VZCZCXRO1877
PP RUEHDBU RUEHPW
DE RUEHBUL #0407/01 0561144
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 251144Z FEB 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7489
INFO RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000407 
 
AIDAC 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/FO, SCA/RA, AND SCA/A 
DEPT PASS AID/ASIA BUREAU 
USDA FOR FAS OA/GSM/MILLER 
DEPT PASS USTR FOR GERBER AND KLEIN 
DEPT PASS TDA FOR STEIN AND GREENIP 
CENTCOM FOR CSTC-A, USFOR-A 
NSC FOR JWOOD 
OSD FOR SHIVERS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O.12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON ETRD EAID EAGR BEXP AF TI
SUBJECT: ASSESSMENT OF AFGHAN MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, 
IRRIGATION, AND LIVESTOCKQS FIRST ONE HUNDRED DAYS 
 
SUMMARY AND COMMENT 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Afghanistan Minister of Agriculture, 
Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL) Asif Rahimi took office 
in October 2008 with the aim of restructuring and 
revitalizing the Ministry and building on his success as 
Deputy Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development 
(MRRD).  This cable provides an informal assessment of 
Minister RahimiQs performance in his first 100 days. 
Anecdotal evidence so far suggests that while Minister 
Rahimi is ambitiously working to re-launch and 
restructure MAILs strategy and staff - including pushing 
for a massive increase in budget - he is significantly 
constrained by the challenges of MAILs bloated and 
corruption-afflicted bureaucracy, especially in an 
election year.  That said, Rahimi is considered by some 
donors to be a big improvement over his predecessor and 
there is hope that under his leadership this critical 
sector will receive more and better central government 
attention than it has in the past.  End summary and 
comment. 
 
BACKGROUND 
 
¶2.  (U) Asif Rahimi took over as Minister of MAIL in 
October 2008.  Before becoming Minister, Rahimi was the 
Deputy Minister of MRRD, where he oversaw the widely 
applauded National Solidarity Program (NSP), an 
initiative that distributes block grants to Community 
Development Councils.  MRRD was established in 2002 with 
assistance from donors and considerable support from 
expatriate advisors.  MRRD was able to hire younger, more 
educated Afghans who were better compensated than most 
civil servants. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) MRRD has a history of high performance, 
transparency, and good field execution.  MRRD and MAIL 
have traditionally been rivals for primacy in the work to 
develop rural Afghanistan, with MAIL focusing primarily 
on increasing agricultural production, improving 
irrigation systems, livestock, and rural enterprise 
development programs while MRRD focuses on community 
development and delivery of small-scale infrastructure 
projects.  MAIL and MRRD are now working together more 
closely, following Rahimis move.  MAIL is an old 
ministry and especially influenced by the Soviet era in 
which Kabul University agriculture graduates were 
guaranteed lifetime employment at MAIL.  MAIL now has 
around 10,000 employees compared to only a few thousand 
at MRRD.  Evidence suggests that MAIL has too many staff, 
with the majority based in Kabul. 
 
MINISTER RAHIMIS TRANSITION AND NEW VISION FOR MAIL 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Minister Rahimis move to MAIL was largely seen 
by both MAIL and MRRD staff as a vindication of MRRDQs 
more progressive approaches and success in comparison to 
MAIL, with its relatively bloated and corruption- 
afflicted bureaucracy.  Rahimi brought with him from MRRD 
two key non-USAID expatriate advisors on whom the 
Minister relies for advice, decision-making, and strategy 
development.  One of Minister Rahimis first major focus 
areas has been changing management, which has included 
re-deploying older, poor-performing civil servants to 
less prominent positions within the Ministry, including 
three deputy ministers.  Further, MAIL requested donors 
to fund new embedded advisors as per the MRRD model, 
while existing donor-funded advisors - including those 
from USAID - were elevated in status.  Despite these 
reform efforts, the overall mood of MAIL employees 
(according to some advisors) was mass confusion and 
depression.  Minister Rahimi has also begun looking at 
financial management issues and exploring possible cases 
of corruption.  Comment: International donors have 
welcomed Minister Rahimis appointment and have expressed 
optimism for change and progress in the agricultural 
sector.  End Comment. 
 
 
KABUL 00000407  002 OF 003 
 
 
¶5.  (U) Minister RahimiQs vision for MAIL and the revival 
of the agricultural sector of Afghanistan is to restore 
the countrys licit agricultural economy through 
increasing production and productivity, improved natural 
resource management (including water resources), improved 
physical infrastructure, and market development.  This 
vision will be realized with a more comprehensive 
approach to agricultural development that is integrated 
with other ministries and partners, including the private 
sector. This new direction will use a bottom-up approach 
based at the community and district levels.  Focus areas 
during his first 100 days have included food security, 
especially in the drought-affected areas, distribution of 
seed and fertilizer, and crop disease control.  Future 
plans include addressing the top needs of farmers such as 
ensuring access to quality input supplies, irrigation and 
on-farm water supply, cold storage facilities, 
processing, training, farm equipment, agricultural 
credit, and policy analysis and reform. 
 
