Just Wars

2 February 2021

I’m proud to announce the publication of our SIGAR lessons learned report detailing the challenges donors faced as they tried to build a credible electoral process in Afghanistan over the last two decades, at a cost of $1.2 billion. The report is based on hundreds of U.S. government documents and interviews with more than 100 people, including US and European officials and implementing partners who provided and oversaw the assistance—as well as more than 50 Afghan officials, parliamentarians, and candidates.

We found that the return on the U.S. investment was poor. Electoral security is steadily deteriorating; election commissions are chronically weak; the voter registry is vulnerable to manipulation; fraud permeates the entire electoral cycle and especially the dispute resolution process; election observers lack the training and experience to hold election officials accountable; election technology is merely creating another means of contesting the elections; and donor support is lopsided. Donors spend most of their money right before an election, and it drops off soon afterward as they move on to other priorities. So they miss critical opportunities to build credible electoral institutions and staff between elections. This donor rollercoaster model is common in electoral assistance globally, and it’s often sufficient to ensure elections take place, but frequently not sufficient to help make them more credible.

I’m honored to have led such an extraordinary team of analysts who brought this report together. Now we begin the hard part of convincing donors that their assistance will be more effective if they focus on building electoral institutions, not just preparing for Election Day.

Here is an interactive summary of the report: https://www.sigar.mil/interactive-reports/elections/index.html

And here is the full PDF version: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-16-LL.pdf