The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) was set up in 2008 by the US government to assess US efforts in support of Afghanistan. On July 30, two weeks before the fourth anniversary of the Taliban retaking power in Afghanistan, SIGAR made its its 68th and final quarterly report to Congress, with damning details of waste and “pervasive corruption” over the course of the nearly 20-year Western intervention as well as concerns about Trump administration aid cuts.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty wrote a summary of the 99 page report. Some things that stood out to me:
In a section titled “End-Of-Mission Highlights,” it says the Western-backed Afghan government sometimes didn’t even want projects that the United States proposed.
“For example, SIGAR found that most of the buildings at five Afghan Border Police facilities costing $26 million were either unoccupied or being used for unintended purposes, including one used as a chicken coop,” it says.
The report states that Western countries and global institutions flooded Afghanistan with money that fueled corruption, which US officials overlooked as they “prioritized security and political goals.”
But the final SIGAR report is not only a look back at the mission as a whole.
It also underlines the humanitarian impact of the Trump administration’s decisions to cut aid to Afghanistan and says the State Department did not explain why specific programs were being terminated.
SIGAR will cease operations in September.
Before then, it will produce one more report looking at how lessons learned in Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, and elsewhere can be applied to future situations where aid missions face interference in undemocratic countries.
Also see
My work in Afghanistan in 2007 (and for the country after that).
The endangered women left behind in Afghanistan.
If you ignore women in Afghanistan, development efforts there will fail (2017).
UNDP and Religious Leaders Promote Women in Sport and Education in Afghanistan (2017).
*Another* Afghanistan Handicraft program? Really? (2011).
My request to my US congressional representatives regarding Afghan refugees.
Our Lady of the Manifest: the icon for a very particular community of online volunteers.
Fleeing Afghanistan: “Experiencing the Dark Time: Caught Up In a Cage“: a first hand account, edited by me, of fleeing Afghanistan in 2021.
Fleeing Afghanistan, Living As a Refugee: Safe, But Without Joy: a first hand account, edited by me, of the aforementioned asylum seeker and her life as of September 2023.
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