Written by Stig Jarle Hansen.

Whilst the world closely watched the debacle in Afghanistan, equally important events in Tunisia fell under the radar. Ironically, the dissolution of the Tunisian parliament enhances the lessons that jihadists might draw from Afghanistan. The combined lessons from events in Tunisia and Afghanistan send a signal that will come back to haunt the West.

Tunisia was perhaps a country that could have been supported with a small fraction of what has been spent on Afghanistan, and with a more successful outcome. A successful example of integrating Islamists could have been made rather than fighting losing wars with them. The combination of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan and Ennahda’s defeat in Tunisia make a maligned lesson for Islamists: that when moderate Islamists fail to get Western support in democratic, secular systems, it pays to be militant and fight the West.

Tunisia shows Islamists the perils of entering into democratic elections and even coalitions. The lesson for democratic and moderate Islamists so far is that you will be removed, even banned. Jihadists are not afraid to make this point with the Islamic State claiming that the removal was expected. This echoes Shabaab’s criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt when they fell from power – that involvement in a secular system will never benefit Islamists.

Lesson from Afghanistan: Militancy pays off?

Over the last months, images from Afghanistan received major media coverage globally. While the Western defeat has spurred questions amongst analysts and states alike about American fighting power and commitment to allies, jihadists around the world – many of whom in the past had sworn enmity towards the US – celebrated.

In late August, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)  and Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) North Africa and the Sahel, issued a joint statement of congratulations to the Taliban, claiming that its ‘victory’ justified Jihad. Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) created a separate audio chant celebrating Taliban’s victory , where they also elaborated on how the Taliban’s strategy was a realistic way to succeed. This claim was echoed by the largest Al Qaeda affiliate, Harakat Al Shabaab in the Horn of Africa. Shabaab shares AQAPs view, stressing that Afghanistan shows that similar results are possible with the Turkish intervention in Somalia. Moreover, religion-inspired political movements outside the Al Qaeda network celebrated. Even Hamas issued a statement to congratulate ‘Afghanistan’ (interestingly not the Taliban).

Indeed, for many of these organizations facing an external intervening force and fighting what is seemingly a ‘forever war’ of attrition, the defeat of the West presents a hope for success. The Taliban take-over was swift, despite the belief that the Western-trained army was strong enough to stand up to the Taliban attack for months, if not to stall it completely. In hindsight, it seems it was a lack of loyalty to the army and a willingness to sell out for profit that floored the Afghan army and facilitated the Taliban’s victory. Many of the Islam-inspired militants around the world similarly face Western-supported armies.

Although the Doha agreement between Taliban and the United States stated that ‘the Taliban will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including  al-Qaida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its  allies’, we see that Al Qaeda has a presence in the country. The latest figures from the now defunct Afghan intelligence services put the number of Al Qaeda members at as much as 1500 men. This sends a signal that negotiations can be used strategically by militants, as a tool to facilitate total victory.

For many religious movements in the Middle East, Afghanistan shows that the Western willingness to support local governments is on the decline, and that militant jihadism works. Afghanistan shows them the value of fighting: The value of enduring duress and long-time foreign intervention while awaiting a withdrawal of the same forces when the costs are too great to be politically acceptable for Western audiences. AQAP, JNIM and AQIM have a point when they claim that the victory shows the value of violence. Violence, it seems, pays off.

There are of course nuances to the argument. Whilst the Islamic State and its affiliates discussed the Taliban victory as an American plot, they see opportunities created by the new victory. The Islamic State have scorned the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, claiming that its Islamist rival had merely been handed the country by the withdrawal of American troops. In other words, the symbolic value of the fall of Kabul was strong, from Al Qaeda and Hamas, to the Islamic State. The recent events sent signals of the triumph of militant Islamism.

Lesson from Tunisia: Moderation and cooperation is costly

Parallel to the Afghanistan debacle, we also saw what could be the final death of the Arab Spring. On 25 July 2021, the elected Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended the activities of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People. He did so by invoking emergency powers based in Article 80 of the Tunisian Constitution, albeit according to leaders of Parliament. He ignored that the same constitution stipulated that such a move was supposed to be taken after consulting them. Further, the constitution stipulates that a constitutional court has to approve the move – but this constitutional court has yet to be created.

In Tunisia, the economic declines from a drastic downturn in tourist income and a cumbersome and problematic handling of Covid-19, had over time soured the relationship between the public and the political leaders.

Tunisia’s moderate Ennahda movement, with strong connections to the Muslim brotherhood, was yet again removed from power as the parliament was dissolved. Ennadha has in the past showed a tendency towards moderation and a commitment to democracy and cooperation.  After entering into a variety of power sharing agreements with other more secularist political parties, and yielding power on several occasions, despite winning simple majorities in popular and democratic elections.

Ennahda contributed to tension in an already deeply polarized country with strong distrust between secularists, and connections to the old Ben Ali Dictatorship. With ten governments in ten years, many wished for a secular ‘strong man’ of the likes of Egypt’s Sisi. While Saied has popular support, the support for Ennadha also remains strong. They achieved 19% of the votes in 2019. The reactions of the West to the silent coup  were weak, while endorsements for the coup were forthcoming from a variety of Middle Eastern autocratic leaders. As expressed by Nobel Laureate Tawakul Kaman, this sets a heavy precedence where moderate Islamists entering into political processes experience being blocked, without much reaction from the world. The West seemingly accepts suppression of democratic forces, sacrificed at the altar of short-term stability.

What we have seen over the last month is not only a Western defeat in Afghanistan, but also a maligned lesson for the Islamists that seeking the middle ground, and seeking consensus through democratic processes is a dead-end, while seeking conflict succeeds.

Not too late

It is not, however, too late. Western countries might put pressure on the Tunisian president to re-start a political process involving Ennahda. In today’s circumstances, it should be remembered that an integration of political forces in the Middle East is important, as is the creation of a Middle Eastern beacon of democracy, which Tunis had the potential to be until quite recently. The Tunisian democracy was perhaps more important to support than the ill-fated Afghan institutions in the war against extremism, yet we neglected it.

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Stig Jarle Hansen is a Professor in International Relations at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He is a world expert on Islamism in the Horn of Africa and the Shabaab Group. Hansen works primarily within the fields of organized crime, religion and politics, including religious terrorism. He has a special interest in British idealism and Islamic political thought processes. Geographically, his main focus is in the wider Red Sea region, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya.

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Written by Karim Merchant & Ingrid Nyborg.

Whilst we wait for the Taliban to meet international human rights standards, it would be wrong to withhold humanitarian assistance as the harsh winter draws in. Humanitarian action will build confidence on both sides whilst providing critical aid.

Afghanistan continues to polarise international response, even more so with alliances being reviewed after the unconditional international troop withdrawal prompted by the U.S. last month. Western donors have frozen all Afghan overseas assets and set a series of conditions to be met before collaboration, recognition and the unfreezing of assets can occur. These demands include ensuring Afghanistan does not become a haven for international terrorism, respecting human rights (particularly female rights), establishing an inclusive and representative government, allowing free access for humanitarian aid and allowing the departure of foreign citizens and ‘at risk’ Afghans.

Building on common interests

Despite first impressions, a common ground between the  gradually evolving Taliban government and the international community does exist.  Both sides want a relatively stable Afghanistan. Both want to prevent humanitarian crises, preclude a mass exodus of the best and brightest Afghans (brain drain), and to implement immediate and longer-term actions to assure economic stability.

Both factions have problems with internal divisions. There is division both within the Taliban government of the newly named Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and within the international community. Both are composed of groups with differing interests that create internal disagreement. The international community and the Taliban continue to react in the same manner and show little flexibility or desire to capitalise on lessons learned from the past – although the Taliban appear to have moved forward in terms of rhetoric, if not action. But this is where the similarities end.

Responses of non-western neighbours vs western donors

Non-western donors such as China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and India have adopted a more pragmatic response. This is likely because they are geographical neighbours, directly and immediately impacted by what happens in Afghanistan. They are also able to take a more long-term strategic stance because they are not hindered by myopic establishment thinking and internal political machinery designed to tie foreign policy and aid to constant bi-partisan scrutiny and electoral cycles. Such cycles limit many Western donors to a 3-5-year window for achieving ambitious targets built on assumption-laden policies and development frameworks.  These non-Western donors not only participated in broader meetings with Taliban representatives in Doha Peace Agreement meetings, but also invited Taliban representatives to their own capitals, and were the first to have direct dialogue with the Taliban governance structure. Some have acknowledged the importance of Western donor conditionalities for engagement, but have already started responding to broader Taliban concerns over aid and economic support.

The international community does, however, have shared concerns in keeping all players loosely bound together, forcing them to cooperate in addressing the impending spike in migration similar to that of the Syrian crisis in 2015. The international community is also concerned that the apparent Taliban victory over the U.S. is fuelling increased extremism and terrorism elsewhere across the globe.   Then there is also the fear of increased opium production, although the Taliban government has currently banned poppy cultivation.

Taliban ill-prepared for governance

As for the Taliban, they were not quite ready to take on the running of Afghanistan in mid-August. The Taliban had agreed not to enter the capital for up to two weeks while discussions were to be held with President Ghani’s administration along with other key Afghan powerbrokers. The unannounced and sudden flight of President Ghani on 15^th August and the subsequent disintegration of Afghan security forces around Kabul made for an even speedier victory than anticipated. Although the Taliban had established a form of rebel governance at the village and district level (which was supported by a minority of conservative areas as a better alternative to the actual Afghan government), the Taliban had now replaced a Kabul-centric top-down government that was almost invisible at the district level. They struggled to announce an interim government and fell very short of donor expectations and demands.

Since their arrival in Kabul, divisions within the Taliban are already evident. There are disagreements over the apportioning of power and the spoils of war. Edicts emerging from Kabul’s Taliban administration are interpreted differently around the country, in both rural and urban areas. In turn, the Afghan population is also responding with refutation and protests, both in cities and with more caution in many rural areas.

