14 March 2008
Provincial Reconstruction Teams Reconnecting Afghanistan
International civil-military effort key component of U.S. commitment
Washington -- Security operations may dominate the news from Afghanistan, but behind the headlines are the diplomats, soldiers and civilian experts of the provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) who are helping the people of Afghanistan make unmistakable progress in rebuilding the country after decades of violence and oppressive rule.
“Any effective counterinsurgency strategy will require more than just military action,” President Bush said during a March 13 White House videoconference with PRT leaders in Afghanistan.
Those leaders, he said, are playing a key role in the international community’s efforts to help Afghans realize a better future with new roads, better schools and health care, and effective governance.
The 26 PRTs that currently are working in partnership with communities around the country are an important component of an effort to reconnect the Afghan people to the central government improvements in infrastructure, education and economic opportunity. Twelve of the PRTs are led by the United States and 14 are led by allies and partner states that also support the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
In eastern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led Ghazni PRT has brought together diplomats, humanitarian assistance and development experts from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and farming specialists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help area residents equip a new hospital, acquire 19 new ambulances and improve roads across the region.
Improved roads mean better access to markets and services. PRTs also are helping to stimulate the economy with microgrants to small businesses, enabling them to reopen by restocking inventory, restoring business equipment, repairing damaged shops and hiring additional employees.
About 100 kilometers east in Paktia, another PRT has brought five area tribes together to improve their community and build links to the central government in Kabul. Only 2 percent of the local population could read or write in 2004, but thanks to two new schools built by the PRT and area residents, literacy is improving and 60 percent of area children are able to get an education locally, instead of traveling to Pakistan or to other provinces.
To the south, the British-led Lashkar Gah PRT in Helmand province includes members from Estonia, Denmark and the United States. This PRT has helped 600 local youths resume studies by repairing and reopening a high school. It also convinced hundreds of farmers to give up raising opium in favor of legal crops.
In western Afghanistan, USAID and USDA members of PRT Farah work closely with the Italian-led ISAF contingent, local government and tribal leaders to dig new water wells, deliver wheat seed to local farmers and build new roads and bridges.
“There are difficulties, but we're also making progress,” Bush said. “And the job at hand is to help these folks recover, help the Afghans realize there's a better future for them.”
RICE HIGHLIGHTS PLAN TO IMPROVE PRT’S
PRTs are an essential tool to confront the 21st-century challenge of turning around post-conflict states, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told members of Congress March 12.
“We have all learned the hard way that one of the great threats to American security are failed states -- those that have been in long-term conflict are coming out of conflict,” Rice said. “Ultimately, it is a place that drug traffickers and arms traffickers and indeed terrorists live.”
While PRTs have proven successful in Afghanistan as well as Iraq in helping states emerge from conflict, Rice said not all of the essential skills needed to help stabilize societies can be found among the diplomatic corps or the military.
The White House is proposing a new “reserve force” of Americans with expertise in banking, law, education and other fields, willing to travel the world and share their experience with communities in need.
“Let's take the prosecutor who is in Arizona and perhaps would like to go and help the Afghans do rule-of-law work. I could never keep in the State Department city planners and jurists and all the people who need to do that, but the American people, I think, would be responsive to wanting to go to a place like Afghanistan or Liberia.”
“It is really important to be able to help others build their states, to help others build their nations,” Rice added. “We need to do it with greater involvement of the population as a whole. And that's what the president is trying to do with this initiative.”
A transcript of Bush’s remarks, as well as a related Afghan PRT fact sheet, are available from America.gov.
