Does Canada need U.S.-style oversight of money spent rebuilding Afghanistan?
Corruption is inevitable, says former ambassador
The vast amount of money spent on rebuilding Afghanistan poses a riddle, according to an investigative journalist who lived in the country for four years.
"How could we have spent so much money, and how could so many lives have been lost, and how can there be such little to show for it?" asked May Jeong, a reporter and visiting scholar at New York University.
The day-to-day lives of ordinary citizens have improved, she told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti, but corruption is so rife that overall the war has benefited "a few hundred families in the country."
James Dobbins, a former ambassador who was the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan during the Obama administration, argued that while corruption is inevitable, their efforts were still worthwhile.
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"Given the conditions in the country, given the level of development, given the security situation, some drainage ... is inevitable," said Dobbins, who is now a senior fellow and distinguished chair in diplomacy and security at the Rand Corporation, a non-partisan think tank.
"It happens in every country at Afghanistan's level of development."
On Tuesday, U.S. Congress received an update on its spending in Afghanistan from John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR]. The group was specifically tasked with overseeing the country's $117 billion US.
Canada spent $2.8 billion on reconstruction and stabilisation efforts between 2001 and 2016. Most of it was allocated to development assistance. Unlike the U.S., Canada has no official body to oversee that spending.
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"It's money that is being spent that we don't know exactly if it is giving the kind of effects that we want," said Murray Brewster, the CBC's parliamentary defence and foreign policy reporter.
Brewster points to reports from 2015 that education outcomes were being exaggerated, in terms of the number of children educated, teachers trained and schools built.
"It all points to the need to have some kind of value for money audit, the way that they do in the United States," he said.
Listen to the full conversation near the top of this page.
This segment was produced by The Current's Idella Sturino and Ines Colabrese.