A divided Taliban

The current Taliban leadership brings with it ongoing relationships with a number of international stakeholders. These relationships have been cultivated over the last few years through direct meetings and from the Afghanistan Peace Agreement meetings in Doha. The Taliban seek legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, but on their own terms. Whilst their rhetoric acknowledges some of the demands of Western donors, attempts to balance this with internal divisions  continue to slow down decision making. This is reflected in the recent announcement of a partially complete list of Cabinet members. Posts are divided up amongst factions and hierarchies, just as they were in the Afghan Interim Authority that was established by the international community from 2001-2003.

There are a number of factors, such as failure to observe  female rights and the continued collaboration with other terrorist organisations, that are a long way from resolution. Some of these may not be open to compromise at all under a hybrid autocratic and theologically-driven regime.

For their part, the Western donors are gradually shifting from an inflexible stance of staunch demands and proof that the Taliban has changed. Part of this change is due to strong lobbying by the United Nations (UN), highlighting an imminent humanitarian crisis that has been gradually building over the last l years and is being compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the freezing of aid funding for Afghanistan. Like many local and international NGOs, the UN has developed on-the-ground relationships that allow it to delivery humanitarian services as a confidence-building mechanism with the Taliban. This will hopefully allow the UN and other non-state actors to continue vital support to the health, education and agriculture sectors.

Human rights and freedom from abuse do not have to be compromised in order to provide humanitarian support. In fact, humanitarian support can be used as a confidence-building measure between both sides, allowing opportunities for the UN and civil society to support human rights in practice through the delivery of health and education services, and to the reactivation of agricultural production to increase food security.

Confidence-building through humanitarian assistance

Whilst the general impression created by the media is one of complete chaos across the country, most of this coverage has focused on Kabul airport and the ensuing protests in cities. In reality, most of Kabul is actually relatively quiet, and in rural areas there appears to be almost no fighting as farming communities are adjusting to one less challenge in their lives. Let’s not add to these challenges by withholding humanitarian assistance as another harsh winter draws in. Let us instead treat the provision of humanitarian assistance as a confidence-building measure on both sides. We should use assistance as an entry point to expand support in health education and agriculture, as well as to push for vital concessions around human rights.

Karim Merchant is a consultant on policy & project development within humanitarian assistance, food security and peace-building.  He has worked in Afghanistan for over 20 years with contacts including politicians, NGOs and individual agents of advocacy. He teaches Statebuilding, Security and Development in Fragile and Conflict Affected States: A Case Study of Afghanistan on NMBU’s Master’s programme in International Relations.

Ingrid Nyborg is an Associate Professor at Noragric. She specializes in post-conflict and post-crisis development in South Asia, with a focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan. Since 2005, Nyborg has studied rural livelihoods in Afghanistan, focusing on participatory methods and co-production of knowledge with local development organizations as an example of capacity-building research.

The post Is cooperation with the Taliban a recipe for disaster or a new way forward? appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Karim Merchant & Ingrid Nyborg.

20 years after Western troops invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Kabul has fallen. The speed of the Taliban’s sweep through Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. troops has startled many officials. Many see the US announcement of a troop withdrawal in April, followed by that of NATO troops, as a catalyst for the Taliban expansion campaign. Even the militants themselves are surprised by the speed, according to a recent video statement by the head of the Taliban’s political bureau.

International diplomats and officials were apparently caught unawares, with hastily arranged evacuations in military helicopters. Afghans are also scrambling to board outbound flights in a panicked race to leave Kabul, fuelled by the fear of an uncertain future steeped in increasing restrictions and violence.

Suddenly, Afghans again face the prospect of complete domination by the Taliban. But this time, they say, it is different.

Differences between the Taliban take-over in 1996 and 2021

A different Taliban: Although the ideology and military approach remains identical, the Taliban has enjoyed significant international exposure over the past several years in particular, and it intends to continue engaging with the international community. Both China and Russia have already offered to work with the Taliban government and others will follow, albeit on more cautionary terms.

There are rumours that a possible ceasefire may be offered in return for aid and development assistance. In addition, the UN have had an easier time negotiating with the Taliban to continue elements of their operations on the ground. Unlike previously, banks, shops and universities have been encouraged to re-open. At the time of writing, public announcements have been made encouraging women to return to work, be it in the media, education, health or any other sphere. The stance on the treatment of women and human rights issues, however, seems to be deliberately vague. There are references to “frameworks and guidelines” but no clarity on what those actually are.

Lack of concerted opposition: U.S. and NATO troop withdrawals created strategic gaps in the over-burdened Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.  Limited air support and intelligence-sharing left Afghan troops exposed and vulnerable. Ultimately, a national leadership divided by self-interest destroyed the morale of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.

For well-established Afghan powerbrokers (such as Mujahidin leaders who became warlords, members of the political elite and large-scale landowners), the battlefield has been replaced by the negotiating table. The assets that these powerbrokers have accumulated since 2001 were a key determinant in how they chose to engage with an ascendant Taliban. This has resulted in less infrastructure destruction and bloodshed than their previous entry into Kabul.

What is not yet clear is the role the warlords will play in a new Taliban government. Can they retain the loyalty of their supporters if they have been allowed to retain some or all of their traditional areas of influence and control? Some of these supporters turned to the Taliban after feeling abandoned by their leaders, who were reluctant to go to combat in the way that they had done in the past. This reluctance was viewed by many as a sign of weakness.

A progressive Afghanistan? The country has experienced a social transformation over the last two decades. A good percentage of its population have never experienced a Taliban regime. The country has unprecedented access to knowledge and the outside world. Afghanistan has enjoyed cultural, economic and social gains, including increased rights for women and more freedom of speech. The Afghan population will not surrender these gains easily. It appears that elements of this are negotiable with the Taliban, who seem to desire a more amenable form of governance this time round. A young and proactive population accustomed to articulating open criticism, and the use of social media to monitor and report abuses and injustices, is also something the Taliban will have to accept and learn to deal with. The Taliban must now operate in the knowledge their every move will be under the watchful eye of millions, both domestically and internationally.

Moving forward under a new Taliban government

The Taliban appear to be moving towards the formation of a full-blown government. They have no desire to set up an interim administration, as had been suggested and discussed over several meetings of the Doha Peace Process in late 2020 and early 2021. They are currently in dialogue with senior Afghan political figures to reach an agreement and provide nominal confidence-building measures that aim to balance aspects that are palatable to the international community, whilst remaining within Sharia guidelines.

The main concern here is that, given the fact that the Taliban is not one coherent group, how long it will be before internal rivalries and differing interpretations of governance create fragmentation, and independent actions from Kabul. How safe will minorities be under Taliban rule? Will there be a very different set of rules for urban and rural areas?

Whatever shape the new government takes, there will be a technocratic element charged with implementing the daily running of the country. There will be ministries with civil servants – but what role will national and international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have? So far, Taliban authorities are requesting details of staff and activities. There are not, at the time of writing, any reported attempts to block ongoing work on the ground. Having spoken to several heads of NGOs and community organisations (unregistered self-assistance groups established by communities themselves), they all seem cautious in their initial dealings with the Taliban, but have been informed to carry on as normal, including the use of female staff. This is not so surprising for NGOs that have been working in Taliban-controlled areas for years – there is already a model in place for establishing working relationships with a Taliban governance structure, and retaining the ability to deliver humanitarian and complex development objectives.

With the situation in Afghanistan being closely scrutinized over the next few months, much depends on how the Taliban conduct themselves.  Can they ensure that electricity and water supplies will be maintained? Can the general population begin to move out of the shadow of fear of repression? Will the Taliban be able to build some element of trust with the international community and gain the legitimacy it desires? Will the international community be willing to engage in meaningful dialogue with the emerging Taliban government? More broadly, will the swift Taliban victory in Afghanistan inspire other extremist and insurgent movements into a resurgence elsewhere?

Noragric has been working with local and international organisations in Afghanistan for more than 20 years. This work has focused on human security, development and livelihood issues. At this crucial point, we can only stress the urgency and importance of maintaining a critical eye, not only on recent events, but on the longer-term processes which contributed to today’s crisis of governance.

Karim Merchant teaches on the course ‘Statebuilding, Security and Development in Fragile and Conflict Affected States: A Case Study of Afghanistan‘ on NMBU’s Master’s programme in International Relations. He is a consultant on policy, programme and project development and management in the fields of humanitarian assistance, food security, conflict-sensitive development and peace-building.

Ingrid Nyborg is an Associate Professor at Noragric. She specializes in post-conflict and post-crisis development in South Asia, with a focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan. Since 2005, Nyborg has studied rural livelihoods in Afghanistan, focusing on participatory methods and co-production of knowledge with local development organizations as an example of capacity-building research.

The post A new Taliban for a new Afghanistan? appeared first on Noragric blog.

Protected by the jungle canopy, crickets and frogs emit a gnawing chorus. There’s a moment in the early hours of the morning when their frenetic singing gently subsides, and you can enjoy the dance of the foliage caressed by the wind. It was during these couple of hours that I sleeplessly paced the streets of San Gabriel village. Despite my best efforts to walk gently, after a short time it seemed that all the dogs in the village had registered my presence. Furious barking came from all directions. For the distrustful canines, a stranger that prowls at unusual hours near their domain can only be interpreted as a menace.

I was heading to an appointment, with a 4 a.m. start necessary for the long round trip. The purpose: transporting charcoal to the city of Playa del Carmen. Around 4:15, the rumble of a Ford F350 lorry managed to drown out the canine cacophony, rudely interrupting what had started as a peaceful early morning in a village in the Mayan Rainforest.

The driver Norberto, President of the Commissariat of the Ejido[1] and Director of the cooperative Carboneros del Sureste (CASUR), greeted me with unusual lethargy. “Won’t Mr. Alberto come?”, I asked him. “Alberto is busy today”, he replied, “but Aureliano will be coming instead”.

Shortly, Aureliano approached the lorry with a similar countenance to Norberto’s – that of a sleep deprived man with an empty stomach.

With reluctant haste, Norberto and Aureliano cleared out the load compartment of the lorry, until only a heavy, dusty tarp and a set of thick and splintered ropes remained. The three of us climbed inside the driver’s cabin. I occupied the middle position. At 04:30 a.m., the lorry began to move. We left for Chacte’ob Ejido, where we would pick up our cargo.

