OBJECTIVES FOR THE POLITICAL EFFORTS

In the period up to 2012, Denmark will contribute to:

• Strengthening international coordination and securing an integrated strategic approach to stabilisation and development in Afghanistan, including ensuring that the UN fulfils its lead coordinating role and that the UN establishes a presence in the whole of Afghanistan.
  
• Ensuring that the EU enhances its political and development assistance profile in the country with due consideration for the UN’s role, including increasing the support to capacity building in the judicial sector and the police.
  
• Strengthening the Nordic cooperation within aid effectiveness, human rights and civil society development.
  
• Maintaining pressure on the Afghan Government to respect human rights and promote democracy and rule of law principles.
  
• Ensuring that human rights are incorporated as an element in all national strategies.
  
• Promoting an Afghan-led national reconciliation that has broad international backing.
  
• Promoting an integrated approach to counter-insurgency and fostering development in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The UN’s important role in Afghanistan

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is responsible for the overall coordination of the international engagement and the extensive development, military and political efforts carried out by major international actors, such as NATO/ISAF, the EU and the USA. The UN operates in almost all areas relating to development assistance and political development in the country. UN organisations support, among other things, returning Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan, agricultural development in the poor rural areas, education, holding of elections and efforts ensuring respect for human rights. Furthermore, the UN plays an important role in the political arena as a constructive and at times critical sparring partner for the Afghan Government in relation to difficult issues such as counter-narcotics, anti-corruption and women’s rights. Lastly, the UN’s offices also in the outlying provinces are an important source for development and provision of basic services in the provinces.

OBJECTIVES FOR THE SECURITY AND STABILISATION EFFORTS

On the basis of the international community’s goals for the efforts in Afghanistan and with a point of departure in the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) Resolution B 161 and the Helmand Plan for 2008 (“Denmark in Helmand 2008”), Denmark will continue and concentrate the efforts in southern Afghanistan, on the grounds that ISAF and the Afghan authorities expect the following results to be gradually achieved within the strategy period:

• Around the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the preconditions will be in place for the implementation of small-scale development and reconstruction projects in and around the towns of Lashkar Gah, Gereshk and Sangin, which the Afghan authorities have partial control over. The Afghan security forces will be in a position to conduct operations at battalion level together with ISAF in Helmand. The population in Helmand will be less susceptible to intimidation by the Taliban and the other insurgent and terrorist groups, and the voluntary or coerced support for these violent groups will decline.
• By the middle of 2011, the preconditions will be in place for the Afghan security forces to conduct operations at brigade level together with ISAF and to enforce the Afghan Government’s authority in the central part of the province, where preconditions will be in place for implementing more long-term development and reconstruction projects. Only a minority of the population will be susceptible to intimidation by the Taliban and the other insurgent and terrorist groups or will support these voluntarily.
• By the end of 2012, the preconditions will be in place for the Afghan security forces to conduct operations independently at brigade level and to enforce the Afghan Government’s authority in the key parts of the province and here support the exercise of civilian Afghan authority. In general, it will be possible to implement long-term development and reconstruction projects in those parts of the province that the Afghan security forces have responsibility for patrolling. A majority of the population in Helmand Province will in general support the authorities and only a small minority will be susceptible to intimidation by the Taliban and the other insurgent and terrorist groups.

Denmark will also contribute to:

• Supporting capacity building of the Afghan National Army. By the middle of 2008, Denmark will engage in dialogue with the British military authorities on setting quantitative targets for training the Afghan National Army in Helmand with a view to setting specific targets for the Danish efforts.
  
• Supporting capacity building of the Afghan National Police through contributions to EUPOL.
  
• Building an effective and independent police force of high integrity under Afghan ownership and in accordance with international standards.
  
• Supporting in general the population’s endorsement of the Afghan authorities and ISAF’s presence.

In relation to promoting integrated civilian-military efforts in Helmand in the period up to 2012, Denmark will contribute to:

• Further developing the integrated approach to counter-insurgency and stabilisation in Helmand, including through joint planning and implementation of activities within the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team).
  
• Implementing more quick-impact projects (QIPs) as and when the need and opportunities arise.
  
• Evaluating and, where necessary, adjusting the pre-mission training of both civilian and military actors in Helmand in the light of experience and lessons learned.

The human barometer

Danish and allied troops often patrol in the town of Gereshk, which with its approx. 50,000 inhabitants is one of the larger towns in Helmand Province. The patrols are conducted in open-top vehicles that make it easier to come into contact with the local population. It is important to gauge the atmosphere in the town, and the troops at the same time get the opportunity to show that ISAF and the Afghan security forces engage in concerted efforts to increase security. The personal contact with the local population in Gereshk has importance for the entire Danish effort in Helmand Province. Through daily dialogue, the inhabitants can, among other things, assist the troops with information about hostile movements and activity in and around the town, which is a sign of trust in the ISAF forces.

OBJECTIVES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS

OBJECTIVES for the Danish state-building efforts In the period up to 2012, Denmark will contribute to:

• Consolidating democracy in Afghanistan by supporting the holding of free elections.
  
• Strengthening the public sector’s ability to deliver results through promoting good governance at centralised and decentralised level.
  
