A Leap Forward: Capacity Building, Education and India-Afghanistan Cooperation
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A Leap Forward: Capacity Building, Education and India-Afghanistan Cooperation
222Hardcover
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9789381904893 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Sun Links Ltd |
| Publication date: | 10/15/2013 |
| Pages: | 222 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d) |
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A Leap Forward
Capacity Building, Education and India-Afghanistan Cooperation
By Anwesha Ghosh
KW Publishers Pvt Ltd
Copyright © 2013 Institute of Foreign Policy Studies (IFPS) and Centre for Pakistan and West Asian Studies (CPWAS)All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-93-81904-89-3
CHAPTER 1
India's Afghanistan Policypost 2001: Challenges and Opportunities
* * *
The road to peace in Afghanistan will be long and hard. But, given the high stakes involved, the commitment of the international community must be sustained by firm resolve and unity of purpose.
— Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh At the Council of Foreign Relations, November 23, 2009.
India's engagement with Afghanistan readily became multidimensional after the defeat of the Taliban and the installation of an Interim Authority in 2001. An immediate upgradation of Indian representation in Afghanistan from Liaison Office to a full-fledged Embassy in 2002 is a reflection of that. India actively participated in the Bonn Conference and played a significant role in helping the finalisation of the agreement. This agreement, signed on December 5, 2001, by Afghan notables was instrumental in the emergence of the post-Taliban governing and political authority in Afghanistan. Since then, India's main focus has been to support the Afghan government, and the political process in the country as mandated under the Bonn agreement of 2001. It has pursued a policy of high-level engagement with Afghanistan through wide-ranging humanitarian, financial and project assistance as well as participation in international efforts aimed at political and economic rebuilding of Afghanistan. India's close friendship with the leadership of Northern Alliance, who during this phase became the key players, was utilised to great advantage in this effort.
A variety of factors contributed in improving relations between India and Afghanistan. Unlike Pakistan, the ties are not hampered by the existence of contested borders. Secondly, India's support for the Northern Alliance against the Pakistan-backed Taliban in the 1990s strengthened its position in Kabul after 2001. Many members of the Alliance became members of the government or held influential portfolios. Thirdly, India has restored balance in its engagement with a range of different ethnic groups and political affiliations in Afghanistan. The balance was tilted towards the Tajik dominated Northern Alliance during the 1990s as a counter to Pakistan-controlled hard-line Pashtun factions, led by the Taliban. India has used its vocal support for Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun educated in India, to demonstrate its keenness to revive its close ties with Pashtuns. For the first time in Afghanistan's history, there was an interior minister, defence minister, a foreign minister and a chief of intelligence — all from Panjshir Valley. These were men who had been a month before fighting desperately against a Pakistani-supported Taliban while taking military and financial aid from India. Therefore it can be said that the post-Taliban period ushered a remarkably positive time as far as Indo-Afghan relations were concerned, and India responded by adopting a dynamic policy towards Afghanistan. Some observers have claimed that India's remarkably proactive Afghanistan Policy since 2001 was driven by her growing regional and global ambitions. New Delhi, however, has always asserted its intention to develop deep relations with the people of Afghanistan with whom it has shared century old historical ties and thus has concentrated on developmental initiatives that would assist it to establish a chord with the common man.
During each of the visits to India by Afghanistan's President, several important bilateral initiatives were announced by the two sides. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Afghanistan in 2005, the first by an Indian head of government in 29 years. Indira Gandhi was the last Indian Prime Minister to visit Kabul in 1976. In an act of symbolism, Singh's visit was also the first by a foreign head of state or government to last for more than a day since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 as the Indian Prime Minister brushed aside concerns for his security and demonstrated India's special commitment to Afghanistan. This visit was extremely significant as it aimed at reaffirming the commitment of both sides to invigorate past ties and develop an unexampled relationship as well as to mark the consolidation of traditional bonds between the two that were scrapped during the Taliban rule. In harmony with the priorities laid down by the Afghanistan government, Indian assistance programme has focused in various aspects for the transformation of the country. The overall thrust of India has been to follow a soft-power approach, sticking to civilian rather than military matters.
India's Engagement in Afghanistan
India's assistance activities and development partnership with Afghanistan covers four broad areas, namely, humanitarian assistance, major infrastructural projects, small and community based development projects, and education and capacity building initiatives. India's pledged assistance is approximately US$ 2 billion and that makes it the fifth largest donor and the largest OECD donor to Afghanistan. As a part of financial assistance, India is contributing US$ 200,000 per annum to the World Bank managed Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund. India has sent about four thousand Indian workers to Afghanistan who are now being protected by Indian paramilitary and police forces. A unique characteristic of India's assistance is that most of its projects are grounded on Afghanistan's requirements as opposed to what India thinks would be good for Afghanistan. A detailed list of the Indian Assistance programme to Afghanistan until 2012 has been provided in Annexure 2.