Charcoal is produced year-round in San Gabriel, but that week the charcoal warehouse was almost empty. The Ejido San Gabriel has a Forestry Management Plan that allows it to commercialize approximately 200 tons of charcoal annually. CASUR is part of a peasant-lead commercialization mechanism, through which they can sell their commodities directly to hotels and restaurants on the touristic Mayan Riviera. The commercialization platform has a warehouse in Playa del Carmen, and they co-manage it with other rural organizations and civil society entities. One of the objectives of the project is to get rid of middlemen and thereby obtain larger profit margins, in parallel to incentivizing the orderly management of the forest.

Whilst the cooperative’s marketing channel seems to show promise, it poses challenges for the members of CASUR. Its clients – hotels and restaurants – demand small quantities of the product delivered on a weekly basis, unlike the former middlemen who bought whole trailers at a time, picking up the charcoal in the village themselves when the Ejido had enough product in its warehouse. Since its creation in 2017, CASUR’s commercialization project has achieved some of its objectives. In recent months, however, the cooperative has found it difficult to collect enough charcoal. In the village, other families became eager to collect and sell charcoal supported by the former middlemen, who were upset by the cooperative’s aspiration to sell directly to hotels and restaurants.

To solve the friction and disagreement among its members, the Ejido assembly agreed to divide the total authorized charcoal production among every Ejido member so that each person could sell to whoever they chose: to the cooperative or to the former middlemen.

The previous arrangement in San Gabriel Ejido granted CASUR the exclusive use of the authorized amount of charcoal, to strengthen the position of charcoal producers in the market. Now the cooperative is unsure how much charcoal they can produce and collect each week. This situation has hindered its capacity to meet the goal of regularly supplying its clients in the Mayan Riviera with charcoal.

Along with its external allies, CASUR determined that it should buy charcoal to other Ejidos who have legal permits to produce and transport it. With such agreements, CASUR can maintain a constant supply to its customers whenever there is not enough charcoal in San Gabriel due to internal competition in the village. Therefore, CASUR forged an alliance with the Ejido Chacte’ob. They would provide the amounts that CASUR could not produce. The alliance implied that CASUR would be in charge of loading the charcoal in Chacte’ob and would take it to the warehouse in Playa del Carmen.

At 5:15, we stopped for breakfast at the municipal food market of José María Morelos. After a couple of tortillas filled with pork, Norberto and Aureliano regained vitality and exchanged some chat in Mayan over an ice cold Coke. I ordered a papaya juice. We resumed our journey. I tried to engage Norberto in conversation.

“It is a pity that the wood that is cut down in the Milpa just stays there, and it is not possible to legally produce charcoal with it, don’t you think?”, I asked Norberto.

“Yeah. In the Milpa a lot of wood ends up lying there. If it is not transformed into charcoal, most of it rots. People are looking for high forest to cut because the corn grows better there – but when you cut tall trees, not all the wood will burn. The wood that does not burn is what people use for charcoal”, Norberto explained.

In San Gabriel, CASUR enforces compliance with the forestry law by persuading charcoal producers to restrict their activity to the areas authorized for forestry management by the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources. Nevertheless, many Ejido members have fought for permission to produce charcoal with wood obtained at their Milpas, outside the area of forestry management. To make Milpa – the traditional technique used for corn, beans and squash crops – it is customary to cut down and burn patches of forest to prepare the soil for sowing. In San Gabriel, it is a common practice to reserve a quarter of the wood that lies on the ground after cutting, to make charcoal in situ. This practice is not in accordance with Mexican environmental legislation, which states that wood can only be extracted or transformed in fixed areas authorized by the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources. The law does not consider Milpa to be a valid forest management technique.

We drove in a south-easterly direction. This dry season was preceded by almost zero rainfall the previous winter. The low forest already looked defeated by the lack of water, their leafless branches pointed at the sky imploring the summer rains. As we turned to the east at an almost imperceptible pace, we left behind the landscapes of short vegetation that characterize the northern and central Yucatan Peninsula. The foliage became greener and more elevated as we penetrated the evergreen rainforests that foretell the proximity of the Caribbean beaches. Our view of the road became momentarily blurred by strips of fog that ran across the windshield like transparent fingers. Despite the difficult visibility, Norberto drove smoothly, managing to avoid the cracks in the ground that became more recurrent, threatening to devour  the tires at every turn. Aureliano took a nap.

Before reaching Chacte’ob, we crossed two towns. We passed school children in their neat school uniforms and young women waiting for public transport. Groups of men gathered separately on their small motorbikes. A few minutes down the road, this scene was replaced by small motorized congregations of youngsters equipped with tarnished chainsaws and ragged backpacks.

“The wood brings them into action here”, said Norberto, referring to the youngsters from Ejido Chacte’ob beginning their working day.

Chacte’ob is one of the largest Ejidos in Quintana Roo, at more than 150 square miles. Here, communitarian forestry is an essential economic activity that provides sustenance to a large portion of its approximately 1,000 inhabitants. Its dense evergreen forests not only protect a blazing universe of tropical birds and endangered mammals, they are also home to a wide variety of tree species of high commercial value. The multi-layered canopy that protects the terrestrial fauna from the relentless sun is sustained by hundreds of tree species that  the youngsters of Chacte’ob selectively extract for sale at the market. Other activities linked with the forested landscape, such as ecotourism projects, beekeeping – and charcoal production – complement the income of the Chacte’oban families.

Itching to load the charcoal, Norberto parked the lorry in the area surrounding the main square of the town. His haste was justified; our journey would not take us back to San Gabriel before dusk unless all the manoeuvres were executed with utmost efficiency.

The person in charge of coordinating the delivery of charcoal in Chacte’ob was not at home, we were told. We had no choice but to wait.

After 20 minutes, a dilapidated Tsuru parked next to us. It was driven by Mariano, member of the directive board of the Ejido and the man in charge of the charcoal. He greeted us with contagious enthusiasm. He explained that he had been “supervising work inside the forest”, that he did not have the permits ready, and that he still needed to find the keys of the Ejido office and fill in the documents. More waiting.

Mariano left then returned, accompanied by two young men. Now with diminished fervour, he explained that the Ejido had ran out of permits. As an alternative, it was possible to ask the neighbouring Ejido Doroteo Arango for help. Norberto and I got in the Tsuru while Aureliano and Mariano’s two companions began loading the sacks of charcoal into the lorry.

“Can we get a permit from the Doroteo Arango people?”, I asked. “Don’t worry, Mister – it won’t take long”, answered Mariano. The town of Doroteo Arango lies beside a heavily transited federal motorway, but has an ambience of quietness in its streets that contrasted to the hectic morning activity that we witnessed at sunrise in Chacte’ob. After a brief pilgrimage, we found the man in charge of the forestry permits. Mariano explained in succinct terms what our mission entailed. Without much hesitation, the man nodded, got on his motorbike and came back half an hour later with a folder packed with green sheets of paper. He delivered the desired document to Norberto, who proceeded to diligently read the permit.

“This demands patience…”, I said to Norberto as he finished filling in the permit. “That’s right – and we haven’t even started yet”, said Norberto calmly as the clock hit 9:30.

Back in Chacte’ob, the refreshing humidity of the early morning was substituted by intense, cloudless heat. Aureliano sheltered himself under the gentle shade of a Ramón tree (Brosimum alicastrum), approximately 65 feet high. His face and arms were covered by a fine layer of black particles, as were the faces of the two young men that Mariano brought for loading the charcoal. 160 sacks of charcoal were neatly stacked onto the lorry. A couple of empty Coke bottles rolled next to their feet. A reward for getting the job done.

We left Chacte’ob for the north-east wanting to make up lost time. The series of obstacles we had faced so far made me think about the controversial infrastructure project, the Mayan Train. The project is promoted with vehemence by the Federal government. It’s depicted as the key transformation that will unleash development in an ‘abandoned region’, as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador refers to the Yucatan Peninsula’s rural areas. The Mexican government claims that the train will exponentially increase the flux of tourists in rural areas beyond the touristic cities of the Mexican Caribbean. The train stations will be accompanied by ambitious urbanization projects that intend to attract large touristic and agro-industrial private investments in impoverished areas of the Peninsula.

The development promises of the Mayan Train has been contested by multiple activists, academics and indigenous organizations that fear the train and the urbanization project will oversee environmental regulations, and open the door to extractive industries whose effects have largely proven to be detrimental to the environment and local populations. Aureliano is critical towards the train. He has actively participated in workshops led by the Assembly of Territory Defenders Much Xiin Baal, where indigenous leaders disseminate critical reflections about the Mayan Train and Mayan culture with communities that will be affected by the mega-project.

“It is a project that will benefit big companies who are looking for new territories. It won’t benefit us”, reflected Aureliano. Norberto has a more nuanced view, but is still sceptical. “The government plans sound OK, but you can never tell what will really happen”.

As I saw in CASUR’s income statements, transportation and logistics are their most significant cost. A railway network connecting the rural areas with the dynamic markets of the Mexican Caribbean could be a convenient, cost shrinking tool for communitarian initiatives like CASUR, which are trying to improve their position in value chains. It could also, however, reinforce the former middlemen’s strength, if the latter are the ones who use the train to enhance their businesses.

We slowly traversed the lonely country roads of the Mayan rainforest, the recurrent dips on the road keeping us alert. At around 10:30, we merged onto federal road 307, which connects the touristic destinations of the Mayan Riviera. We passed the city of  Felipe Carrillo Puerto, the spiritual and organizational headquarter of Mayan rebels at war with the Yucatecan elites settled in Merida during the second half of the 19th century. Today, the city marks the start of the most dangerous section of the road.  Towards the north, a track of 60 miles separates Felipe Carrillo Puerto from Tulum. Accidents, kidnappings and robbery have occurred with increasing frequency here in the last 5 years.

