26 October 2009

Washington — The Obama administration has nearly doubled the number of U.S. civilian experts working in Afghanistan since assuming office and plans to bring the number up to 974 by the end of 2009, according to Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew.

Lew told reporters at the State Department October 26 that the U.S. civilian personnel are concentrating on “improving Afghan governance; providing security, justice, jobs and services; and giving the Afghan people a meaningful alternative, as much as possible, to the Taliban’s recruiting.”

Civilian experts, including those assigned to provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), have been deployed outside the capital Kabul and have helped local Afghan authorities increase their governing capabilities through projects such as training local officials and improving communications.

Lew said the experts are introducing sub-national governance “in places that have not known it before.”

“These are lawyers, agronomists, diplomats, development specialists and others,” he said.

At the beginning of the Obama administration, there were 320 American civilian personnel on the ground in Afghanistan. “Today we have 603. We also have 282 candidates who are currently in process,” and are currently recruiting for an additional 89 positions, he said.

There are also plans to expand the number of pilot projects in the country from six to 20, and 388 of the civilian personnel will be permanently stationed outside of Kabul, he said.

“The idea of getting our foreign assistance as directly to the people who are going to use it as efficiently as possible is central to the way we’re thinking about foreign assistance and development generally,” Lew said.

While U.S. personnel are providing “expert counseling and advising” on local governance and other programs, they are also working with their Afghan counterparts to enable them to move forward on their own, he said.

“The challenge is to build up the local capacity and to the greatest extent possible have Afghans taking the leadership because that’s really when you get the tipping point, where there’s change that’s structural and sustainable,” he said.

The ultimate goal is to transfer as much responsibility as possible directly to Afghans at both the national and local or provincial levels “and to reduce the need for U.S. presence,” Lew said.

In additional to sub-national governance, the experts are also working with Afghan farmers to encourage the growth and sale of a “meaningful alternative” to opium poppies.

For example, in Helmand province where roads are difficult to navigate, they built an airstrip to help local agricultural produce reach more markets. They are also distributing seeds for legal crops, he said.

“It’s going to take some time. It’s not going to happen in one growing season,” Lew said. “But there’s already evidence in some pretty difficult environments of both reduced poppy cultivation and increased cultivation of legal crops.”