UNITED NATIONS : It’s time for the United Nations to significantly step up its effort in Afghanistan beyond the capital, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is expected to tell the organization’s Security Council on Tuesday.
While Mr. Cannon will say the UN is playing a critical role in helping to organize the upcoming presidential and provincial council elections, he will also call for greater UN presence in areas beyond Kabul, such as Kandahar, where the bulk of Canadian troops operate.
"Strengthening the rule of law in Afghanistan will be a long, hard road," Mr. Cannon is expected to tell the Council’s 15 member states, who will be meeting to discuss the latest periodic report on the situation in Afghanistan.
"The UN needs to play the same co-ordinating and leadership role in the provinces as it plays in Kabul."
The call, which will mark Mr. Cannon’s first appearance before the Council, will reflect what attending countries at The Hague Conference on Afghanistan recently agreed. Mr. Cannon will go further by arguing that increasing the UN’s footprint in Afghanistan is "critical to our shared success."
The Security Council issues the mandate for the UN’s Afghan mission; the most recent one authorized the mission to provide political outreach through a "strengthened and expanded presence throughout the country."
But against a backdrop of deteriorating security, the opening of new UN offices around the country has been slow.
"We are expanding gradually," Kai Eide, the UN special representative in Afghanistan, said after the opening of an office in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan, early last month.
Two weeks later, he arrived in the province of Sari-Pul to open an office there, but provincial governor Mohammad Bashir Qanit Chahabi expressed frustration it had been a long time coming.
"Until now, the reconstruction process has not been as expected," Mr. Bashir said. "We need more support in education, health and agriculture. . . . We hope that the opening of the office will improve the co-ordination between national and international (aid groups), and provide a good support for the implementation of the government’s programs in the province."
The two new offices brought the number of UN offices around the country to only 20. There are plans to establish offices in Ghazni, Helmand and Farah by March 2010.
Co-ordination of reconstruction and other projects is critical, because more than 50 countries and international aid groups are helping to rebuild Afghanistan. Canada is one of the top five NATO contributors to the international force.
At the Security Council, Mr. Cannon will also highlight the need for political and economic "benchmarks" to register progress, and is expected to acknowledge the UN is focused in this area. He’s expected to say the UN needs to keep pressing to reduce its job vacancy rate in Afghanistan, but will welcome plans by the UN’s emergency-relief section to open an office in southern Afghanistan.
"Taken together, these steps will no doubt strengthen the United Nations’ ability to help Afghans meet their own aspirations for their country," Mr. Cannon will say.
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