Mr. Qayoom Suroush Project Manager (AREU)

Mr. Qayoom Suroush Project Manager (AREU)

“Findings about Research Paper Illicit Economies and SDG16 in Afghanistan, the challenges of doing research on SDGs in Afghanistan, lessons learned and recommendations”

There are four main challenges of conducting research on SDGs in Afghanistan. These are lack of reliable data, lack of public awareness on SDGs, no integration with national programs and no proper reporting mechanisms.

First of all, lack of coordination and data sharing continue to be challenging and have contributed to a status quo that is sporadic in the nature of work on the SDGs alignment and planning. There are serious gaps in the data collected during the course of the research and many of the data available are of uncertain quality and contain noteworthy contradictions.

Secondly, Majority of the participants of the multi-stakeholders’ SDGs orientation workshops on the agriculture and natural resources management sectors in all the 34 provinces were quite unfamiliar with the terms and concepts surrounding the SDGs.

Thirdly, there is no indication of how national development plans are comprehensively aligned with the SDGs, or, at least there is no clear indication of the relevance and priorities with specific reference to the particular SDGs, although the ANPDF is clear on Afghanistan’s development priorities.

Finally, there is no proper reporting mechanism to convey the decisions taken in the working groups back to the technical departments or the SDGs experts/focal points to the ministries.

This policy brief by AREU aims to highlight existing gaps in SDGs not explicitly dealing with illicit economies using the case of Afghanistan as an example where fragility and insecurity are among the main reasons for underdevelopment.

One of the researches that AREU is currently doing is the SDG 16 which is about promoting peace. AREU is doing research on how the SDGs 16 has failed to explicitly address the illicit economy of Afghanistan. The SDGs 16 indicators are Illicit Financial Flows and Small Arms Control. AREU argues that tracing the illicit financial flows’ value is challenging, if not impossible in Afghanistan, due to factors such as Hawala System. In addition, seizing and controlling small arms and light weapons in the middle of ongoing conflicts is only wishful thinking, and with tens of illegal cross border transit as well as corruption in the system, it will be difficult to control the number of small arms getting into the country. Thus, relying on numbers and statistics for measuring achievement, which is a general trend for SDGs, could be misleading.

In another example, out of 31 health-related SDG indicators, the ministry has not developed Afghanistan-SDG indicators for 10 and not yet set a baseline for three. Most Afghanistan-SDG indicators for 10 and not yet set a baseline for three. Most Afghanistan-SDG and indicators have remained the same as in the general SDG document. Interestingly, the ministry had not yet set a baseline for maternal mortality ratio, neonatal mortality rate and under-five mortality rate by the end of the data collection on July 29, 2017. The reason is claimed to be a lack of accurate and credible statistics.

The main findings of the researches are as follows:

1. The involvement of non-state institutions and actors, civil society, policy and research organizations, academic and the public appears to be symbolic.
2. The health-related targets and indicators are modified to fit the national context. Participants have noted a lack of capacity and resources, poor baseline data, a focus on data management rather than programmatic change and transformative governance and a failure to recognize the role of the private sector as some of the challenges for SDG implementation.

The policy recommends addressing Illicit Economy, Wide-range Partnerships, Proper Monitoring and reporting and defining explicit roles for policy and research institutions.