Survey revealing increased security concerns, high confidence in Afghan Army and Security forces

08:40 GMT, October 28, 2008 “The mood of Afghan citizens has changed dramatically in the past year due to the progress the Afghan security forces have made.” Army Col. Bill Hix, commander of Afghan Regional Security Integration Command South, told reporters last week. At that moment Hix could not be aware of the newest Asia Foundation survey “Aghanistan in 2008” that has been released yesterday. However, the Afghans themselves seem to judge their mood quite different then Col. Hix does.

In the survey funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development more than 6,500 Afghans from all 34 provinces were asked if things in their country are going in the right or the wrong direction. 38 per cent answered that the country is moving in the right direction, marking a declining trend from 42 per cent last year and 44 per cent in 2006. On the other hand 32 per cent feel that their country is not on the right way, compared with 24 per cent in 2007 and 21 per cent two years ago.

The biggest problems faced by Afghanistan as a whole were identified as security
(36%), economic issues including unemployment (31%), high prices (22%), poor
economy (17%), and corruption (14%). Interestingly when asked about the biggest problems in their local area insecurity ranked sixth place with just 14 per cent, following e.g. electricity (30%), unemployment (28%) and water (22%).

This numbers clearly show that security issues in Afghanistan have a predominantly localised dimension. When asked about the security situation at the local level, over 80 percent of respondents have a positive perception of the security situation in their local area in the Central Hazarajat (80%), North East (80%), and North West (82%).

However, more than half of the respondents in the West (56%) nearly two third in the South East (62%), and around three quarters in the South West (74%) say the security situation in their local area is bad or very bad.

“Improved professionalism among Afghan soldiers and police has led to greater confidence in them among the Afghan people,” Col. Hix also stated last week, and the survey proves him right. The responses indicate that the highest levels of public confidence are enjoyed by the Afghan National Army (89%) and the Afghan National Police (82%).

Representative bodies enjoy the confidence of around two thirds of respondents including community shura and jirga (69%), Community Development Councils (65%), and Provincial Councils (65%). Public confidence is lowest for local militias. Just over one third of respondents (36%) express some level of confidence in these.

“There’s a degree of hope for the future that they may have not had before,” Hix said. “Pushing the Taliban away from the population, disrupting their safe havens in areas where they prepare before they come in to put [bombs] on the road [or] attack a checkpoint … is really key to kind of keeping them off-balance and putting them on the run,” he ended his remark.


Additional information:

Survey “Afghanistan in 2008” – Key findings
http://www.asiafoundation.org/resources/pdfs/AG2008KeyFindings.pdf

Survey “Afghanistan in 2008” – Complete version, 193 pages
http://www.asiafoundation.org/resources/pdfs/Afghanistanin2008.pdf