Abstract

Since the 1980’s opium poppy has played an increasingly important role in the livelihood strategies of rural communities in Afghanistan. As a non-perishable, low weight-high value product, opium is ideally suited to the war-damaged physical infrastructure of Afghanistan. Moreover, as an annual crop, with a relatively guaranteed market, opium has provided a degree of security that more profitable crops, such as fruits and vegetables, cannot offer.

Most importantly, for the resource poor, opium has often provided the only source of credit for the purchase of basic necessities, including food, clothing and agricultural inputs. The labour intensive nature of opium poppy cultivation has created an important source of off-farm income for those households with insufficient land to satisfy their basic needs. The by-products of opium poppy have also been found to have a high use-value, in particular opium poppy straw, which has been an important source of fuel in a country where firewood has become increasingly scarce.

The result has been a proliferation of opium poppy cultivation, increasing both in extent and location. For instance, in 1994, the first year in which the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) conducted its Annual Opium Poppy Survey in Afghanistan, opium poppy was found in only 55 districts in 8 provinces. By 2000, opium poppy cultivation had expanded to 123 districts in 22 provinces.

Since 1989, there have been a series of development interventions aimed at reducing opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. Yet despite these efforts, observers have become accustomed to increasing levels of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan over the last ten years. The recent ban on opium poppy cultivation imposed in Taliban controlled territory has confounded these expectations. In Afghanistan, the Taliban authorities have clearly succeeded where alternative development has failed.

Currently there is some debate over the sustainability of the ban. The hardship endured by many former opium poppy cultivating households certainly raises questions over whether the ban can be sustained without substantial external assistance. The continued conflict and the concomitant need for conscripts and financial resources, factionalism, and the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, may all serve to weaken the Taliban’s resolve.

It has been argued that without considerable development inputs and a framework of governance in Afghanistan the current low level of opium poppy cultivation cannot be sustained. Indeed, many of the conditions that have made opium poppy such an attractive crop to households across Afghanistan remain intact.

Whilst clearly an important pre-requisite to effective drug control, the commitment of the relevant authorities to enforce a ban on illicit drug crop cultivation, has not proven sufficient to produce a sustainable reduction in coca, opium poppy or marijuana cultivation in other source countries. Development interventions that address the motivations and circumstances that influence households in their decision to cultivate opium poppy are also required.

This Paper seeks to explore the conditions required for a sustainable reduction in opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, drawing on the lessons learned from the experience of alternative development in Afghanistan and, where relevant, other source countries.

The first section of the Paper documents the cumulative experience of alternative development in Afghanistan over the last decade, drawing on a body of internal and external reviews. It highlights the strategy that alternative development has adopted and the results achieved whilst working in such a difficult environment.

The second section considers the concept of alternative development and the role it plays in influencing households in their decision to cultivate illicit drug crops, referring to the experience in Afghanistan and other countries. It suggests that there is a need to develop a more strategic approach to alternative development based on a clearer understanding of the different variables that influence household drug crop cultivation and what combination of actions might best affect them. It concludes that greater refinement is required if alternative development it is to prove an effective instrument for both drug control and conventional development objectives.

The third section of the Paper highlights how Afghanistan remains anomalous with reference to other source countries due to the ‘failed state’ that currently prevails.i The absence of macro socio-economic policies, the necessary human and financial capital, and all but the most basic state administration, clearly has an impact on the sustainability of alternative development efforts that are traditionally implemented through state institutions. The Paper argues that within this environment alternative development is inherently constrained and, as such, until such a point when governance is restored, its role is restricted to one of strategic presence and lesson learning.

The Paper concludes that whilst short and medium term assistance can address some of the resource gaps that households are experiencing due to the loss of opium, it cannot address the more fundamental structural reasons behind the proliferation of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in the last decade. It suggests that there is a need to recognise that social and political stability, as well as wider economic growth, are essential preconditions for eliminating opium poppy cultivation on a sustainable basis in Afghanistan.

Experience has clearly shown that there are few short-term remedies in the area of illicit drug crop cultivation. It is unlikely that Afghanistan will prove to be the exception. As such, there is a need to develop a longer-term approach for addressing the drugs issue in Afghanistan, an approach that is firmly located within a strategy for restoring governance and civil society to the country.