In the State of Quintana Roo, the violence associated with drug cartels pulses from the north-eastern tip to the rest of the Peninsula, with Cancun its point of origin. Whilst the zone between Carrillo Puerto and Tulum is the most recent frontier of criminal violence, these risks were not the ones that distressed Norberto and Aureliano. Their worries were triggered by the anticipation of an encounter with the Federal Police – recently transformed into the National Guard. Weeks before our trip, Norberto told me about these incidents:

“Almost always, they tell us that the charcoal should have a sales invoice. I tell them, ‘No, Boss, because this charcoal goes to a warehouse from the same cooperative. The permit should be enough’. Usually, the police take the permit and, contravening the correct legal procedure, they say: Follow me folks, we will meet on the next bridge”, obliging Norberto to drive the lorry with charcoal for which he can no longer legally account for if the military or police pulls them over again.

Norberto recounts that on one occasion, the Federal Police pulled them over in Carrillo, and then again before reaching Playa del Carmen. “I told the second one ‘hey boss, we already offered our share to the policemen of Carrillo’. He answered: ‘It doesn’t matter! Those were state troopers, we are something different’. It is part of the game. What can we do about it?”

Aureliano also has plenty of anecdotes about these encounters. “They tell us: ‘Instead of moving your charcoal from the village to the city, you should simply sell it in your Ejido and release an invoice. Why are you complicating your life?’. There is no way to win over them. They have suggested we go and talk to the regional manager to reach an agreement. People say that all the major transport companies go through them to avoid problems. I don’t know, that sounds expensive”.

For each journey to Playa del Carmen, CASUR budgets around $500 mxn for bribing the Federal Police.

Aureliano recalls: “The first time they pulled us over we offered a $200 mxn bill. We had no more. ‘Don’t fuck with me’, the policeman told me”.

“They always find something”, Noberto adds. “It can be the insurance, the invoice, having old tires. We know those are only pretexts. Even if we had everything in place”.

A quarter of an hour later, after passing Carrillo Puerto, my sleepiness was interrupted when Norberto stopped on a parking shoulder in front of a patrol vehicle of the Federal Police.

“Are they pulling us over?”, I asked. “Yep. I’ll be right back”, answered Norberto, while he grabbed a folder and put some bills in his shirt pocket.

Norberto chatted with two uniformed agents. Their verbal exchange projected an air of cordiality, at least from the perspective offered by the wing mirror. Aureliano got out of the car to make a phone call. I followed him to stretch my legs and get a bit closer to the agents of the National Guard. I placed myself a couple of metres away from Norberto displaying a big smile, sunglasses on.

“It was about time to stretch the legs!”, I said with a friendly tone. The policemen looked at me for a couple of seconds without any major reaction. They paused their chat. One of them said, “Alright. Wait for me in your vehicle. We will check this out”.

We all went back inside the lorry. After a quarter of an hour, one of the policemen made a hand gesture to Norberto through the wing mirror. The driver got down immediately and came back in less than a minute.

“It’s done. I had to give them $800 mxn. They said it was because our suspension was crooked, that we exceeded 100 km/hour when the limit for load trucks is 80, and because we are carrying more than 3.5 tonnes. They always find something. The fine would have been of around $6,000 mxn”.

Indeed, the lorry has an authorized load capacity of 3.5 tonnes and in Chacte’ob we loaded almost 4. About the speed, it was hard to tell because our speedometer didn’t work, but I doubt that we were close to 100 km/hr with the 160 sacks on board. Acknowledging the meagre profit margins and the huge scalability challenges that CASUR’s business model faces, I wonder whether it would be economically viable to keep up with all the legal and technical components needed to avoid extorsions or fines in the Mexican motorways. I thought again about how convenient it would be to move larger volumes of charcoal by train. Luckily, we did not find any other patrol ahead.

Soon, we had lunch in the next city: Tulum. This time, instead of eating in a traditional food market – places rarely found in the young cities of the Mayan Riviera – we entered a small restaurant next to the motorway. Our jeans and shirts stained with black spots contrasted with the bright colours and light beach clothing worn by the other customers. I noted that Norberto and Aureliano were struggling, uneasily turning the pages of a menu that offered a wide variety of dishes in contrast to the pork tacos on offer at the food market in José María Morelos. I recommended some options, but when the waiter came over, they simply said, “The same as him. And a Coke”.

We hit the road again. After Tulum, the road shifted from being a two laned semi-motorway to a full motorway of four or five lanes. The flux of vehicles became denser and more frenetic as we approached Playa del Carmen. The transit is composed of lorries of all sizes, vans packed with tourists and private cars with one or two passengers, all in a hurry. Heading north, the road is no longer flanked by tall trees, but by majestic entrances of all-inclusive hotels displaying Anglo-Saxon names evocative of sun and beach paradise scenery. The vast gardens and monumental signs of the hotel corporations stand with pride between the road and the highly valuable Caribbean sands. Passing the hotel area, the hasty drivers seem to disregard the low-skilled workers running with reckless hurry across the motorway to reach the public transport on the other side of the road. The cooks and maintenance personnel standing at the roofless bus stops, juxtaposed against the grandiose hotel entrances.

We arrived at the warehouse in Playa del Carmen at 14:00. The staff there told me they recently moved to a new location because the former warehouse was smaller. The neighbourhood had registered a frightening increase in robberies of businesses and households.

“The situation here is dire. Last week a guy was shot to death on this street”. The staff showed me a newly installed security camera system that they bought after the store next door was robbed. The locals refer to this city as Playa del Crimen (Crime Beach).

“Are you still selling as much charcoal as before? Hasn’t COVID hit the city yet?”, I asked them. “It seems that orders are slowly going down, but we are still delivering a lot of charcoal”, the chief of staff replied.

In less than an hour, Norberto, Aureliano and the staff discharged the lorry and filled in administrative forms. When the clock hit 15:00, we were back on the road. At least now our vehicle didn’t tilt.

The journey back home went without interruption. There were no encounters with the police – they never occur on the return trip. We stopped only once to get refreshments. In the rural areas of the Yucatan Peninsula, buying something to drink is a synonym of buying Coke or related sugared alternatives. In the small shops of villages and towns, sometimes it is hard to find bottled water. The music selection changed to an eclectic mix provided by Aureliano, consisting of reggaeton alternated with the folk songs of Vicente Fernandez. The journey was much shorter since we didn’t deviate to Chacte’ob.

After passing Tulum, we left the federal motorway and re-joined the country roads right around the time when the sun stops irradiating heat and the fresh winds from the north descend upon the forest. In the first town we crossed, I observed a modern bus stamped with the flashy logos of a big hotel. From it emerged workers carrying small suitcases. They wore tidy white uniforms with golden letterheads attached to their shirts. I imagined these people going home, taking off their uniforms, putting on shorts and light shirts and maybe watching television whilst swinging on their hammocks. Maybe the next day they’ll join a family member to the Milpa, and through these actions they’ll reintegrate into the Mayan lifestyle – which seems like a distant universe here next to the touristic corridor . The modern hotel bus looked alien rolling along the streets of this town. Our creaky lorry went unnoticed, blended with ease into the rural scenery. It was the sensation of being home again.

By 5 p.m. I was already exhausted, and my buttocks were seriously numb. Norberto, on the other hand, looked vital and in a rush to reach the town Tihosuco. He expected to buy construction material there before the sun went down.

Mr. Alberto asked me to get some sand. That’s a good way to avoid coming back with an empty trunk, Norberto explained.

I could only observe with astonishment how Aureliano and Norberto shovelled a significant number of kilos of sand at a fast pace. Fortunately for me, there were only two shovels available.

An hour later we were back in San Gabriel, with no sun in the horizon but still a dim blue sky. That is the precise moment when mosquitoes are out to feast.

“We’ve been at this for 14 hours!”, I exclaimed when I saw my watch as we entered San Gabriel.

“That’s how it is. A long trip”, replied Norberto, now with visible signs of exhaustion in his eyes.

I said goodbye to my travel companions in the main square of the village where people always hang out, be it under the protection of an old palm-leaf roof or in the soccer courtyard next to it. This evening, the neighbouring village of San Jorge joined a friendly soccer match against the San Gabriel team. A couple of lamps hanging loose from 4m high poles illuminating the ball and the players. Seated in a dispersed pattern at the sides of the courtyard, a dozen youngsters followed the match, their attention and jokes alternating between their cell phones and the players. Aureliano joined the spectators and Norberto went home.

I have seen most of these young people actively participating in the production of charcoal, in the Milpas and in the Ejido assemblies. Some of them have shared with me their past experiences as low skilled workers in Playa del Carmen and Cancun. Most of them came back to San Gabriel when charcoal became a prominent activity and decided to establish themselves permanently in the village. Even though charcoal and Milpa offer a comparatively lower income than the salaries of the city, it seems to be good enough to access what they say is a good life in an environment that offers them less dangers than urban life.

The current preference of San Gabriel youngsters to make a living in their village seem so different to what I heard in the consultations on the Mayan Train. There, Ejido leaders of the Yucatan Peninsula claimed that they would support the governmental plans to build the train and establish new urban centres if new jobs will benefit their youngsters. Critics to the Mayan Train warn that the jobs created by the construction of the train and the touristic and agro-industrial investments will be precarious and hyper concentrated in the new urban areas. It seems uncertain whether the rural lifestyle of the Mayans will be strengthened by a virtuous interaction with market forces, or if their indigenous culture will be further marginalized.

The youth of San Gabriel dress and speak in different ways from their parents. They listen to different types of music and project different values, but they share with the previous generation the quality of being an Other, an alien group, which is at the same time linked with the political and financial forces that pulse with increasing vigour from the touristic cities of the Mayan Riviera. As I talk to them and they invite me to enjoy the match with another Coke, I wonder what their situation will be in the following years.

[1] Ejido is a collective property form of land tenure created during the agrarian reform that the Mexican State brought about throughout the 20th century.

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To protect the identity of the protagonists, the names of some places, all of the people and organizations that appear in this article were modified and faces in the images have been blurred.

Noé Mendoza is a PhD Fellow at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric). His research seeks to enhance our understanding of the relationship between economic inequality and environmental change, focusing on a case-study in the Mayan Rainforest.

The post Long read: A Mayan quest for a market economy appeared first on Noragric blog.

