The UN Office on Drugs and Crime recently released a new report based on recent field research done in late 2006 on Afghan opium cultivation. Though the report’s findings could prove immensely useful and instructive for a Congress and administration set to pass a war supplemental with more funding for Afghanistan, it will likely be ignored. A press release with summary findings can be found here and the full report here but I thought I’d quickly sketch out what I think are some key findings below:

1. Expect higher poppy cultivation rates in 2007 -- There will likely be a net increase in opium cultivation production over 2006. Though there are likely to be declines in the northern and central provinces, the south is expected to increase dramatically offsetting any gains. The administration, particularly the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy John Walters, and Congress have all explicitly called for reductions in opium cultivation this year or else they’ll step up mass eradication in 2008 which will only drive farmers deeper into the hands of the Taliban and complicate our strategy even further.

2. A North-South Divide is Emerging in Afghanistan, both in terms of security and poppy cultivation with the opium market segmenting along these lines. The implications of this are unknown

3. Security-Poppy Link - There appears a clear mutually reinforcing link between poor security conditions and poppy cultivation, hence the high concentration of poppy cultivation in the unstable, Taliban-infested South (where 80% of farmers grow poppy).

4. Economic Development Works -- There is an empirical and visible link between reconstruction/ economic development aid and opium cultivation. Farmers respond well to real incentives and if receiving development assistance, are less likely to grow opium. Unfortunately, the risk/reward system is skewed when poppy is worth 10 times licit crops.

• a. When asked why they grow opium, over 70% of respondents offer a reason relating to economic need (note—this figure excludes the top reason of “high sale of opium”—I mean to say its more economic “push” factors than “pull” factors)
• b. Another one-third of opium-cultivating villages receive cash advances from drug traffickers, essentially tying them to cultivation (this is similar to findings in the previous UNODC report from November 2006 that describes how farmers become tied to poppy cultivation via land and credit – hence alternative livelihoods would need to supplant that as well)

5. Minimal Disbursements -- Of the $100 million available in the Good Performance Initiative and Counter-Narcotics Trust Fund—both of which are targeted towards countering poppy-cultivation—only 1% has been disbursed due to national and international bureaucracies.

6. Eradication Fails - Based on this most recent empirical field study, correlated data indicates eradication does not decrease but rather increases poppy production. Of the villages that experienced eradication in 2006, 63% of them will replant and cultivate poppy in 2007 while of the villages who did not experience eradication in 2006, only 41% intend to replant/re-cultivate poppy in 2007. I’d venture to guess that methods other than eradication were employed to dissuade these villages not to grow poppy and it seems they may be more successful.

• a. This of course is at loggerheads with our counter-narcotics strategy that emphasizes eradication above all else and subordinates a far more proven technique of economic development. This is exactly what terrorism analyst Peter Bergen argued in his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in February of 2007. For further exploration of the failed eradication strategy, check out these recent publications by Vanda Felbab-Brown, a researcher at Brookings and one of the leading experts on narco-terrrorism, in The Washington Quarterly and the MIT Audits.
• b. (By the way, the report and the statements on eradication are very odd, almost strained – both cautious and critical though at times appearing laudatory. The UNODC report in Nov 2006 was quite critical of eradication but this report is more reserved, almost inconclusive about it – almost like they’re being pressured to pass neutral judgment on this element of the counter-narcotics strategy)

7. A disturbing emerging trend is the emergence of cannabis cultivation. Though clear causal links have not been established, it seems at first glance a result of the focus on poppy and eradication at the expense of building up the entire economy and licit livelihoods. Hence cracking down on one illicit activity just reinvents itself in another.

8. Government Capacity Still Lacking -- Of the total distribution of external assistance related to the narcotics, the Afghan government only provided 53% of assistance. While it's an increase from 40% in 2005, it still speaks to the limits of government capacity. In a recent interview, Ambassador Jawad bemoaned this fact and described the circumvention of the Afghan government--one that forecloses on the further development of government capacity--to be far worse when evaluating total financial assistance figures. He states:

From the entire financial assistance that's been given to Afghanistan, only 5 percent has been given to the Afghan government. Twelve percent of the funds have been given to the Afghan reconstruction trust fund established for Afghanistan. And we can withdraw money under certain conditions. The remaining 82 or 83 percent of the assistance has been spent outside the budget and control of the Afghan government. This is a problem. First, there is a waste in the way the money has been spent in Afghanistan, like many other places. Second, while we are building a political system in Afghanistan by encouraging the Afghan people to participate in that process—86 percent of Afghans participated in electing their president, we have a parliament in place in Afghanistan—yet at the same time, the government and the parliament have not been given the financial resources to address the needs of the Afghan people. The people are saying, “We have played our part, we've played our role. You've asked us to participate in the political process, we did. But we don't see visible improvement in our daily life.”