Executive Summary:
• Canada’s PRT in Afghanistan is located in Kandahar Province, one of the most volatile regions of the country. The dangerous security situation in this area makes reconstruction and stabilization difficult.
• Canada has adopted a ‘whole of government approach’ to better coordinate the disparate agencies responsible for various operations in the field.
• There is a new, multi-agency Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START), and a high-level civilian coordinates all of Canada’s operations in Afghanistan.
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Canada faces many challenges in Afghanistan. First, the Canadian government must continue to cultivate public support for its operations (especially military) in a volatile part of Afghanistan.
Second, the security situation in Kandahar is likely to remain challenging for some time to come. Canadians must strive to find a way to improve it or work within it, or both as it is currently the greatest obstacle to reconstruction and development.
Third, Canadians still face the challenge of finding local partners and NGOs, so local implementation capacity is still greatly lacking.
The PRT in Kandahar faces many challenges as well. There is a lack of coherent vision about what the PRT was meant to accomplish. The PRT must also strive to find a better balance between human intelligence, security and development.
Other challenges include: the lack of NGO support, relationships with local actors, a lack of training for the mission, a lack of availability of governmental personnel at CIDA and DFAIT, a lack of metrics to measure success and the overwhelming importance of individual personalities.
Finally, the Government of Canada is having growing pains as it attempts to bring all of its departments together under a common umbrella of reconstruction and development. More work will have to be done to facilitate interagency coordination at all levels and various departments will need clear objectives so they do not infringe upon the work of other departments. At the same time there will have to be cooperation and information sharing among the departments from the bottom to the top of government.
In May 2006, Parliament approved the extension of Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan until 2009. Canada has also signed onto the Afghanistan Compact and thereby agreed to support development in Canada until 2011. Whether it will stay until then is not clear. Canada has outlined an exit strategy for leaving Afghanistan although no specific date has been set. Afghanistan is one of Canada’s highest priorities and the country sees itself engaged there for the foreseeable future." ....