With several Gigafactories planned to be built over the coming decade, Norway is taking strides in the battery business. The country’s new ‘industrial adventure’ is promising a ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ form of economic value creation, bringing jobs and innovation. However, batteries depend on minerals, such as lithium, which are extracted abroad. Therefore, it is important to inquire on what material basis the emerging industry is built, and with what consequences beyond our borders.

Norwegian battery visions

In the past months, electric vehicle (EV) batteries have received enormous attention in Norway – not only due to the country’s high percentage of fossil-free cars on the roads. Several companies are developing factories to produce the world’s ‘greenest’ battery cells, primarily based on lithium-ion technology.

After a new large-scale battery project was announced last December, the national broadcaster NRK reported that potential hosts were “queuing to become battery-municipalities”. The world’s largest aluminum producer Hydro, the state-owned former oil and gas – now energy – company Equinor and Panasonic initiated a battery partnership. Their so-called Joint Battery Initiative is looking for a suitable location for their plants – 82 municipalities across the country have applied to host it.

In the meantime, three other projects aspire to deliver lithium-ion batteries within half a decade. One of them is in Mo i Rana, an industrial town just below the arctic circle. Freyr, which recently got listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is constructing four battery plants with up to 43 GWh capacity by 2025. These factories could produce cells for up to 800’000 electric cars a year. The Rana municipality is optimistic: Expecting 1500 new jobs, it bought shares in Freyr worth 10 million NOK last year, and is even considering to build a new airport.

The new battery industry in Norway promises economic growth, up to 30’000 jobs, regional development and technological innovation. In its latest climate action plan, the government identified industries along the battery supply chain as key to ‘green growth. Battery technology also speaks to desires of mitigating climate change: According to Morten Halleraker, Head of Batteries at Hydro, lithium-ion batteries are “one of the solutions to our generation’s biggest challenges: global warming”.

The initiatives in Norway are in line with the European efforts to ramp up battery production. More importantly, however, batteries and other renewable technologies are envisioned by industry experts to guarantee Norway’s future as an “energy superpower” in light of decreasing demand for fossil fuels. In other words: “Putting its industrial capacity and financial strength to use in the green transition could turn the country from a ‘climate villain’ to a green giant”, a recent UCL policy brief stated.

Even though it remains to be seen how, and if at all, the Norwegian battery dream becomes reality, it is certain that a shift from oil and gas production to renewable energy technology would still depend on forms of extraction. Battery manufacturing relies on vast amounts of minerals such as lithium, which are mostly sourced from abroad.

Critical towards the ‘green’ and ‘responsible’ promise

The battery projects aim to manufacture ‘green’ batteries in Norway. A low carbon footprint is on one hand guaranteed by Norway’s electricity supply – 98 percent of its electricity comes from renewable sources. On the other hand, ‘green’ batteries are understood as being based on low-carbon and responsibly sourced raw materials. For instance, on their website, Freyr declares their intention to develop a ‘green’ value chain and to produce ‘clean’ battery cells made from raw materials “with the lowest possible carbon footprint and socially responsible production”.

The environmental organization Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway) is sceptical towards the emerging battery industry’s promises. The regional sections of the organization in Nordland and Trøndelag raised concerns about how ethical and carbon-neutral sourcing of battery minerals in reality can be, and condemned the industry’s claim to be ‘green’. When the plans for a gigantic battery plant in the North were announced, the Nordland section criticized a possible windmill park accompanying the project and the grand scale of the plans. Yet, with the decreasing relevance of wind energy for Freyr, they showed themselves more supportive. Surprisingly, with the notable exception of Naturvernforbundet, Norwegian civil society has been rather quiet about the new large-scale industrial visions.

The organization is concerned about environmental damage and social problems resulting from the extraction of battery materials, such as nickel, cobalt, graphite, manganese and lithium. For instance, they raise environmental concerns caused by the vast consumption of water and land due to lithium extraction. In the so-called ‘lithium triangle’ in South America, extreme water shortages and increased risks for soil and air contamination are affecting local residents’ livelihoods. Currently, most battery-grade lithium is sourced either from brine in Chile and Argentina, or from hard-rock deposits in Australia. Some lithium projects have been facing strong opposition, as the protests by indigenous activists in Chile amidst the country-wide protests against social inequality exemplify.

The Norwegian Naturverforbundet is not only questioning how, but also on what scale and intensity, the extractive rush for lithium and other battery raw material are taking place. Their criticism is relevant: Phasing out fossil-fuel driven cars – i.e. Norway bans their sale from 2025 – the demand for ‘critical raw materials’ is rising quickly. The latest International Energy Association report, for instance, expects the demand for lithium in batteries to grow 30-fold until 2030 and more than 100-fold by 2050. As a consequence, lithium mining will inevitably increase.

Lithium from Europe?

The European battery sector has been concerned by the Chinese dominance in the lithium supply chain, and by the increasingly important labeling of metals with carbon tags and environment, social and governance (ESG) standards. As a consequence, governments and mining industries are eying new mineral reserves to tap into, in order to secure steady supplies of lithium in the future.

Norway has increased its geological mapping to identify underground resources – including in the deep sea. On land, Norway does not have any economically viable lithium deposits, according to the Norwegian Geological Survey. On the seabed, however, recent expeditions have discovered high concentrations of lithium, amongst other minerals, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. When, and if at all, these deposits will be ‘harvested’ remains unclear.

In Europe, a number of hard-rock mining projects have been announced in Serbia, Finland, Portugal and Spain. However, Bloomberg Metals analyst Kwasi Ampofo, believes that by 2030, Europe will still have no significant capacity in producing lithium chemicals. Considering that Chinese actors largely control the lithium supply chain, lithium will likely still be shipped across the globe, at least for the first generations of Norwegian batteries. In the future, European mining could lower carbon emissions of European batteries by shortening transport routes, and increase supply security for Norwegian and European battery producers.

Expanding mining of battery raw materials in Europe is strongly supported by the European Union. According to the EU, a ‘reliable, secure, and sustainable access to raw materials is a precondition for Europe’s Green Deal’. Recent efforts to develop battery policies and regulations have implied mandatory supply chain due diligence: The latest proposal for the EU batteries regulation recommends to include lithium in the scope of the supply chain due diligence obligations and requires its sourcing to be sustainable. The Norwegian government will adapt its law accordingly, and has already proposed a new human rights transparency and due diligence regulation. These steps seem to move into a positive direction in terms of responsibility and accountability of lithium sourcing.

Mining projects in Europe, however, have not been less contested than elsewhere. In Spain or Portugal, for instance, people have opposed lithium mining plans in local and national protests. For them, open-pit mines threaten local heritage, natural environments and livelihoods. Local activists and residents in Northern Portugal fear pollution and destruction and in the name of ‘green’ mobility and ‘clean cities’.

Decarbonising (individual) transportation with battery driven EVs is bound to rely on minerals such as lithium. And while increasingly attention is paid to responsible, transparent – and shorter – supply chains, the projected spike in extraction creates ambiguities in perceptions of what ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ futures are.
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Anna-Sophie Hobi is a PhD Fellow at Noragric. With an interest in themes of energy transition and extractivism, her research focuses on lithium and its role in the futures of Zimbabwe and Norway. Previously, Anna-Sophie worked on transparency and responsibility in the commodity sector as a Mercator Fellow on International Affairs. She studied Social Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Basel and Linnaeus University.

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This article is also published on the Lithium Worlds website.

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Written by Paul Beamont.

“It will not be independent and it will not be British and it will not deter”, ran the Labour slogan before the 1964 election. They might also have added “and we cannot afford it”.  For as long as Britain has been in the nuclear club, it has been haunted by this alternative nuclear story. By this reading, Britain’s nuclear weapons are the longest running white elephant project in the nation’s history; the “lace curtains” hiding Britain’s diminished status in the world and about as militarily useful as a “comfort blanket”. The trouble for consecutive British governments, many of whom have been emotionally quite attached to the elephant, is that this alternative story is quite plausible. Indeed, because nuclear weapons work by not being used (deterrence), there is no way to empirically debunk the suspicion that for all the “continuous at sea deterrence” Britain’s nukes are said to be doing, they may not have deterred anything at all.  Yet by the same token, anti-nuclearises can never prove that deterrence has not worked. Thus, Britain’s nuclear policy – as well as that of other states performing nuclear deterrence – can sustain indefinitely two logically consistent but contradictory narratives about what their nuclear weapons do and have done.

I explore the political consequences of this nuclear conundrum with my new book, Performing Nuclear Weapons: How Britain Made Trident Make Sense. Putting Britain’s competing nuclear histories into motion I undertake a close analysis of Britain’s nuclear stories from Margaret Thatcher’s fight to acquire the Trident nuclear weapon system in the 1980s, to Tony Blairs renewal of Britain’s nukes in the 2000s. Rather than take sides in the debate, arguing for or against the value of Britain’s weapons, the book explores a different question: how did consecutive governments maintain the idea that its nuclear weapons are a legitimate, desirable and a sensible way to spend scarce resources?  Or put differently, how have consecutive British governments succeeded in marginalizing the counter-narrative demanding nuclear disarmament? `

How Britain makes its bombs make sense

By answering these how questions and studying nuclear maintenance as a process, the book breaks with the conventional approach of asking why states go nuclear or not. While various answers to why states acquire nuclear weapons have been posited, these explanations typically ignore the ongoing processes of legitimation that keep the weapons in service: how these reasons are constructed, maintained, re-modelled, reified and sometimes discarded. Performing Nuclear Weapons does not dispute any one of these explanations per se but contends that governments have considerable power in producing the security, status, and domestic meanings that enable the maintenance of their nuclear weapons. Indeed, because nuclear weapons are represented to “work” by not being used, deterrence discourse grants a peculiar flexibility in representing nuclear weapons’ benefits. However, it also has a flip side. In the absence of proven “effects”, the positive meanings attached to nuclear weapons also require skillful storytelling to remain salient, avoid decay and thus enable maintenance.

