The path to somewhere- paved roads in Afghanistan

 

(photo: locals work on a PRT funded foot bridge that employs some 200 villagers for approx. $9 a day.)

Alishang District, Laghman Province-

It's easy to become cynical as a Westerner in Afghanistan- namely working in what continually appears to be a suckhole of corruption and complacent backwardness, in a beautiful country that every soldier will tell you should be a resort or nature reserve or something.  Afghans have been abused by interminable war and crooks and warlords for leaders.  People in remote villages see little difference between U.S. troops and Russians from twenty years earlier.  Survivors as such will take the foreign money when they can, whether the project is needed or not.

But one project where there's hardly any debate about change or lasting impact is road construction.  Provinces like Laghman and Kunar are so corrugated with mountains, they are nearly impassable to commercial trucks and therefore constricted of economic lifeblood.  

The Laghman PRT has invested approx. $17 million in a paved road from the province's trading center of Metherlam to the wild mountain region of Dawlat Shah.  As in Kunar and other volatile, mountainous provinces, paved roads allow subsistence farmers to bring their goods to market in fractions of time and actually make the route safer, as Taliban is hesitant to plant IEDs on them. What used to take two hours, over rutted, switchback dirt roads, has become a 20 minute Subaru or Toyota ride.

(photo: PRT engineer Robert McBain pointing out some errors in concrete mixing at a village in the Alishang.)

Using local villagers as laborers on the section of paved roads that run closest to their village makes good sense, and are now standard in the Army's contracting playbook.  The new road then multiplies the outreach and influence of the government and friendly forces who are able to travel to villages they simply couldn't reach before. 

Imran, a local reporter who works on a coaltion-sponsored radio station said, roads were the most important PRT project. "Roads connect people to the capital.  Before paved roads it took people two days to bring a sick person to the hospital in Metharlam, now they can do it in an hour...Merchants can transfer goats anywhere and citizens can get goats very cheap.  A lot of people got jogs on roads."

(photo: overhead view of bridge to connect the uncompleted dirt roads with a graded, paved one.)

Counterinsurgency expert David Killcullen records  the importance of road construction in neighboring Kunar in '07-'08 in "The Accidental Guerrilla" pg 92-

"The road provides an alternative works project to prevent people from joining the Taliban, the improved ease of movement  makes business easier and transportation faster and cheaper, and thus spurs economic growth, and the graded black-top road allows friendly troops to move much more easily and quickly than before, along the valley floor, helping secure population centers and drive the enemy up into the hills where they are separated from the population... Road building is not a panacea, but the way this PRT and the local manuever units are approaching this project is definitely a best practice."

"Roads effect so many other factors," said PRT Engineer Robert McBain, who's worked in Laghman for over a year.  Their construction is a tangible and lasting gain in a village's standard of living.  McBain said, under the coalition contracting rules, the Afghan contractor must employ all his workers from within 15 kilometers of the area the road is being built through. 

The current road extension and bridge is employing at least 54 unskilled villagers, who gradually learn more skills as the bridge nears completion.

McBain and his PRT partner, MSgt Garcia admit they regularly face delays due to threats and extortion.

Last year, the Taliban burned an excavator and other equipment, and some contractors temporarily stopped work because of threats.  Even more troubling, the contractor is given funds to provide for construction security, but often tries to extort more from the contract or is himself extorted by unfriendly villages so the workers don't get shot at.

Another problem is quality. "When give the road project to a construction company, they don't use the most quality materials," reporter Imran said, "so it wears down in a few years.  For example five wheelbarrows per bag of cement, when it's recommended to use three. (Or) Only spending $20,000 on a $100,000 project."

Imran recommended more inspections and monitoring of materials.  But the work continues, and I observed the two PRT engineers making quality inspections on site, with McBain telling one contractor the sieve grade of his concrete strainer was too wide.  The inevitability is this road will eventually connect outlying villages with a commercial, industrial center. 

"The Taliban don't want roads because without them they have more control," MSgt. Garcia said.

Roads have been a priority throughout Afghanistan, as mandated by the Afghan government, McBain said. "Some local officials have more self-centered priorities.  Everyone wants a building whether they need it or not."

"If the people believe the U.S. is here for reconstruction, we will welcome them for a long time," Imran said. "If they think they're here to wash our minds of our religion and culture, we will tell them to leave quickly."