Life For a Humanitarian Worker in Afghanistan

November 2009
Each day in Afghanistan hangs on tenuous strings of the security situation. The general level of insecurity means that taking precautions is a way of life- adding a sinister edge to things that we take for granted elsewhere. Making ones way to the office each day is no longer a simple task of waking up and treading the often walked paths blindfolded! In Afghanistan, it means deciding on a new route to office each day and not repeating it in the next few days! The only thing that prevents one from having a walk in London is the weather. In Afghanistan, a walk alone on the streets is impossible due to bomb threats, kidnapping threats and host of other threats! It is therefore no surprise that each day, my inbox greets me with an unending list of security updates.

The small peaks and lows in the otherwise shooting-out-of-the-page graph of Afghan security situation determines what my day will actually turn out to be! Well laid out plans often become the sacrificial goats in face of the latest security situation. Inshaallah, the often used phrase in Afghanistan acquires a new relevance in the current security situation. Indeed, any plan that one makes hinges on the will of the factors beyond our control!

Afghan elections have been in the world news, sometimes for the wrong reasons. The legitimacy of the elections has already suffered a critical blow at both national and international level due to the widespread fraud and violence that accompanied the elections. Given the fluid election scenario, it is no surprise that all conversations in Kabul start with an analysis of the post election scenario. However, there is no reliable prediction on what the security/insecurity implications will be with either of the two main candidates winning the election. For us as an INGO in Afghanistan, this means that the immediate future will continue to be ruled by uncertainties.

Kabul is the centre of INGO base with all INGOs operating along the length and breadth of Afghanistan maintaining atleast a presence in Kabul. The thriving centre of UN agencies, Bi-lateral agencies, INGO and NGOs in Kabul makes it an ideal place for managing coordination issues. A host of coordination forums exist, the key ones among those are strategically chosen by us to participate in. A considerable amount of time and energy is spent on coordination. Almost on a daily basis, one is coordinating with one or the other coordination forums, ranging from security focused ones to ones focused on programmes, humanitarian responses and of course, the UN cluster forums.

The challenge of working in multiple locations, often remote, within the increasingly shrinking safe space for humanitarian action in Afghanistan is that we have to constantly re-invent ourselves so as to meet the programmatic expectations. Monitoring and reporting becomes a bigger challenge when access to the locations is limited. Managing these aspects of our work ensures that a normal work day in Afghanistan spans across the European and Afghan time zones and beyond!

Each day in Afghanistan brings with it new challenges, new response to a new situation and new learning! There is never a dull moment! Normalcy of a ‘routine’ life is all but a hazy memory! Yet working in Afghanistan gives one the satisfaction of overcoming challenges each day to work for a community whose needs are unquestionably, one of the greatest in the world. It is this thought that gives the team here the energy and the bottomless supply of adrenalin needed on a daily basis!