Humanitarian Assistance
Humanitarian assistance includes food assistance which includes daily supply of 100 grams of fortified, high-protein biscuits to schoolchildren as a part of School Feeding Programme administered by World Food Programme, sending of winter clothing, gifting of vehicles for mass transport as well as for Afghan National Army among other things. India had also committed 250,000 metric tons of wheat to help Afghanistan battle its food crisis in 2009. Earthquake relief consisting of 200 tents, 20,000 blankets and nearly 34 tons of medicine was delivered to Afghanistan by April 2002. India decided to gift three airbus aircrafts along with spares to the Ariana Afghan Airlines and 300 vehicles to the Afghan National Army, which have been delivered. Also supplied are 67 tons of vegetable seeds to the Ministry of Agriculture. India has medical missions in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat, however, following the Kabul attack and worsening security situation, some of the medical missions were closed but they have resumed operations now. Over three hundred thousand patients have been treated by these medical missions and have been provided with free medicines. The Indian Medical team is also running an Operation Theatre at the Koh-e-Markaz Hospital in Kabul and more than 175 tons of medicines and medical instruments and equipments have been sent to Afghanistan since 2001. The reconstruction of Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul was commenced in September 2003 and a team of 13 Indian doctors and paramedics have been working there since November 2001. Later small Indian medical teams also started working in other centres like Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Herat.
Infrastructural Projects
Major infrastructural projects undertaken by India in the country include construction of the Parliament building (scheduled to have been completed by 2011), transport and communication network. The Border Road Organisation has completed building the 218 kilometre Delaram-Zaranj road links to facilitate movement of goods and services from Afghanistan to the Iranian border and onwards, to Chahbahar Port. This would link to Iran's Chahbahar port which gives Afghanistan another outlet to a nearby port, and this would also facilitate India's trade with Afghanistan and Iran. A road, built by an Indian company with aid from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), connects Kandahar with Spin Boldak. India is committed to development and infrastructure projects in various sectors in Afghanistan. It is helping Afghanistan to build Salma dam power project in Herat province, which was scheduled to be completed by 2011. India has built a 220 KV transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul to provide it with 24 hours electricity supply under North-East Power System project and has also restored telecommunication infrastructures in 11 provinces of Afghanistan. India also contributed in the expansion of national TV network for promoting a greater integration of the country. Indian movies and television serials are extremely popular in Afghanistan and help in strengthening the bond between the two countries.
Small and Community Based Development Projects
An innovative scheme focusing on small and community-based development projects, with a short gestation period and having a direct impact on community life was unveiled during Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's visit to Afghanistan in August 2005. So far, 101 such projects with emphasis on local ownership and management in the field of agriculture, rural development, education, health, vocational training, and solar energy have been initiated. Among those, 84 small projects are under different stages of implementation in 19 provinces of Afghanistan. These projects focus on local ownership and management and extend to agriculture, rural development, education, health, vocational training and solar energy. All these projects were undertaken with the vision to bring an immediate and visible impact on community life, and these projects are instrumental in building people-to-people contact. A team from Ministry of Small Scale Industries and NSIC had visited Afghanistan and carried out a feasibility study for rehabilitation of the Industrial Park in Kabul.
Education and Capacity Development
The reconstruction of Habibbia School was commenced along with distribution of educational kits among students studying there in 2003. Two English language Instructors are teaching English at the Institute of Diplomacy as well as Ministries of Information and Culture and Labour and Social Welfare since February 2002. Fifty slots have been allocated to Afghanistan for training at various institutes in India under Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC). Forty-three Afghan nationals have attended the training under the Programme since 2002 in the fields of Rural Industry Promotion, Small Business Planning and Promotion, Urban Development Management, Audit of Receipts, Legislative Drafting, Development Journalism among other areas. India-Afghanistan Vocational Training Centre has trained Afghan youth in carpentry, plumbing, welding, masonry and tailoring through Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). In Afghanistan, well-known Indian NGO SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) has been training Afghan women at Women's Vocational Training Centre in Bagh-e-Zanana in garment making, nursery plantation, food processing and marketing.
As a part of Assistance Programme, Indian Government is providing 675 annual long-term University Scholarships through Indian Council of Cultural Relations for undergraduate and post-graduate studies for Afghan students in India. The implementation of this programme started when the first batch of Afghan students arrived in 2009. Since then two batches of Afghan students have come to India for pursuing various educational programmes at different Universities in India.