Indeed, look closely, and it becomes clear that several of the axioms that underpin Britain’s nuclear rationale require considerable imagination and careful narration to become plausible, let alone accepted. For instance, Thatcher was fond of claiming that Britain’s “nuclear deterrent has not only kept the peace, but it will continue to preserve our independence.” Here, Thatcher was reiterating the junior British variant of the “nuclear peace” narrative: the common refrain that it was only nuclear deterrence that kept the Cold War from turning hot.  Yet, the only proof available to support this claim is absence and thus this story relies upon conjuring up a hypothetical Soviet invasion. Nevertheless, by the 2000s, Britain’s nuclear peace had solidified into common sense within British politics. Even anti-nuclearists sometimes reproduce it,  for instance, when they argue that nuclear weapons are no longer needed. Another key trope underpinning British governments nuclear maintenance is that they serve as an “insurance policy”. The metaphor works by harnessing every-day associations with prudence and eliding that activating nuclear insurance would not result in Britain receiving any compensation only undertaking war crimes.

Yet, instead of arguing that Britain’s nuclear peace is a myth or that the insurance metaphor is wrong, my book explores the function of these representations within Britain’s grand nuclear narratives and what evidence needs to be presented and alternative readings obscured in order to keep them in currency. Indeed, systematically forgetting that correlation is not causation is only one of several plot lines of the UK’s nuclear era, which my book contends have been necessary to keeping Britain’s nuclear boats afloat.

Studying national nuclear stories elsewhere

While I zoom in on the work Britain has had to put in to find and maintain a compelling nuclear story, my book suggests that we should conduct similar analyses of all nuclear-armed states.  Indeed, strip away security scholars’ conventional assumptions about nuclear weapons deterrence value, and a research agenda-defining international puzzle emerges. Only nine nuclear weapon-armed states exist, while 183 get by without nuclear weapons, and most seem quite content with their non-nuclear status. Moreover, at least 50 countries have the technical capability to build nuclear weapons yet only nine have chosen to do so. Rather than chomping at the bit to join the nuclear club, most non-nuclear weapons states have instead imposed stricter limitations on their ability to develop nuclear weapons. Indeed, going beyond the measures that are required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in July 2017, 122 states voluntarily adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Considering that non-nuclear security is the norm, instead of pondering why non-nuclear weapons states have not acquired the bomb (as security scholars prone to), it would make more sense to consider the few states that maintain such unpopular, yet expensive weapons to be the puzzle.

Systematically studying the stories states tell about their nuclear weapons would contribute to the growing transnational movement calling for a nuclear weapon free world (NWFW). Indeed, since the 1990s all the nuclear weapons states have ostensibly subscribed to the goal of a NWFW. Thus, each will necessarily need to perform its own rhetorical gymnastics to both justify their own weapons while simultaneously lamenting their existence. How states can keep on squaring this circle warrants sustained academic attention. Indeed, I hold that investigating each country’s specific nuclear stories – relentlessly poking and prodding at their assumptions and silences – would offer critical insights into each country’s relationship to its nuclear weapons and how their value is maintained within domestic politics. In turn, this could only help the international disarmament agenda unsettle the peculiar national nuclear narratives that enable nuclear weapons maintenance and inhibit disarmament. To be clear, this process will not reveal the anti-nuclearists to be necessarily correct. However, it should help reduce nuclear governments to their correct epistemological status: professional storytellers, opening up a space for alternative stories that might lead to a nuclear weapon free world. In other words, such studies might help nuclear states worry more, and learn to stop loving their bombs.

Read more at Forsvaretsforum.no.
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Beaumont’s new book Performing Nuclear Weapons: How Britain Made Trident Make Sense  is based on his Master’s thesis, Performing nuclear peace : how nuclear weapons have kept Britain great from Thatcher to Blair, completed at Noragric in 2015. Beaumont went on to complete a doctorate on international hierarchies at Noragric before joining NUPI as a Senior Research Fellow.

The post Studying nuclear storytelling: How Britain makes its bomb make sense appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Karim Merchant & Gry Synnevåg

Following an eight-month period of shuttle diplomacy and challenging negotiation, the U.S. and the Taliban signed a peace agreement in February 2020. The process did not include the Afghan government, who were then faced with a fait accompli placing them at the negotiating table without ownership over confidence-building measures agreed upon by US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and Taliban negotiators in Doha.

1st May deadline for withdrawing US troops

Over a year later, two rounds of talks have taken place to find an agreement on the overall basis for future discussions and a tentative agenda for further talks in due course. The glacial speed of negotiations displays a distinct lack of political will on one side and a rapidly approaching deadline of 1^st May, when US troops are supposed to withdraw from Afghan soil.

In a leaked letter from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, there is clearly-worded frustration over the lack of progress along with the possible political embarrassment of delaying a US military withdrawal if conditions of the US-Taliban peace agreement are not met.

Integration of the Taliban into the government 

Secretary Blinken’s letter clearly states a desire to undermine the hard-fought gains of following due political process in establishing a democratic state that is acceptable to Western eyes by recommending a shift to an interim government. Furthermore, an international conference is to be held in Ankara brokered by the UN with participants including China, Iran, Russia, India and Pakistan. The result will be the integration of the Taliban into some sort of hybridized governmental structure as part of an ambitious roadmap bringing the country into stability through the co-opting of the Taliban.

But who will benefit from yet another externally-driven and highly exclusive attempt at finding an exit strategy for an aid-fatigued international community?

Biggest beneficiary will be the Taliban

The biggest beneficiary will be the Taliban, being given a level of international legitimacy and political leverage to determine the future shape of an Afghan State. This is closely followed by a growing assortment of powerbrokers – not directly part of the current government – who will see this as yet another opportunity to further undermine the Ghani administration and rebuild ever-fluid political alliances in order to strengthen their respective influence over proceedings.  Amongst the international actors, the U.S. will have delivered a feasible vehicle for its withdrawal, whether total or partial, along with regional partners primarily benefitting from the vacuum left by the U.S. and the expansion of proxy imperatives, some of which will undoubtedly be anti-U.S. Finally, the UN will be allowed to move from the sidelines to a more central role, playing the honest broker.

Those who will inevitably lose in the process merely underlines existing institutional and systemic fractures.  An immediate victim will be the Government of Afghanistan, namely the Ghani administration, forced to stand down in the face of an interim or transition government being established. Despite the rhetoric and lobbying from external actors, women, youth, and minorities will continue to face an uncertain future over the rights and gains made since the last Afghan state-building exercise began in 2001.

Gry Synnevåg is an Associate Professor Emeritus at Noragric, where she is also a former Head of Department.  Her main areas of expertise lie within agriculture and natural resource management, food security and sustainable livelihoods, with a geographic focus on conflict and post conflict countries.

Karim Merchant is a Visiting Fellow at Noragric and a consultant on policy, programme and project development and management in the fields of humanitarian assistance, food security, conflict-sensitive development and peacebuilding.

The post Who benefits from an imposed peace process on Afghanistan? appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Anna-Sophie Hobi and Gard Frækland Vangsnes

The COVID-19 pandemic poses various challenges and changes for researchers. Young scholars working within a tight time frame are especially impacted and encouraged to adapt quickly. Social distancing, corona measures, travel restrictions and the constant uncertainty force us to readjust our methods and use digital platforms. Despite the creativity and innovation in methods, the pandemic has deeper implications on our research endeavors and PhD projects and raises profound concerns about methodology and research practice.

Pandemic Methodologies

Based on this concern, the PhD group at Noragric launched a workshop series under the title Pandemic Methodologies as a space for wider discussions, mutual support and idea sharing. The first workshop focused on ethnography and ethnographic research. It was organized by the RAPID cluster on December 15, 2020 and introduced by Anna-Sophie Hobi and Gard Frækland Vangsnes (both PhD Fellows at Noragric) and Andrei Marin (Researcher at Noragric and Head of RAPID). 

An argument for long-term, participatory approaches

In his introduction, Vangsnes described his challenges related to the current impossibility to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Ecuador. While assuming that this problem is widely shared by most social scientists in a pre-data collection stage, Vangsnes’ account was a personal one related to his particular project of studying extractivism, colonialism and indigenous communities in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. His research design was developed on the premises of long-term ethnographic fieldwork based on participant observation. The restrictions imposed by the pandemic currently obstruct the realization of such a project and has generated a thinking around alternatives – what to do?

Referring to anthropologists thinking around the same challenges, Vangsnes mentioned a recent call towards Patchwork Ethnography that seeks to resolve some of the tension caused by the pandemic while drawing on earlier attempts to decolonize ethnography.  Arguably, the critique of traditional’ or ‘romanticized imageries of the hard-to-beat ethnographer, living in a remote village for years before writing an authoritative account of native people’s habits and customs is well-addressed[1] [2] [3] [4]. Modern life and modern expectations may imply a reformation of the ethnographic orthodoxy, yet Vangsnes wanted us to pay attention to this process and be careful not to ‘throw away the baby with the bathwater’[5].

According to Vangsnes, much of anthropology has incorporated the (well-directed) colonial critique in its methodological and ethical frameworks a long time ago, although there is still a need to decolonialize anthropology as (social) science in general[6]. This is not, however, the same as to question the value of long-term fieldwork and participant observation which has generated and keeps generating a kind of data that distinguishes anthropology from other social sciences. While acknowledging the value of moving from ‘knowing of’ (extracting data from informants) to ‘knowing with’ (collaborating with interlocutors), Vangsnes was concerned with an accelerated deconstruction of ethnography fueled by researchers’ time constraints that would in turn undermine the foundational building blocks of ethnographic insight and reduce it to some sort of fast-food, cultural consultancy. Or reactionary, as a return to desk-top anthropology.

This issue was discussed in the seminar along with the distinction between young and established researchers. Facing pandemic restrictions, the combination of time constraints and uncertainty speaks increasingly to a generation of young anthropologists that have yet to carry out their ‘deep immersion’ in the field. Despite a critical discussion of long-term fieldwork, both Vangsnes and Hobi emphasized their troubles dismissing the value of this legacy in favor of a pandemic pragmatism – you just have to do something else within the confines of the pandemic.

