CORRUPTION IN CONFLICT

Together, these and other factors facilitated misperceptions about corruption
in Afghanistan. The incentive structure did not encourage U.S. officials to
report on waste, fraud, and abuse, or on weaknesses in oversight; there were
“few incentives for spending less money more effectively over time.” Nor were
contractors or NGOs, who benefitted from the largesse of the security and statebuilding
effort, incentivized to report such weaknesses. 65
A Framework for Anticorruption Efforts
Anticorruption activities aim to prevent or control corruption. In Afghanistan,
these efforts fell into two categories.
The first category consists of activities directed at the Afghan government and
society to promote reform, accountability, and transparency. These include
institutional reform and capacity building, improving judicial capabilities for
investigations and prosecutions, improving financial oversight, and strengthening
civil society organizations and the media. To work toward these objectives,
State Department and other officials applied diplomatic pressure on the Afghan
government and took some measures to condition the provision of aid on host
government performance. DOD, State, USAID, Treasury, and Justice also pursued
programmatic initiatives to move the anticorruption agenda forward.
The second category of anticorruption activities consists of those directed
internally, that is, toward U.S. policies and practices. The focus here is on
improving management of contracting systems and aid programs to ensure they
do not contribute to corruption. In Afghanistan, DOD, State, and USAID took
steps to try to ensure contractors and subcontractors, who were bidding on and
implementing assistance programs and military contracts, were not engaged in
bribe-taking, embezzlement, collusion, extortion, or other forms of corruption.
To be successful, work in either category must be grounded in an understanding
of the nature and scope of corruption in a particular environment. Political
economy and network analyses are crucial to revealing how corruption occurs.
These analyses should look comprehensively at who is engaging in corruption;
their family, business, and political ties and interests; the licit and illicit financial
networks they use; the larger power structures that protect them; and institutional
weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In Afghanistan, such analyses revealed a strong
nexus of corruption, narcotics trafficking, criminality, and the insurgency. This
complexity made the issue difficult to solve and required the close coordination
of the military, diplomatic, development, and law enforcement communities.
SIGAR I CORRUPTION IN CONFLICT I SEPTEMBER 2016
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