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Lighting Up Afghanistan
ADB Review [ December 2005 ]

A consultant to one of ADB’s projects explains some of the difficulties in preparing a project to bring power to Afghanistan’s poor households

By Eric Van Zant, (evanzant@adb.org)
Consultant Writer

YOUNG AND OLD Bringing benefits to all Afghans requires extensive consultation

Over a period of about 2 years and seven trips, Shanny Campbell, an engineering consultant of Maunsell Ltd., and her team gained entry to and talked with members of 3,000 households all over Afghanistan as part of the socioeconomic analysis to prepare for an Asian Development Bank (ADB) project to rehabilitate the country’s power transmission grid.

They faced hazardous road conditions, land mines, complex social barriers (both predictable and unpredictable), and the multiple social lines that connect and fracture Afghan society. Some regions of Afghanistan, for example, have never had electrical power.

In August 2005, ADB signed an agreement with the Afghanistan Government for a $50 million loan and grant assistance package for a power transmission grid that will bring household power to about 1.2 million people.

A highly concessional $26.5 million loan will finance the construction of 206 kilometers of a 110-kilovolt transmission network, while a $23.5 million grant will finance the construction and rehabilitation of associated substations and low-voltage distribution.

In an interview with ADB Review, Ms. Campbell explains what it takes to put meat on the bones of a deceptively skeletal description of an infrastructure project.

What did your work entail?

I am a social and poverty specialist. I work with power engineers who look at the technical side of things—where it is feasible to extend the power system. I take these proposed routes and analyze what the effects will be on poverty, whether there are social or resettlement issues that need to inform the engineering design.

For example, we were going into regions where there had never been power. So we would be dealing with two to three generations of people with no experience of using electricity. We had to provide the basics such as “don’t climb the transmission towers” or “don’t put electrical appliances in the sink.” And we had to think of a way of communicating this information to people who are mostly illiterate.

We had to look at issues such as how would power affect the dynamics of the society? Can people afford to purchase the power if we connect them to the grid? How much would they use, and what for? What would be the effects on the local economy? Would the project benefit other developmental activities in the area? Would any particular group benefit more or less than others, and how could the project design address this?

FIELD WORK Shanny Campbell (right) in rural Afghanistan

Often the government will give a gigantic list of the things they want from a loan. It is like being in a sweet shop, they want it all. (And who can blame them after what the country has been through?) Part of what we had to do is narrow it down to what is feasible, and what they can afford. Our team also looked at the financial aspects and whether the capital cost covered by the proposed loan can pay for itself in terms of real benefits.

In a country as poor as Afghanistan, poverty is difficult to quantify. But somehow we have to rank subprojects in terms of relative need. We look at how isolated the people are. Is there a market in town or do they have to travel a long way to the market? How many schools or clinics are there? Is the town benefiting from other development projects? How remote is the village? For example, in some places the roads were so bad and the climate so extreme that the people are cut off in the winter. Basically we were looking at a lot of intangibles.

I felt privileged to be there and to be able to do this. But the weight of responsibility was also very heavy—this was the first power sector socioeconomic analysis that ADB did in Afghanistan and one of the first resettlement plans, so I knew this would serve as something of a benchmark going forward.

Describe some of the difficulties. How did you put your team together?

We ended up with a team of 14 locals (10 of whom formed part of the social survey team), and we had to train all of them to handle their specific tasks. Most were qualified to do their various jobs but many had not practiced their respective discipline for the last 10 years, having fled the Taliban to Pakistan or elsewhere and getting by driving taxis or whatever work they could get. We even had people on our team who did not speak English—we had to rely on other team members to translate for us.

Undertaking the field work was another challenge. The survey team had to go to households all over the country—our project areas included most of Afghanistan, except for the western part. Yet Afghanistan is divided along tribal lines, ethnic lines, you name it. People are still very suspicious of strangers in many parts.

For example, the way my local team members dressed in the north was hugely different from the way they dressed in the south, where they all donned their traditional “Pashtun” clothes. Our female local consultant, who usually just wore a scarf in Kabul, had to travel in a burkha. People do not like moving outside their home provinces, and I was asking them to go into homes at a time when warlords were muscling in.

In some locations, they were told that they would be thrown in jail unless they left town. They had letters from ADB, my own letters, etcetera. But many of the provincial governors do not read at all anyway.

What about gender concerns?

In Afghanistan, you need women on your survey team because men cannot interview women, and strange men other than relatives are not allowed into the compounds of households. Many households are either without a man (widows, female-headed households, etc.) or the man is out working, leaving only the women and children at home (unchaperoned). My woman-son team dealt with all these—the woman was allowed in but her son sat outside while she conducted the interview. Women cannot travel without a related male.

I was also allowed in to sit with the women in many cases while my whole team waited outside. It was quite fascinating to see them—their belongings and what they did “inside” all day. I even got to visit the women inside a Kuchi tent one day. (Kuchi are nomadic herds people.) They stay inside, out of the sun, along with the children and all young animals (puppies, goats, and sheep). I speak very little Dari, and even less Pashto, but women are always very welcoming wherever you go, and certain issues span culture or country. It is little wonder one of the things I can say in both languages is “this is my son. He is 5 years old.”

What to wear was also an issue. Long shirts and skirts at first. In Kabul, you can get away with wearing a cap; but in villages, it is like stepping back in time a hundred years, I have to wear a head scarf at least. Women would invariably invite me in and give me tea. I felt like it was especially important that I talk with the women because they never get to talk with outsiders. (Most of the consultants are male.)

One time we went to a town and I must have met every male of importance—and shook their hands. (Although there were some funny double takes from a couple when they realized I was not a man. Should they touch me or not?) Now, when Afghans give a welcoming speech, they go on for quite a while. One fellow gave a very long welcoming speech and, at the end, asked if there was anything I wanted, anything at all.

I said I would like to speak to some women. I could kind of tell they had not actually expected a request, let alone this one. They huddled and after a while, the guy says, “we have some women.”

They took us down the road to the high school where some female high school teachers were waiting in a room, three to a chair. They had taken their burkhas off and were there in scarves. I had not thought they would get some women, so I had not prepared any questions. But I plunged in and started asking about the school and their lives, how they felt about certain issues, etc. They were a little tentative, so I asked if they wanted to ask us anything.

They looked at the principal, got a nod of permission, then asked through the translator about our families—all the stuff you normally get out of the way in the first 10 minutes at the pub. I realized then that we had not properly introduced ourselves. Yet, people are really interested in people. I told them about my son and my husband, what I do for work, and other places I had been recently. The other team members did the same. Suddenly, the information coming from them was so much more detailed. Now we were friends. The funny thing was they took out exercise books, from within their cloaks, and took notes. You knew this would be on the next day’s lesson. I got more from those women than from most of our official meetings.

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