¶6. (U) The Minister has shown an interest in increasing 
the role of th private sector in agricultural 
development, stating that MAIL needs to operate within 
defined public and private sector roles.  Some specific 
initiatives to build the private sector include 
development of private farm equipment centers and 
strengthening the capacity of the private sector 
development department within MAIL.  The Minister has 
also supported USAIDs establishment of private farm 
stores and the privatization of veterinary services. 
 
COMBINED MAIL/U.N. AGRICULTURE TASK FORCE 
 
¶7.  (U) Almost simultaneously with Minister RahimiQs 
transition to MAIL, the U.N. established - under World 
Bank chairmanship - a new Agriculture Task Force (ATF) to 
better coordinate donors agriculture programs.  Minister 
Rahimi attended the first U.N. ATF meeting and explained 
that President Karzai has asked him to set up a similar 
task force under the direction of the Goverment of 
Afghanistan.  The two task forces wer then combined. 
Since that time the ATF has mt every few weeks with 
Minister Rahimis exatriate advisors setting the agenda 
and establishing the tasks to be performed.  This 
continued reliance on expats is despite donor efforts to 
increase Afghan ownership. 
 
FOCUS ON FOOD SECURITY CRISIS 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Immediately upon assuming MAIL leadership, 
Minister Rahimi established an expatriate food crisis 
coordinator and used the ATF donor group to better 
understand and coordinate all food crisis activities. 
Under the coordinator, MAIL has worked effectively with 
the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), the Food and 
Agriculture Organization (FAO), and MRRD to coordinate 
both WFP and government food distribution.  MAIL has also 
been involved in improved seed and fertilizer 
distribution to increase food production, especially 
under a $60 million USAID seed and fertilizer voucher 
program. 
 
NEW ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND BUDGET REQUEST 
 
¶9.  (U) MAIL has launched a new programmatic 
organizational chart that emphasizes five major areas of 
activity: Agriculture Production and Productivity, 
Agriculture Infrastructure, Economic Regeneration, 
Natural Resource Management, and Programmatic Support and 
Change Management.  This new structure is not yet 
established in the form of formal civil service reform of 
MAIL; this will take at least 18-24 months to complete. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) According to MAILs expatriate advisor, the 
ministry requested a $189 million development program 
budget for fiscal year 2009 - 2010, which runs from March 
2009 to March 2010, of which $34 million was unspent 
carryover from last fiscal year.  However, the Ministry 
 
KABUL 00000407  003 OF 003 
 
 
of Finance (MOF) approved only a total program budget of 
$39.8 million.  MOF would allow spending of up to an 
additional $125 million if MAIL can secure it from 
donors; Rahimi has already flagged this funding shortfall 
to donors.  All of these figures are for program spending 
and do not include MAILs operational budget for 
recurring costs such as salaries.   Agriculture is 
prioritized in Afghanistans new National Development 
Strategy (presented in June 2008), and this request would 
have been a large increase over MAILs prior budgets. 
Comment: Since evidence suggests that MAIL has had 
difficulty programming and efficiently expending its 
existing budget, institutional capacity would need to be 
developed for MAIL to effectively implement programs at 
much higher funding levels.  End Comment. 
 
STAFF CHALLENGES 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Beyond seeking additional expatriate advisors 
to improve MAIL execution and performance, Minister 
Rahimi is working internally to identify existing MAIL 
employees who will be considered the leaders of the 
future.  A list of 100-150 current MAIL employees who are 
considered to have management potential has been created 
and these employees have received special training. 
However, Minister Rahimi has also agreed with President 
Karzai not to lower the overall number of MAIL employees 
even though many are redundant.  Many allegedly corrupt 
MAIL employees continue to serve in key positions though 
Minister Rahimi has publicly announced his intentions to 
rid MAIL of such problems. 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Minister Rahimi is trying to create and 
implement a reform program, but success will require time 
and political suppot.  MAILs overall performance - both 
technicaly and administratively - is slow to change, an 
we would not expect performance to show majo improvement 
in just 100 days.  Still, Rahimi is a big improvement 
over his predecessor ad there is hope that under his 
leadership thi critical sector will receive more and 
bettercentral government attention than it has in the 
past. 
DELL