UPDATED 25/8 - A Little History and A Short Detour from Biafra to Afganistan : Tom McDermott

 

A Brief side-step this week

This week I had planned  to wrap up my series of articles on UNICEF’s role during the Biafran War. Instead, in line with the news of the week, I thought it may be more timely this week to look at UNICEF’s early days in Afghanistan.  

I read recently a press release that refers to "UNICEF's 65 year history in Afghanistan".  In fact, that history goes back even further - to 1949 (i.e. 72 of UNICEF's 75 year history).  Unfortnately, documentation of UNICEF’s early days in Afghanistan is very limited, in comparison to what we know about our early days in China, India, the Middle East and Europe - or even Biafra. 

As readers of this column will know, I like to write about UNICEF’s history in terms of the people who made that history, rather than the events, programmes, and statistics often used to tell the story of UNICEF. Unfortunately, in the case of Afghanistan, I have not found much information about the key people involved. I am hoping that some of you who have worked in the country may be able to fill in the blanks.

Photo: Afghan Girl Scouts in the 1950s  

Key dates

Many thanks to Fouad Kronfol who has filled in the following important dates: 

Basic Agreement on 4 July 1950 Programme aid started in 1950 Programme management provided from: 1949-62 covered by Area Office in India 1963-64 SubOffice set up reporting to AO in India 1965-91 Country Office set up, reporting to ROSCA, Delhi 1992-94 Country Office attached to ROSA ...evacuated to Peshawar, Pakistan 1994- 1995 Country Office detached from Asia and added to REECA (Regional Office for East Europe) then at NYHQ. date not known Afghanistan Country Office moved from CEE/CIS to ROSA , Kathmandu .  

Afghanistan

UNICEF’s work in Afghanistan was initially managed by the New Delhi office and its first Representative, Glan Davies. It is not clear from the documents when a separate country office was established, nor do we know the name of the first Representative in Kabul.

There was apparently an early plan to transfer responsibility for Afghanistan from New Delhi to the Pakistan country office in Karachi  after Pakistan's independence in 1947.  However, a major dispute (and a minor armed conflict) soon broke out between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the border and ownership of 'Pashtoonistan'.  The issue continued until 1976 when Afghanistan recognized the Durrand line as the border between the two countries,    

From the memoirs of Sam Keeny, UNICEF’s second Regional Director in Asia, we know that UNICEF’s first projects in Afghanistan were already underway by 1949 and included assistance to midwifery training and to a national malaria control programme.

According to Keeny, two daughters of the then Prime Minister, Shah Mahmood Khan,* were among the first women in the country enrolled in the midwifery courses supported by UNICEF.  During Keeny’s first visit to Kabul (in 1950?), one of the two daughters reported that she had just given birth to a child, and said that through her delivery she had drawn heavily the knowledge she gained in the training. As Keeny noted, the prestige given to modern midwifery by the participation of the Prime Minister’s daughters was enormous and led many other young women to enrol.

Prime Minister Shah Mahmood Khan speaks to students at Delhi University

* Shah Mahmood Khan was also the uncle of the King Mohammed Zahir Shah   (corrected w. thanks to G. Habibi)

In the 1950s UNICEF joined with UNESCO in developing teacher training projects at the Kabul Academy for Teacher Training and in six regional training centers. The programme included assistance for curriculum development, pre-service and in-service training of teachers, and training of principals and administrators. The programme gave special attention to the training of women teachers, and also supported the development of special literacy projects for women who had never attended schools.

According to one Afghan historian, M. Hassan Kakar, by the late 1950s the number of educated women working as nurses, midwives and teachers led the government to issue an official proclamation in 1959 that women need not be veiled. This announcement went down well in all the major cities - with one important exception - Kandahar. There the inept manner in which the Governor tried to enforce the decree sparked a short-lived rebellion, resulting in the deaths of 60 people.  

By the 1970s UNICEF had also begun to invest in rural water supply. In Afghanistan, as in Nepal, this meant mainly the development of spring-fed gravity water systems for villages. Martin Beyer notes that Leo Goulet was the key UNICEF figure developing these systems. He also notes that when survey teams first arrived in some villages, the entire population would run off into the hills, fearing that the teams were tax-collectors.

In terms of expenditures UNICEF assistance grew quickly. In the ten years from 1949 to 1959 UNICEF’s assistance amounted to only $1.28 million. From 1960 to 69 this grew to $4.9 million, and in the 1970s to $15.8 million. Even so, by comparison to many other countries, our investments in Afghanistan were quite small. For the entire period from 1947 to 1985, UNICEF spent only $33.8 million in the country.

Your help is needed

Please help us learn more about UNICEF’s history in Afghanistan. One important document which I would like to find for the UNICEF@75 history project is :

More Than An Agency: A History of UNICEF in Afghanistan" compiled by G. Habibi, S. Doraiswami and Jack Charnow - 1986

There is a copy of this report in the UNICEF archives, but unfortunately the project has been long hobbled for lack of funding, and so this report (and many others) has not yet been digitized for reading online. If you have a copy, please let me know.

Midwife training -1955

Nurse and rural health workers - Kandahar - 1960s

Women lab technicians in the Kabul Vaccine Institute - 1960s

Co-ed biology classes at Kabul University - 1960s

Afghan Women

It is worth recalling that Afghan women obtained the right to vote in 1919, just one year after women in the UK, and one year before women in the US. In the 1950s the government officially banned the custom of purdah. In the 1960s the country adopted a new constitution which set out equality of women with men in many areas of life and public participation. Sadly, since the mid-1970s the rights of women have been steadily rolled back and especially so during the years of Taliban rule.

The following photos do not have any direct connection to UNICEF, but are good reminders of the life of some portion of urban women in the 1960s and 1970s.

Students at the Polytechnic - 1970s

Two women at a Kabul Fashion Show - 1966

Dressmaking School in Kabul - 1962

It is interesting to note that this school inspired a great interest in global fashion trends, and led to the import and wide distribution of the fashion magazine, Vogue, thus putting urban Afghan women in touch with global trends.

1972 - students at Kabul University

This photo has an interesting and much more recent history. 

According to the Washington Post, then US President Donald Trump decided in July 2017 to pull out US troops from Afghanistan. His military advisors argued strongly against doing so. After a final meeting with the advisors, he decided to do as his predecessor, Barack Obama, had done - mount one more 'surge' of troops and then pull out a few months later. The idea was that 'a final push' could settle down the insurgency, and allow the US to pull out without appearing to have lost the war. 

His decision was based largely on the advice of his National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster,** who in a final meeting showed Trump the photo above to convince him that western life could return in Afghanistan - if the US would just be patient and continue fighting the Taliban for another year. The meeting and the photo apparently convinced Trump that he should 'give it one more try'. Trump referred specifically to the photo as the reason he had changed his mind.

Now, four years later, the US is finally taking the steps that it could and probably should have taken in 2011 under Obama and again in 2017 under Trump - pull out !!

** H.R. McMaster was a retired Lieutenant General who became one of several National Security Adviosrs to Trump.

Read more articles on UNICEF's history