The Effects of War and Peace on Foreign Aid in Afghanistan

<p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />THE EFFECTS OF WAR AND PEACE ON FOREIGN AID IN AFGHANISTAN<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Name:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Grade Course:<br /><br /><br /><br />Tutor&acirc;&euro;&trade;s Name:<br /><br /><br /><br />Date of Submission:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Title: The Effects of War and Peace on Foreign Aid in Afghanistan<br /><br /><br /><br />War and conflict in Afghanistan did not arise as a result of the invasion of Soviet Union in 1979; it arose as a result of historical processes that are deeply rooted to the formation of the state. This was necessary to achieve a successful peaceful state and the restoration of good governance; indeed, aid actors need to understand not only the politicised ethnic and religion problems but also the main reason for the failure of governance. The main purpose of the foreign aid to Afghanistan is to prevent the escalation of disastrous consequences associated with the war and conflict, thus serve as stabilization and counterinsurgency, where the Afghan citizens are able to partner with donors and desist from engaging with insurgency (Cliffe &amp; Luckham, 1999).<br /><br /><br /><br />Foreign aid targets to support the institution already put place, such as health care, agricultural sector, education, transport and other local systems to cope up with the present situations, thereby maintaining the continuation of life among the Afghan citizens. The aid should be design to encourage growth and eliminate dependency. For instance, the distribution of food to affected families in Afghanistan is an essential part of foreign aid; definitely, the distribution is tailored to integrate the factors that would empower the affected families to regain their self-sufficiency. It is good to note that, foreign aid can fuel violence or builds peace in the Afghanistan depending with the structure put in place to channel the aid.<br /><br /><br /><br />Positive and negative effects that peace and war have on the distribution foreign aid<br /><br /><br /><br />Where foreign donors have failed to understand and acknowledge conflict sensitivity amongst the Afghans, foreign aid has fuelled open conflicts or increased tension. Peace building is only achieved if the foreign donors are mindful of peace and conflict dynamics such as equity and distribution of aid, political sensitivity, flexibility of the project, implementation, evaluation, and assessment and monitoring of peace progress. Lesson learned from the past experience have shown that donor agencies that lacked accountability or exhibited weak accountability and demonstrated inefficiencies are bound to deviate from their agenda and end up pursuing different agendas, thus escalating the conflicts. Persistent conflicts hinder the distribution of foreign aid to affected people, hence cutting out section of the population. This leads to skewed distribution of foreign aid, thus worsening the situations in Afghanistan. A good example was when the humanitarian assistance was not reaching people in areas controlled by insurgencies, hence forcing the people to move out of these areas (Boyce, 2001).<br /><br /...