• Enhancing the Afghan Government’s ability to reach out to the population – both men and women – through the process of decentralising tasks and powers from central to local level as well as strengthening capacity in all provinces.
  
• Strengthening respect for human rights in Afghanistan, in particular by supporting the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). Improving women’s access to the judicial system.
  
• Creating a strong and pluralistic civil society as an essential building block of a sustainable Afghan democracy, partly through the Nordic cooperation.

Legal assistance to women in Afghanistan

Two decades of violence and conflict as well as social, political and economic exclusion have had serious and far-reaching consequences for Afghan women and girls.

Despite achievement of considerable progress since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, violence inflicted against women is still very widespread in Afghanistan.

Denmark provides extensive support to ensure women’s access to legal assistance in Afghanistan. Denmark supports, for example, an organisation in Herat that has opened a shelter for battered women as well as women who have been forced into marriage. The shelter provides women with a safe place to stay, legal assistance, medical help, negotiation with the family, counselling, and help to move on with their life. The shelter helps approx. 100 women a year, and several thousand women benefit from the organisation’s information initiatives.

OBJECTIVES for the Danish education efforts

In the period up to 2012, Denmark will contribute to:

• Ensuring that in the long term all children attend school and that 7.7 million children attend primary school by 2012, with an increasing proportion of girls (2008: 6.1 million children and 35.5 per cent girls).
  
• Ensuring the existence of a tried and tested modern curriculum for all class levels in the Afghan primary school, based on values that are consistent with national and international standards.
  
• Ensuring that all school children have access to the necessary textbooks at the beginning of the new academic year.
  
• Ensuring that a minimum of 70 per cent of the Afghan teachers have passed a competency test.
  
• Ensuring that the Afghan Ministry of Education has undergone an administrative reform that enhances the Ministry’s performance at both centralised and district/provincial level.
  
• Ensuring that children from returned refugee families are integrated in the education system.
  
• Increasing the number of pupils in the state schools in accordance with the Helmand Plan.

Successful education drive in Helmand

In December, upon Danish initiative, the Afghan Minister for Education held a successful Education Jirga (assembly of locals) in Helmand. The Jirga aimed at paving the way for a Danish-supported education drive in Helmand Province. More than 200 local district leaders participated in the Jirga and brought forward specific proposals for how to reverse the negative development in enrolment in the province. The Minister of Education promised the participants that the Afghan Government was ready to build 100 new schools in Helmand provided the population itself showed initiative and reopened the existing schools first. The outcome of the Jirga was unequivocal backing from the participants for the education drive in Helmand Province. The mobilisation of the districts is crucial for establishing confidence in relation to the educational content and for removing the education sector from the immediate conflict between the Taliban and the Central Government.

Less than a day after Musa Qala was recaptured in December 2007, the Afghan Minister of Education launched an education drive in the area with Danish support. Through a rapid and visible civilian effort, the Afghan Government was able to build on its military success and thereby strengthen the reconciliation process in the area. Denmark has given a commitment to support the initiative with approx. DKK 3 million in 2008.

The conditions for the schools in Gereshk are totally dependent on the security situation in the town. It has been important for the Afghan authorities that the local population, the school teachers and the children help the local police to enhance security by contacting the authorities if they are subjected to harassment. Together with Danish forces, an emergency hotline that the locals can call 24 hours a day has therefore been established.

OBJECTIVES for the Danish efforts to improve living conditions

In the period up to 2012, Denmark will contribute to:

• Combating poverty through promotion of legal economic growth and employment for women and men, including enhancing economic activity in rural areas.
  
• Supporting alternative income opportunities to the narcotics industry through providing support to development of the legal productive sectors, including in Helmand.
  
• Ensuring that 800,000 households, including single mothers, have access to financial services, including micro-credits.
  
• Repatriating and reintegrating of up to one million refugees through targeted efforts in the home areas of the refugees.

Rural development and access to micro-credits

The National Solidarity Programme (NSP), which is a national programme supported by Denmark, provides grants directly to Afghan villages, which – via democratically elected village councils –prioritises and implement their own small projects. The programme is one of the greatest development successes to date in Afghanistan and has so far reached over 18,000 villages.

The village of Mir Bacha Kot, which lies 20 km north of Kabul, is one of the villages that have access to microfinancing facilities under the MISFA programme. This means that the local inhabitants can take out small loans for setting up, for example, businesses that in the long term can stimulate the local economy. One of the women in the village was therefore pleased to be able to receive her first loan of AFA 10,000, which she used for starting a small workshop, where she produced children’s clothes. She has, since then received additional loans that have enabled her to expand the business. Hence, she now has 10 women employed in her business. The business is now selling the products, not just on the local market, but also in other provinces such as Marzar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

Danish support to refugee returnees

In 2001, more than six million people had fled Afghanistan, primarily to the neighbouring countries. Today, more than 4.8 million refugees have returned home to Afghanistan. Some have nothing to return to, and in 2007 alone the Afghan Government awarded 30,000 plots of land to refugee returnees. Denmark has supported the return of refugees through, among others, UNHCR and IOM. Denmark has also contributed to their reintegration through support to schools and other facilities in the areas where the refugees return to.