I like your article, but have a problem with the solutions. I will take one example “listen to local priorities rather than imposing international agendas.”

The problem is not listening or not . The problem is who are the locals that will set priorities?.I have been working in development for the last 15 years of my life and worked with the so-called grass root level. The sad reality is that the grass root level are not grass root anymore. NGO’s movements developed into a businesslike enterprise in most developing countries. It has it ‘s own experts that not only live out of development money but turned it to a profitable industry ( profitable for them of course).
On the other hand on what bases people will set priorities in countries were information and education are lacking. Short term priority maybe posible to be identified. But, health is not a short term plan and can’ not be equal to building a needed bridge or a class room. It should engage different administrative levels and authorities and should be part of a long term plan.

I have been living in Afghanistan for the last eight months and just stumbled across your excellent post on politicophobia – and look forward to exploring the rest of your blog.

I just have one comment regarding your position on the Shi’ite family law. My relatively limited interactions here and what I have observed – of course sadly restricted by the security rules of my organisation – let me to believe that the law was primarily pushed to win the support of Shi’ite clerics, despite the fact that Shi’ite populations tend to have more liberal views about women’s role than other groups in the country. Where I live Shi’ite women are the only one not wearing the burka. There are also reports that Shi’ite populations favour much more women’s education than other groups, and that while this community has been marginalised in the past, it has made great progress in terms of education and presence in professional jobs and government structures. Provinces like Bamyan and Daikundi have among the highest levels of school enrollment, including for girls and have been topping the charts in terms of university entrance exams too. I am told that the same phenomenon has been happening in Pakistan among Afghan refugee population.

I also came to believe that the new social norms resulting from three decades of conflict, especially the more conservative ones following the Mujahedin and Taliban periods, have create peer pressure that prevents more secular individuals to express their ideas or adopt a less conservative lifestyle. Of course Afghanistan is too complex to be understood -even a little- in such a short period, and I may be completely wrong but from my limited perspective, I believe that there are many more Afghans who do not see “foreign” values as such a threat to their culture but rather wish for a liberalisation of the political and social spheres in their country.

I always think about the effectiveness of aid and Afghan on going insecurity, does Afghanistan receive a ‘real’ aid at the moment? I have no answer for it,

As interesting as I find the debate around Dirk Niebel’s appointment, I am little bit surprised that very few look at it from a ‘rational’, political science and organizational studies perspective: There is a Western democracy and believe it or not they are actually appointing a politician as minister, based on party proportonality and political considerations rather than an ‘expert’ who actually knows about the subject area! This happens all the time-and it very often happens around issues of foreign or development policy, because, as much as we would like to see them as a priority, they are not topics to win votes and get appointments. His predecessor, the ‘red Heidi’, a high school teacher from Gross-Gerau in Hesse, was not exactly an international development heavy-weight. No news here. Niebel is not much different from most of his predecessors. Merging/closing down the BMZ…I can’t remember an incoming government that was not surrounded by such rumours. Despite any rational logic large parts of the BMZ are still based in Bonn-and they actually do relatively well in this little development biotope along the Rhein. Its resilience to be moved to Berlin, merged with the Foreign Office or simply be shut down is remarkable-less so if you think of basic organizational theory and bureaucratic principles. The BMZ is a survivor, by far the smallest ministry and seemingly immune to fundamental changes. Having a ministry for development that does not implement projects (this is done by gtz and similar agencies) and is separate from ‘official’ foreign policy is unique and seems old-fashioned-as much of the development ‘scene’ in Bonn, the highly promoted and subsidised ‘international’ and UN city, seems. The Federal presence in Bonn has always been used in the promotion of the city and is at the core of the outdated ‘Bonn-Berlin contract’ that was signed when the government moved to Berlin in the 1990s. My paradoxical answer is that it is exactly its outdated-ness that mobilizes the political lobby time and again-and until know Bonn seems to have secured its places in the development scene of which the BMZ is likely to remain a part of for the next few years.

But Daniel also touches on another interesting point: The ‘neoliberalisation’ of aid policy. Here in the UK the conservative lobby is increasingly criticizing what they call ‘Fake Aid’ . The International Policy Network (www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/Fake_Aid.pdf) as well as the Adam Smith Institute (http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/dfid%E2%80%99s-fake-aid–200909044064/) are criticizing DFID spending ‘nearly £1bn on spurious “communications” activities since 2000′ among other points of critique. In this week’s ECONOMIST there is also an interesting article about UK’s foreign aid (‘Wrapped up against the cold’-now only availablee to subscribers…) and Andrew Mitchell, the Tory spokesman on aid is quoted that he want to have ‘a little more private-sector DNA, a bit more civil-service DNA and a little less NGO DNA’. My feeling is that Mr Niebel can definitely identify with more ‘private-sector DNA’, the traditional domain of the FDP.

So the aid policy pendulum may swing (again) in the ‘neoliberal’ direction, but the BMZ will remain a happy swinger’s club…figuratively speaking, of course!