OPINION:
KABUL, Afghanistan
Good government is scarce, and bad government sells itself, which makes for bad news for those of us in the business of selling good government.
Now we hear another call from a leader for a communications strategy to win “hearts and minds” in Afghanistan. Those in power typically equate communications strategy with media relations, along with the inference that the media can be “handled” by someone clever with words, hence the abhorrent term “spin.”
Spin starts with the failure to define a valid “technical case” necessary to solve a problem, which is the basis for a “positioning statement”- the single sentence that guides messages consistent with actions over time: “This is what we did” (a short-term message) and “this is why” (the long-term positioning statement).
The “over time” is important. If the premise is right, the technical case is proved, and actions and messages are in sync, then the arguments made day in and day out will parse for the public. This is the basis for communication strategy and, when well executed, success, as measured by actions taken and attitudes changed. Substance trumps “spin.” Or should.
If it’s so easy, why isn’t it more common? Because it is too easy to avoid hard truth.
In Afghanistan, going backward means admitting the mistakes that led to losing the “hearts and minds,” and going forward without real change means repeating the past, which leads to a dilemma and a hard truth that governments and donors dare not speak: After eight years, for all the planning, “log frames,” “capacity building” and “sustainability,” their combined efforts have delivered a government of failed ministries flapping like so many plastic bags caught on Kabul razor wire.
Granted, the central bank works now. It didn’t in 2003. But that’s a rare exception. In truth, the government would all but collapse without the small army of international advisers who must work through Afghan counterparts, most often in a vain or painfully slow effort to produce the progress the governments and donors seek. No one among the advisers I know disagrees.
What’s the solution? One option: Allow international advisers to take charge, with the authority to become “doers” until the Afghan government, ministry by ministry, can perform to an “advanced country” standard. If the transition takes 20 or 30 years, then 2010 should be Year One. Use those advisers and projects already in place as a base. Most if not all of the projects are well-conceived, just not effectively executed. As it is, advisers fight a time and talent battle - too little of each. Projects end, people change, any progress achieved walks out the door.
Lacking the will to deliver that message to Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a condition for continued future aid, governments and donors prop up their spurious case for the status quo with a benchmark achieved here and positive indicator there, claiming the model works. Such “progress” has just been “undersold.”
With little actual progress evident, discussion inevitably turns to communications strategy, messages and mechanics. Governments and donors skip past the failures associated with the current model and sitting government and stress the need for a stronger selling effort. Comfort, no doubt, will come in the form of reassuring brainstorming sessions to discuss messages and campaign mechanics - television and radio buys and so forth.
But word fixes won’t work. Real progress would create its own word-of-mouth communications strategy. There is no substitute.
Communications can’t change the fact there there is too little actual progress to show. The current model has failed to deliver a reasonable return and, importantly, fails to answer the question going forward: “Why should anyone expect more from the model now?” Those who should know best, the many dedicated, honest advisers who struggle here daily to effect change, will respond they don’t see change happening.
I suspect opinion research would support the view told to me recently by an educated Afghan friend: “We fight among ourselves until there is an outside threat. Then, we fight together.” As time runs out and tolerance wears thin, the Afghan people ironically begin to perceive the international community of governments and donors less as benefactors and more and more as interfering outsiders. So, the longer it takes, the more difficult it will be not only to win, but to retain the favor of “hearts and minds.”
Afghanistan is not post-World War II Europe, with a talent pool capable of self-reconstruction with the help of an investor and a program known as the Marshall Plan. Winning hearts and minds starts with two simple truths: The best we can hope to do is far more modest than what Gen. George C. Marshall envisioned for Europe. And, in Afghanistan, we still don’t have a proven plan to get it done.
William Cleary is a communications strategist. He has worked in 23 countries.
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