The Canadian International Development Agency in Kandahar, Afghanistan, has a lot to answer for, according to the Senlis Council.

Edward McCormick is the Afghanistan country director for the Senlis Council, an international think tank. He told the Straight that “CIDA either has to modify its policy”¦or it needs to get out.”

In the summer of 2007, CIDA invited the Senlis Council to Afghanistan to assess aid efforts in the country. The subsequent Senlis Council report claimed that CIDA staff in Afghanistan had expressed their frustration at the “lack of impact” aid efforts were having. The report went on to detail several areas of CIDA’s work it claimed progress was not being made.

Addressing CIDA food aid programs, the Senlis Council’s report stated, “We were not able to obtain information on any specific food distribution point”¦.It was confirmed that the largest refugee settlement in Kandahar province has not received food aid since March 2006.”

Summarizing an investigation into claims made by CIDA that $18.5 million had been spent on developing infrastructure in Kandahar, the Senlis Council report stated, “We found evidence of $5 million dollars having been transferred to Kandahar.”

And regarding attempts to verify CIDA claims that “there is an existing program for civilian casualties and civilian injured,” the Senlis Council report stated, “We did not find any CIDA program in place to assist civilian casualties of war....When civilians are injured by Canadian military action they are left to their own devices.”

McCormick was recently in Vancouver to address the media regarding the Senlis Council’s report. During that time, the Vancouver Sun published a statement made by CIDA president Robert Greenhill.

In the September 14 edition of the Sun, Greenhill claimed that 200,000 Afghans have benefited from food aid. Addressing alleged infrastructure development failures, Greenhill wrote that 190 kilometers of rural roads had been repaired and 1,2000 new wells installed. And regarding hospital services, Greenhill claimed that infant mortality rates had dropped by twenty percent since the fall of the Taliban.

Greenhill called the Senlis Council’s report “inaccurate” and maintained that CIDA was “achieving real results in Kandahar”.

A child cries out in hunger at Kandahar's Mirwais hospital in Afghanistan. Senlis Council photo.

McCormick said that it was no accident Greenhill’s statement was printed in the Sun while he was in Vancouver, and questioned the claims of progress made in the article.

“The trouble with the CIDA-funded aid initiatives in Afghanistan is, nobody can show us where most of it is going,” McCormick told the Straight. “We’re not saying it isn’t happening, but we can’t see any evidence of it.”

McCormick said that he repeatedly requested from CIDA a list of locations for where food aid was going, but that CIDA never delivered one. “If they have given food aid to 200,000 people, you’d think they would be able to give a list of where those people are,” he said.

The Senlis Council’s report blamed CIDA’s alleged failures on staff shortages, policies restricting the movement of staff, and CIDA management’s lack of consideration for reports written by those actually working in Afghanistan.

In related news, Conservative MP Nina Grewal (Fleetwood-Port Kells) has announced in a media release that she will launch a “Rebuilding Afghanistan” photo exhibit in Burnaby on September 19. The event is sponsored by CIDA.

On September 20, the Straight reported on a Senlis Council plan to combat drug production in Afghanistan with a “poppy for medicine” pilot project. In conjunction with that report, the Straight asked Vancouver residents, how should the drug problem in Afghanistan be addressed?