Several visits that took place after 2001, gave a new lease of life to the bilateral relations between the two countries. Both the countries signed bilateral preferential trade Agreement in 2003 when Karzai visited India. This gives tariff concession to Afghan goods. India has interest in ensuring that Afghanistan emerges as a stable and economically integrated state in the region and therefore has played an important role by laying foundations for sustainable economic development in its neighbourhood. In order to expand their domestic market through economic integration and to remove the obstacles on the path of mutual trade, India and Afghanistan entered into a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) in 2003. This made India one of the major trading partners of Afghanistan and its fifth largest source of import. This gave substantial duty concessions to Afghan products entering India. India also piloted the move to make Afghanistan a member of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), with the hope that, with this, issues related to transit and free flow of goods, across borders in the region can be addressed, thereby leading to the greater economic development of Afghanistan and the region at large.
India also became the first country to sign a Strategic Partnership Agreement on comprehensive security with Karzai Government. So far, New Delhi has been content playing the role of a capacity-builder in Afghanistan, having pumped in more than US$ 2 billion for various reconstruction projects, and that alone had invited considerable interrogation and controversy within the region and beyond. Raising this relationship to a strategic partnership level gives short shrift to Pakistan's concerns and ignores those of the West about the compatibility of India's Afghan diplomacy with its overall regional interests. Mr. Shyamlal Bhatija, Senior Advisor for Economic Affairs to the President of Afghanistan, expressed that building Strategic Partnership with countries like India, Italy and France was important for Afghanistan as it will need support from the international community beyond 2014.
Already individual officers are being trained in small batches at different Indian military training academies. This will provide critical training support to the nascent Afghan Army. Now a comprehensive plan is being prepared to scale up and regularise training modules. Afghan soldiers and officers are also going to be trained in specialised disciplines like jungle warfare, anti-insurgency and high-altitude warfare etc. The Western countries, inclined to be receptive to Pakistan's demands to obtain its willing cooperation to conduct the war in Afghanistan, have initially favoured a low Indian profile there. They have even encouraged India to dispel Pakistan's concerns about its Afghanistan policies, the unpalatable premise being that they have some legitimacy. However with the steady exposure of Pakistan's two-facedness on terrorism, it has been losing ground with the West on its India-related demands on Afghanistan.
Though the Afghan economy has recovered significantly since the fall of the Taliban with real gross domestic product growth rate exceeding 7 per cent in 2008 and 22 per cent in 2009, it remains highly dependent on foreign aid and trade with neighbouring countries. The only way in which the weak Karzai government can retain and enhance its legitimacy is by bringing the Afghan economy back on track. For that, New Delhi is playing an important role by laying the foundation for sustainable economic development in the country. A preferential Afghan-Indian trade agreement gives substantial duty concessions to certain categories of Afghan dry fruits when entering India, with Afghanistan allowing reciprocal concessions to Indian products, such as, sugar, tea and pharmaceuticals. Kabul wants Indian business to take advantage of the low tax regime to help develop a manufacturing hub in areas, such as, cement, oil and gas, electricity, and in services including hotels, banking and communications.
In June 2012, Confederation of Indian Industry in partnership with Government of India and Afghanistan in cooperation with Afghan investment and business organisations held "Delhi Investment Summit on Afghanistan" in New Delhi. The objective was to attract foreign investment into Afghanistan in the light of new opportunities opening up in areas like mining, hydrocarbons and infrastructure, and badly needed investments in traditional sectors like agriculture, industry, capacity-building, health and services, after three decades of conflict. The structure of the event included a high-level interactive Ministerial segment and panel discussions on thematic as well as sector specific issues covering mining, infrastructure, agriculture, SMEs, health care, higher and vocational education training, IT and select services. The sessions provided great opportunity to get information on investment opportunities and the environment for investment in Afghanistan, and clarified several issues directly with authoritative government representatives and experts in the field from Afghanistan and elsewhere. It also showcased success stories and innovative partnerships and explored the possibilities of cross-country collaborations that can build collective confidence in investing in Afghanistan. With almost forty countries attending the Summit, this initiative was the first of its kind as India had organised this to attract foreign investment not for itself, but a different country. The meet was organised in line with India's long-term commitment to assist the people and government of Afghanistan as they attempted to build a peaceful, pluralistic, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Leap Forward by Anwesha Ghosh. Copyright © 2013 Institute of Foreign Policy Studies (IFPS) and Centre for Pakistan and West Asian Studies (CPWAS). Excerpted by permission of KW Publishers Pvt Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,Introduction,
1. India's Afghanistan Policy Post 2001: Challenges and Opportunities,
2. India-Afghanistan Cooperation in the Field of Capacity Building,
3. India-Afghanistan Cooperation in the Field of Education,
Conclusion,
Bibliography,
Annexure,