970s. This partnership had a large downstream impact, since healthy children constitute the foundation for a vibrant society. What should be our priorities for partnership with Afghanistan? Obviously, the starting point is agriculture, since nearly 85 per cent of the population is engaged in crop and animal husbandry and allied rural professions. Agricultural progress therefore provides on a sustainable basis the best safety net against hunger and deprivation. Advances in agriculture based on ecological principles are not only important for nutrition and livelihood security, but also for the ecological security of the country. Any help in the regeneration and revitalisation of Afghanistan's agriculture touches the lives of the majority of the population. In the past, horticultural products such as grapes and raisins contributed about 40 per cent of the country's export earnings. Rangelands constitute 46 per cent of Afghanistan's territory. Livestock also accounted for about 40 per cent of the total export earnings. Among animal genetic resources, the Karakul breed of sheep constitutes an important economic asset. There are distressing reports of the sale of children for purchasing wheat and other food items in interior Afghanistan. If food and fuel support are not immediately available, environmentally harmful and socially sad methods of gaining access to one's daily bread are likely to grow. In most parts of the country, water is a key constraint. Rainfall distribution is both skewed and variable. Eighty per cent of wheat and 85 per cent of all crops are produced on irrigated land. Irrigation systems dominated by small and medium river valley schemes owned and managed by village communities are increasingly under disarray. Afghanistan's famous vineyards and orchards also present a sad spectacle now. Afghanistan has so far been a major world centre for poppy production. Enforcement of the ban on poppy cultivation will be effective only if there are alternative land use opportunities capable of yielding satisfactory returns. There are also immediate problems arising from mines, causing danger to human life and property. Under these conditions, what can be a more meaningful starting point for Afghanistan-India partnership than building a sustainable food, livelihood and ecological security system? I would like to offer three implementable suggestions. The first priority should be water security. The greatest pay-off with limited investment will come from strengthening community water harvesting and management systems. Every drop of rainwater will have to be harvested, stored and used conjunctively with groundwater, wherever possible, for raising high value but low water requiring crops. There is scope for increasing the production of saffron and cumin as well as for the revival of the horticultural orchards. There are opportunities for organising Horticultural Estates based on low-cost green houses and drip and fertigation techniques (i.e. adding nutrients to the irrigation water). A small team of grass root workers from Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh assembled with the help of the Centre for Science and Environment founded by the late Anil Agarwal could work with Afghan communities in developing the community water security-cum-horticultural renaissance movement. A second area worthy of consideration is the generation of multiple livelihood opportunities on the bio-village model of integrated on-farm and off-farm employment, to reduce and ultimately eliminate the dependence on poppy cultivation and nomadic livestock husbandry for survival. The bio-village paradigm of development helps foster natural resources conservation through ecological farming and promote micro-enterprises based on market tie-ups. The technologies used will be more knowledge than capital or chemical intensive. This will call for mobilising modern information and communication technologies for setting up computer-aided Rural Knowledge Centres, preferably operated by women. This will simultaneously help build the self-esteem of women, since experience shows that bridging the digital divide through a woman-centred information delivery system is an effective method of bridging the gender divide. India's experience in both market-driven micro-enterprise development and on harnessing information and communication technologies for poverty eradication will be of help in launching a bio-village movement in rural Afghanistan. Finally, there is scope and a need for building a community-managed food and ecological security system through a national grid of Community Food Banks (CFBs). The already announced donation of one million tonnes of wheat by India through the World Food Programme could mark the beginning of the end of chronic and transient hunger, if intelligently used. A decentralised network of CFBs can be managed by local communities at low transaction costs. They could become the hubs of a "Grain for Green" movement on the model of the programme initiated in Madhya Pradesh, which also has experience in organising Food Banks (Anna Kosh). There is considerable expertise in India, both in the public and private sectors, in building grain storage structures at a fast speed. Several of these designs could serve as prototypes for village communities to construct their own bins. A Food Security Consortium of India could be formed with its membership drawn from both the public and private sectors solely for the purpose of promoting bilateral and multilateral partnerships for the speedy and sustainable end of hunger. The first task of such a Consortium could be the establishment of a chain of CFBs in Afghanistan's hunger "hot spots" in partnership with the Government in Kabul and rural communities. Programmes such as the above are both implementable and capable of triggering a self-replicating movement of economic and social development, since they are essentially human-centred, based on harnessing the creativity of local men and women. There is a need to avoid promoting bureaucratic structures such as a National Water Authority, etc., involving centralised planning and huge transaction costs. In August-September this year there will be a World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, where the new Afghanistan can show the world how to convert an unprecedented calamity into an uncommon opportunity for launching an era of socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development. Copyright � 2002, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu
