TRASLADO DEL ACCIDENTADO

Relevance

ANBP’s APMASD can be considered to have been an extremely relevant project at the time of its inception in 2005. The potential beneficiaries encompasses all Afghans, as it is an essential element of, and prequisite for, the building of a new state. The needs the project seeks to address therefore remain relevant, and are perhaps even more so at the start of 2009. However, its vital role in the state-building process have to a large extent been overtaken and undermined by the broader changes in Afghanistan’s political and security landscape – namely the growing insurgency – over the last four years. The project log frame reflects the conceptual limitations of the project discussed in length above, and progress indicators were left vague. Even the macro level statements describing the two main outputs are confusing, especially with regards to Output 1.

Efficiency

Project management, and more broadly issues of project leadership and conception, have been poor.

This was reflected in the conceptual weaknesses of the project, detailed above. In turn these are seen in large part as being resultant on ‘people factors’. ANBP’s APMASD appears to have resembled the early days of UN mine action, when senior posts were allocated to former high ranking military officers, solely because they were seen as being from ‘generally the right background’ despite their lack of either technical or humanitarian experience. Whilst ANBP employed former military personnel, some of whom had DDR experience, the organisation seems to have lacked adequately qualified ammunition specialists at any level. Similarly, the IPs generally appear to have lacked ammunition specialists, and relied on personnel with a predominantly mines and/or EOD background. This has enabled the project to drift, and lack resolve when dealing with the MOD both centrally and locally.

These structural issues notwithstanding, the project did achieve some tangible results in its initial period when the focus of the work was on the survey, sorting, destruction and removal of ammunition from large scale caches and into ACPs. More recently the focus of the work has shifted to small cache work, and added value of ANBP has become less clear. Nevertheless, better quality management from the outset might have resulted in a project that was more embedded in the context, more honest about its limitations and more pro-active in securing the support of other organisations better qualified to deliver outputs related to its objectives.

Narrative project reporting has retained given a positive spin on activities that can more realistically be seen as programming failures. On the UNDP side it is clear that technical funds management and financial reporting has been sub-standard, with poor grant administration resulting in a failure to request a no-cost extension from the EC that would have provided the project with an additional 2.2 million Euro, and effectively enabled it to continue operations well into 2009.

Effectiveness

The project has had mixed results in delivering its two main outputs. It was less effective in Output 1, having only mixed results in building capacity within the Government (namely the MOD), primarily due to the individualised conception of this task. APMASD needed to work within the MOD, not drawing out individuals from the MOD to work within ANBP structures. It was more effective with regards to Output 2, especially in the period 2005-06, and facilitated a process whereby significant amounts of ammunition and stockpiles of APMs were destroyed. Results were still mixed, since the project failed to come up with durable solutions that would adequately support the MOD to be able to manage ammunition in the longer term. The failure to secure clear understandings about what constituted serviceable and non-serviceable ammunition, lack of appropriate training to MOD personnel, and a failure to be able to coherently address the need for adequate / improved storage and supply of new ammunition, all seriously undermined the effectiveness of the project.

This should have been foreseen at the project design level, and a clear separation of activities led by military and civilian agencies as appropriate was apparent to a previous evaluation team over three years ago. Adjustments should have been made, and the fact that these issues are only now being addressed can be thought of as a substantial missed opportunity. The deteriorating security situation consequent on the expanding insurgency have also impacted project effectiveness, limiting access and making it harder to secure support from local communities. Failure to access the Pansjir valley and to deal with its well known caches of ammunition, including APMs, is seen as symptomatic of a broader problem and not an isolated case. The existence of the Pansjir issue alone though undermines the claims of the project of having effectively assisted the GoA in meeting its treaty obligations with regards to destruction of APM stockpiles. The evaluation team considers it disingenuous and unhelpful to mis-represent the reality to such an extent for essentially political purposes.

Impact

The project has had a positive impact, and initiated and oversaw a process that has resulted in the successful destruction of the majority of large-scale caches in much of the country. Many smaller caches remain, and this work needs to be funded in the longer term. Following the principle of

‘reinforcing success’ the team has therefore recommended that the EC support the village level WAD teams of the HALO Trust, whose work was singled out by ANBP staff throughout the country as having a very positive impact. ANBP’s role in initiating activities in this sector, and in securing the initial space to operate must be acknowledged as a positive impact. The project’s shortcomings, outlined in length in the main text of the evaluation, have clearly limited its recent impact. Much of this relates to conceptual weakness in the original project proposal that sought to promise too much, with too little real capacity. On one level, impact was limited by the fact that too much of the project budget was spent on management and co-ordination, and too little was channelled to front line activities.

APMASD was always ‘top heavy’. Now, other agencies, more technically qualified to assist the GoA have stepped in to meet the needs that APMASD failed to address during its four year lifespan.

Equally though, the mission that ANBP set itself with regards to APMASD was highly aspirational, and would have proven hard even if the broader political and security environment had progressively improved over the last four years..

Sustainability

As revealed by comments from APMASD’s IP, the MOD will now take over co-ordination of ongoing WAD processes working on small-scale caches. In this regard the project has generated a sustainable process. Other key elements of the project, such as the ‘government owned’ EOD frontline database and the work of the ASTs are clearly less sustainable. New partners for the MOD have emerged in the shape of CSTC-A and NATO’s NAMSA PSSM, and again the ‘space’ to operate established by the precedent of the APMASD may have been an important contribution to the positive relationship reported between these agencies and the MOD. The GOA seems to be more prepared to

‘own’ these new initiatives than much of the APMASD since there is clear buy in and alignment of objectives between stakeholders, something which never seemed to be achieved fully by ANBP, although a tokenistic acceptance was secured. Sustained work building MOD capacity to deal with ammunition storage and management issues needs to be undertaken through international military co-operation, whereas sustained activity at community level, surveying and removing small scale caches is ideally undertaken by independent, neutral civilian agencies, such as the HALO Trust who have the trust and acceptance of the MOD, local authorities and communities to engage in this work.

However, as in mine action it is clear that for the medium term these activity centres will require international technical assistance and funding. The ultimate achievement of the aims and objectives of the APMASD will only be realised once the security situation, and ultimately the political questions that underlie it, are resolved. In this regard, the sustainability of the project is ultimately linked to the success of the international community’s state building project for Afghanistan.

Safety and quality

There were concerns with regards to safety and quality of operations in the early days of the project.

Prior to 2006 a number of serious accidents occurred involving IP staff, but safety records have been improved. Technically competent observers still question the competence of ANBP’s existing IPs to work in the ACPs, and their training of ATLs may not have been fit for purpose, as discussed above.

HALO’s village level WAD work, reinforced by its international experience in this regard, is considered to be fit for purpose, and has therefore been recommended to the EC for funding as a result of this evaluation.