As both Vangsnes and Hobi are social anthropologists, the turn to digital interviews and/or data collection in social media appear as a poor alternative. Their concern  is that the current situation begs anthropologists to do something different, that is, a non-ethnographic anthropology which is at best a sociology, a philosophy or an archival study requiring a different methodological apparatus generating a different kind of data. The point here was not that Vangsnes and Hobi refuse to engage with other disciplines that may indeed revitalize their ethnographic scope. Rather, their concern is that the current situation forces them to rethink their projects on unfamiliar methodological terrains. And to do so fast. The question emerging is what are the implications of this?

Field access: old challenges in new wrappings?

While this debate has been ongoing in anthropology departments around the world since the outbreak of the pandemic (see links to blog posts below), the discussion has been surprisingly silent in Norway despite the strict travel restrictions for Norwegian academia. At best, it can be found in methodology courses for master students faced with the same difficulties. Presumably, there are too few PhD/Postdoctoral fellows in the pre-fieldwork stage and the deep stress this causes to these few, seems to be qualitatively different for established researchers that can, in one way or the other, wait until this whole situation calms down before returning to consider a new round of data collection.

This distinction between permanent and temporary academic positions speaks to the broader observation, namely that the pandemic has a differentiated and unequal impact upon people’s lives and work (publication rates, for instance seem to increase as senior researchers have found time to write up in home offices). Nevertheless, research in the sense of data collection, is delayed across the academic community, and qualitative research such as ethnography is particularly affected.

Hobi explained how the pandemic has forced her to rethink her PhD project, especially her field site. Originally, Hobi’s plan was to study lithium mining in Zimbabwe yet given current travel restrictions she is now pitching a larger part of her data collection towards companies and the lithium industry in Norway. This will enable her to work methodologically with digital platforms to collect empirical data (see resources on digital ethnography below). In this scenario, however, participant observation is virtually non-existent along with the temporality of ethnographic fieldwork. Indeed, digital interviews and communication across social media platforms in all its diversity, will generate data, but will it still be ethnographic? What about the dynamics between distance and proximity in this scenario; what about the refreshing reflections on ‘home’ when ‘away’ on fieldwork?

In the seminar, Andrei Marin shared experiences from his own research on challenges gaining access to the field. Marin shared stories of waiting and strategies of accommodating and/or pushing through for access among both Norwegian reindeer herders and Mongolian pastoralists. His major point was that ethnography is haunted with challenges of access which has been part and parcel of the field ever since Malinowski was left stranded on the Trobriander islands during the First World War. In fact, one could essentially say that the struggle to resolve and adapt to these challenges (along with its methodological reflections) has constituted ethnography itself. Yet, isn’t the ongoing pandemic somehow different in the sense that it is all-encompassing and affecting personal/professional lives of all interlocutors and researchers, albeit in idiosyncratic ways?

The latter question was addressed in the discussion: there seemed to be a consensus of the unique and unprecedented character of the pandemic[7]. Yet, there are long-standing ethnographic debates about both what constitute a field and what is data[8]  along with an array of methodological reflections on (in)access(ability)[9]. Accordingly, there seemed to be a consensus that the current situation demands a new meditation on methodologies in which the legacy of ethnographic reflections is worth revisiting. In fact, this meditation can include critical questions as to what ethnography actually is, and to whom, and on what grounds, ethnography is continuously defined¹

Conclusions

The instability and precarity of the COVID-19 pandemic pose a heavy load on the shoulders of young researchers: uncertainty has never been stronger, yet they are under pressure of delivering high-quality research to pursue a career in academia. Each project is individual and therefore requires a different strategy of coping. Researchers can find inspiration through methodological discussions by ethnographers faced with relatable challenges. Although there are presumably few ethnographers currently being affected, the unfoldment of the pandemic (and the vaccination programs) carries an uncertain temporality with uncertain outcomes. We argue that the methodological implications go well beyond the concerns among ethnographic-oriented PhD candidates in a pre-fieldwork stage. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary discussions, exchanges and collaborations – not pragmatism and business as usual, as the conditions of the world and ethnography is moving into unfamiliar methodological terrain. At the same time, we argue that the institutional politics of travel restrictions begs a critical discussion attending to the importance of ethnographic research. For instance, why can journalists work all over the world, at all times, while researchers cannot?

Below, we have listed sources that echo and nuance the points highlighted here, along with references to key texts on digital ethnography/fieldwork.

The next Pandemic Methodologies workshop (early March 2021) is concerned with online interviews: How do setting and relation change when conducting interviews digitally? How can we learn to be sensitive and nuanced across digital platforms? What is lost and gained?

Anna-Sophie Hobi is a PhD Fellow at Noragric. Her main research areas lie within extractive industries, natural resource governance and renewable energy politics with a focus on lithium in Norway and southern Africa.

Gard Frækland Vangsnes is a PhD Fellow at Noragric. His main research interests are in extractivism, specifically mineral mining in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Vangsnes combines perspectives from anthropology, decoloniality and political ecology.

References

[1] Ingold, T. (2014). That’s enough about ethnography!. Hau: Journal of ethnographic theory, 4(1), 383-395.

[2] Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (Eds.). (1986). Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography: a School of American Research advanced seminar. Univ of California Press.

[3] Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. Vintage.

[4] Asad, T. (Ed.). (1973). Anthropology & the colonial encounter (Vol. 6). London: Ithaca Press.

[5] Callon, M., & Latour, B. (1992). Don’t throw the baby out with the bath school! A reply to Collins and Yearley. Science as practice and culture, 343, 368.

[6] Jobson, R. C. (2020). The case for letting anthropology burn: Sociocultural anthropology in 2019. American Anthropologist, 122(2), 259-271.

[7] Góralska, M. (2020). Anthropology from Home: Advice on Digital Ethnography for the Pandemic Times. Anthropology in Action, 27(1), 46-52.

[8] Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science, University of California Press

[9] Hagberg, S., & Körling, G. (2014). Inaccessible fields: doing anthropology in the Malian political turmoil. Anthropologie & développement, (40-41), 143-159.

Digital ethnography

de Seta, G. (2020). Three lies of digital ethnography. Journal of Digital Social Research, 2(1), 77-97.

Pink, S., Horst, H., Postill, J., Hjorth, L., Lewis, T., & Tacchi, J. (2015). Digital ethnography: Principles and practice. Sage

Walker, D. M. (2010). The location of digital ethnography. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: an interdisciplinary journal, 2(3), 23-39.

Blog post and discussions

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1clGjGABB2h2qbduTgfqribHmog9B6P0NvMgVuiHZCl8/edit?ts=5e88ae0a

http://somatosphere.net/2020/ethnography-in-pandamning-times.html/

https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2020/05/22/ethnographic-disruption-in-the-time-of-covid-19/

https://www.americananthro.org/StayInformed/OAArticleDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=25631

http://blog.wennergren.org/2020/06/the-future-of-anthropological-research-ethics-questions-and-methods-in-the-age-of-covid-19-part-i/

https://culanth.org/fieldsights/editors-forum/covid-19

https://ii.umich.edu/cseas/news-events/news/search-news/anthro-in-time-of-covid.html

https://sussexresearchhive.wordpress.com/2020/07/27/new-challenges-to-ethnography-in-the-wake-of-covid-19-reality-through-the-eyes-of-an-overseas-doctoral-researcher/

https://voices.uchicago.edu/linganthlab/covid19-resources/

https://ethnographylab.ca/category/ethnography-in-of-the-pandemic/

https://boasblogs.org/fieldworkmeetscrisis/field-of-exceptional-uncertainty/

http://transformations-blog.com/ethnographic-research-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/

https://leidenanthropologyblog.nl/tags/corona

https://americanethnologist.org/features/collections/pandemic-diaries

https://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2020/09/10/fieldwork-from-afar/

https://anthrocovid.com/

https://www.eth.mpg.de/5478478/news-2020-06-11-01

The post Ethnographic fieldwork 2020/2021: Between a rock and a hard place? appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Karim Merchant & Gry Synnevåg

Yet another crisis for Afghanistan

After 40 years of war and violent conflict, annual natural disasters, high unemployment, persistent poverty and food insecurity, COVID 19 has now added to Afghanistan’s health, social and economic crises, requiring urgent international community response[1].

Over half of the population is living below the poverty line and the latest WB forecast states this will have increased to 70% during 2020 due to the pandemic.    

Dependence on small-scale farming

80-90% of the population rely on self-employment and derive their livelihood and income from agriculture, the agri-food chain and small businesses. Most farmers are small-scale, relying on natural resources, crops and livestock for their survival, making their livelihoods vulnerable to climate, conflict and health related shocks.

The staple crop is wheat, with most of the formal income derived from the sale of livestock, fruit, nuts and vegetables. Ongoing armed clashes with multiple actors make markets difficult to access. In some areas, conflict has made pastureland inaccessible and prevented farmers from accessing their fields. Floods and drought are recurrent, causing soil erosion and reduced yields.   Irrigation structures for cropland are in some cases damaged by conflict or otherwise inaccessible.

The pandemic has reduced income from farming up to 20 % (REACH 2020), and as a coping mechanism farmers are now taking on more debt and falling deeper into poverty.

Historically, a major coping mechanism has been seeking work abroad for remittances, but the COVID-induced border closures have reduced job opportunities. Now, many more families are becoming dependent on humanitarian assistance such as food and cash distribution for their survival.

Challenges for the Afghan government

Collaborating with the international community,  the Afghan government is implementing short and medium-term strategies to cope with the crushing impact of pandemic-related restrictions such as reduced overall consumption, increased agricultural unemployment and reduced remittances to rural communities that are forced to sell or consume productive assets to cope with income loss.

In addition, the government has to deal with fluctuating levels of insecurity, poor infrastructure, a lack of domestically available inputs and import controls and pandemic related border closures – all of which equate to a lack of market access for the coming seasons. This increases the activities of  predatory traders and money lenders, leading to panic buying. The government must also overcome a general mistrust of the NGOs that could help increase outreach to remote rural areas.

