Shipping Water vs. Setting Up Plant in AFG?????

[The Bread Guy]

Found this tidbit in an article about something entirely different.....

".... the Nato alliance is spending £30m (CDN $65.3M) a year to import bottled water for British, American, Canadian, Dutch and German troops battling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan when it would cost less than £500,000 (CDN $1.1M) a time to set up local bottling plants.  According to the Afghan government, which is facing drought, crop failure and the need for international aid to feed more than three million of its citizens this winter, the expensive importation of drinking water is a symbol of the lack of international co-ordination in restoring the country's shattered economy.  A government spokesman in Kabul told The Herald: "Local bottling plants would provide employment for Afghans, safe water for the Nato soldiers and be a building block for further infrastructure development.  "It would also cost a fraction of the coalition's current expenditure."  And the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) has spent only £2m of its £50m three-year budget to fund "hearts-and-minds" construction projects in Helmand province. Of the £6.5m set aside for "quick-fix" projects, only £600,000 has gone on immediate work.  The UN's World Food Programme is meanwhile seeking £16m to buy emergency food supplies to ease the plight of Afghan farmers whose crops have failed this year as a result of the worst drought in four years."

If I believe MSM, and I know I believe the experience people posting here, one big obstacle is the fact that the Taliban are still working at keeping such stuff from happening.  Anything else I'm missing on why development/reconstruction isn't happening quicker?

- edit 212259EST Nov 06 to fix link -

 

[Cloud Cover]

If I believe MSM, and I know I believe the experience people posting here, one big obstacle is the fact that the Taliban are still working at keeping such stuff from happening.  Anything else I'm missing on why development/reconstruction isn't happening quicker?

Perhaps, but also do not discount the motivating factor of profiteering that is endemic amongst defence contractors and suppliers of other consumable goods shipped into theatre. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Distance and weight notwithstanding, I see your point....

 

[dglad]

Distance and weight notwithstanding, I see your point....

Well, there's two issues here.  About the water specifically, it's probably a combination of existing procurement contracts that NATO is forced to honour (potable water would be a multinational, rather than a national, responsibility, so it would be supplied through the multinational logistics chain), and security concerns about procuring bottled potable water through local, host-nation contracts (drinking water could be perceived as "key terrain", if not "vital ground" for any military force, so it's paramount to protect it).  As for the broader issue of reconstruction and why its not occuring more apace...well, that's probably a much more complex question.  Some of the problem is bureaucracy--there's a world of difference between "committing" money, and actually "spending" it.  Certainly, the lack of a secure environment in some parts of the country is also part of it (but elsewhere I've suggested that reconstruction can, itself, be a force multiplier--a separate debate).  The lack of NGOs in the more dangerous part of the country probably represents a bottleneck as well.  But let's not forget that substantial development IS occurring in other parts of the country, and some, even, in the more raucous parts.  Unfortunately, except for the odd piece that usually comes across as filler, the media seems to find successful reconstruction and humanitarian projects boring.

 

[pbi]

This is a very good question, especially considering that Canada operated a very successful water plant in CJ in Kabul (I believe it was a contract operation). The plant was drawing water from a deep well, and supplied bottled water to TFK, to other national contingents and  to locals (??). When we left Kabul, it was (??) sold to the Afgh govt. This having been the case, why couldn't another such plant be opened in Kandahar, based on aquifer supply as Kabul was ? (Geology permitting, of course...)

On the reconstruction issue, my impression from listening to Col Capstick, the MND. the CDS and various others here at CFC in the last while is that reconstruction is definitely happening, along with other efforts on the "Other D's and the C" in our 3D&C (or 3D&T, or WTF we call it...) approach. The problems are IMHO: a) it just isn't getting the media coverage, for whatever reason; and  b) the scope of what needs to be done is so huge, and the number of agencies involved so massive (over 1,000 separate NGOs in Afgh, for example...), and the various agendas so diverse, that the immense potential for good works is not being realized fast enough for Afghan nor Western expectations. We in the West are used to the sequence of "Big DisasterStrikes-Big Media Coverage-Everybody Gives Money/Food/Planes-OK It's All Fixed Forget About (insert disaster-stricken nation here)." That mentality doesn't really work anywhere IMHO, and it certainly won't work in Afghanistan.

Cheers

 

[a78jumper]

We (contracted to SNC Lavalin PAE) did establish a bottling plant from a very deep well in Camp Julien after a long long gestation...This facility was turned over to the Afghan govt-I wonder if they were able to keep it going???

Any such facility would have to be in a secure area, as the Taliban would destroy or contaminate it otherwise. Even in Camp Julien, someone contaminated the system with what appeared to be detergent, resulting in the entire facilty being surrounded by security fence inside a supposedly secure camp. For three days all we had was bottled water.