Short and medium-term responses

In May 2020, a World Bank-funded national emergency response programme began targeting the most vulnerable beneficiary households identified with the assistance of Community Development Councils (CDCs)^[2]. They will receive either cash transfers or food and hygiene packages – both equivalent to two months income. In theory, this will address some of the financial losses confronting farmers harvesting high value crops with a limited lifespan.

In between the first and second spike in COVID infections, farmers have access to cross-border markets, but this will close down again, reducing market access to district and province commercial centres  in northern Afghanistan, just as they did at the beginning of the spring harvest. Lower prices resulted due to traders being unwilling to bulk buy with the aim of exporting to neighboring countries^[3]. With limited post-harvest storage available for many cash crops, much will go to waste and create greater indebtedness, as farmers have to dump produce as the result of supply chain problems.  Larger livestock herders are similarly affected by the lack of quality fodder and reduced offtake reducing income and increasing distress sales.

A WB-funded second phase through the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) will support livelihoods and economic stability of farmers through seasonal employment in the form of Cash or Food for Work at times when local labour demands are low in between agricultural activity peaks. This support will complement the ongoing Citizens Charter National Priority Program that is already transferring social development Block Grants to CDCs.[4] In areas identified as most heavily impacted by poor productive infrastructure,  CDCs will identify household members on a similar criteria as the previous activity, community members will work on building local infrastructure, and this will contribute to a reduction of households shifting from acute to chronic food insecurity.

Most projects of this nature, however, will probably focus on local-level infrastructure where the quality of work is of a low standard with compacted gravel roads and rapidly rehabilitated surface water infrastructure returning to their previous condition very quickly.

A possible option to improve this approach could be to increase the budgets for these small-scale infrastructure projects, using a combination of local tendering and community-based contracting. This would ensure prolonged benefits to the community in terms of physical connectivity and access to basic irrigation structures. In addition, local labour could be recruited from the community.

Another option could also be a more creative use of cash transfers to rural communities, using a mixture of sector-specific and unconditional multi-purpose grants based on market assessments to inject cash into the local economy and stimulate on and off-farm income generation. This would help offset local loss of income and provide diverse opportunities for micro and small enterprise establishment. However, this would probably need to be undertaken by NGOs in close collaboration with CDCs, and in consultation with relevant governmental departments. In a post-conflict environment where governmental institutions are weak, NGOs usually have the comparative advantage of close collaboration with communities, local knowledge of farming habits and local market demands.

Planning for the post-COVID period

In the longer term, the agriculture sector faces a number of challenges, such as what to do with the remnants of the first and recently completed second harvest of the year.

Will enough key agricultural inputs be available to maintain or increase production for the next year with intermittent border closures and transport restrictions exacerbated by the pandemic? How will interruptions of supplies (such as seed and fertiliser) and credit, and scarcity of labour be mitigated? Although these problems are faced by commercial farmers and smallholders alike, the impact and coping mechanisms will be very different.

In the case of smallholders, such interruptions will result in increased distress sale of assets such as livestock and equipment, accompanied by an increasing debt spiral brought about by informal borrowing.  Whereas commercial farmers will immediately cut costs by reducing labour and rescheduling loans from formal credit institutions and diversifying their remaining investments away from the agriculture sector. The pandemic has decreased access to credit and a stable market for both smallholder and commercial farmer alike.

At the local level, for poor households with little to no capacity to bulk-purchase or store food, frequent trips to informal market structures are often the only option. Supporting these markets to comply with hygiene measures, and ensuring access to them, is therefore crucial if they are to maintain their essential role in food distribution.

The agriculture sector is heavily reliant on imported inputs.  There remains an acute shortage of certified and quality-ensured seed, along with other inputs such as fertiliser, which is being sold at 300% the normal price in some local markets.  There is widespread concern over the potential impacts this will have on agriculture and livestock production.

Seed needs to be locally sourced and a greater reliance on farmer-to-farmer exchange should be encouraged. In such an emergency, local seed banks should be expanded to more communities, ensuring that smallholders do not wait for expensive improved seeds to arrive, which would create a further dependency.

Linking district level public agriculture services that provide technical support and a modest amount of government funding with active farmers who provide local knowledge and outreach to remote communities may well be the way forward.

One such model is the recently piloted Farmers Learning Resource Centre (FLRC) approach. The FLRC is a physical platform/venue for information exchange and experience sharing. Assisting in the articulation of the farmers’ demand for extension services and will provide a mechanism for linking the demand-driven service suppliers. It comprises governmental staff, farmer’s groups and individuals who are directly involved in agriculture, including the private sector.  So far, it has shown great promise in linking limited extension networks to other resources, such as the CDCs, building on the knowledge and experience of farmers and building meaningful linkages with the private sector as part of a long-term strategy.

To bring in the private sector, incentives are required to engage at the district level through innovative credit and loan products.

Although Afghanistan suffers from food system constraints similar to many Fragile and Conflict Affected States, few countries have experienced such a large scale of development assistance. In fact, it has been argued that such levels of support have exceeded absorption capacity of the State and undermined the resilience factors often associated with food systems, such as self-reliance, being replaced by an increasing dependency culture when challenged by high levels of insecurity and natural disaster.

The constant emphasis on short-term measures will not address the food system constraints identified here, if medium and long-term measures are not part of the humanitarian intervention’s design.

The pandemic has exposed existing fractures in Afghan food systems, with systemic disconnect between short-term humanitarian interventions dealing with the initial shocks faced by farming communities, and the medium-term development packages that follow. In both short and medium-term approaches, much still needs to be done to ensure flexibility and inclusiveness to women and youth. In addition, the Food and Nutrition Security actors are predominantly international institutions with little governmental ownership. This remains a constraint in moving towards a more resilient systems approach to agricultural production.

Medium to long-term interventions tend to be prescriptive and top-down, with a push for market-orientated activities that overlook the fact that most farmers are smallholders, unable to collaborate with such programmes. This creates income polarization and horizontal and vertical inequity. Food insecurity, in turn, continues to create a lack of social cohesion and greater insecurity for the population.
_______________

[1] Afghanistan has been listed as having the third highest numbers of its population in a food crisis, globally speaking.  According to the Global Report on Food crisis, 37% of the Afghan population (11.3 million) suffers from acute food insecurity and the number of acutely malnourished children is increasing to unacceptable levels.

[2] Community Development Councils are groups of community members elected by the community to serve as its decision-making body. The CDC is the social and development foundation at community level, responsible for implementation and supervision of development projects and liaison between the communities and government and non-government organizations” (NSP OM, 2009)

[3] It should be noted that at the time of writing, many traders in Herat and Mazar confirmed border closures had increased illegal transportation of agricultural goods, but overall traffic of this nature was a fraction of overall cross-border trade in fruit, vegetable, grain and livestock.

[4] Currently covering a menu of activities ranging from basic water supply and renewable energy interventions to farm-to-market roads.

Gry Synnevåg is an Associate Professor at Noragric, where she is also a former Head of Department.  Her main areas of expertise lie within agriculture and natural resource management, food security and sustainable livelihoods, with a geographic focus on conflict and post conflict countries.

Karim Merchant is a Visiting Fellow at Noragric and a consultant on policy, programme and project development and management in the fields of humanitarian assistance, food security, conflict-sensitive development and peacebuilding.

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Written by Morten Jerven, Department of International Environment and Development Studies

I am very happy to announce that the database on taxation for African countries that covers the whole 20th century is finally ready. Thilo Albers, Marvin Suesse and I have been collecting tax and revenue data on all African polities since the 1890s until the present time.

Before this dataset, the most comprehensive coverage was from the 1980s until today – as described in this article by Wilson Prichard. There has also been some groundbreaking work to present taxation data on the colonial period, such as that by Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg who has worked mostly on British colonies. Philip Havik has worked on the Portuguese colonies, and Denis Cogneau, Yannick Dupraz and Sandrine Mesplé-Somps have done comparative work on taxation in the French Empire. Nevertheless, even with all this empirical research over the past decades, and despite the consensus view (namely that taxation is important for development), there are no simple answers to basic questions such as to whether Nigeria taxes more today than it did 20, 30, 50 or 100 years ago, let alone any database that could compare the taxation burden in Nigeria with that of Niger. We can do that now.

One challenge, of course, has been to physically collect all of the data. We have collected data in French, Italian, Portuguese, English and German archives, as well as using national statistical abstracts and IMF reports to obtain data from the post-colonial period. The biggest problem, however, is how to express it comparably across space and time.

The common summary statistic to express taxation is government revenue as a share of GDP. One problem of this is that GDP is mis-measured for post-colonial times, but the far bigger obstacle is that there are very few estimates of GDP for the period before 1960 (some exceptions). We have therefore collected data on urban, unskilled wages for all polities for all of the country years. When one deflates revenue by daily wages, one gets a readily interpretable expression of real revenue. And so, we can present:

Please read the whole paper, but let me stress a few remarkable things:

1. Data availability. The availability of real revenue data on African economies just increased from partial coverage in 1980-2010 and sporadic time series for some countries in 1900-1940 to a complete time series from 1900- 2010. We consider this a major contribution in itself, and since we offer a metric of fiscal capacity across the 20th century, we expect this to be a major resource for other researchers.
2. Growth. Fiscal capacity grew more than tenfold. The mainstream approach to African states and taxation is focused on low capacity and stagnation. Our time series challenges that view.
3. Direct taxes. Direct taxes are considered hard to collect. Look at the high share of direct taxes in the colonial period. We think it makes the case for re-considering different paths to the ‘modern fiscal state’ in Africa.
4. Natural Resources. The stereotypical ‘natural resource curse’ view of the African state is that it depends little on direct tax, and a lot on natural resource rents. This is true only for the recent growth period of ‘Africa Rising’.
5. Timing. The perception of “state weakness” originates mostly from the crisis period between 1980 and 2000, neglecting periods of strong growth before and afterwards.

All in all, the paper suggest that the question “why do African states tax so little” might be too reductive and misleading. Thanks to this new dataset we can now explore and test more nuanced theories and research questions.

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Morten Jerven is a Professor at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies at NMBU. He has a PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics and has published widely on African economic development, particularly on patterns of economic growth and on economic development statistics. His books are based on research in Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Botswana.

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