When I said to my community that BRAC came from Bangladesh, which is another Muslim country, they allowed me to do my work.

(BRAC Field Staff, Afghanistan, personal communication, 2005) When I was assigned to join as programme manager of the education programme in Afghanistan, I was told that we are here with a mission to help our Afghan brothers and sisters in the field of basic education and to rebuild their educational structure sharing our Bangladeshi experience. (BRAC field staff, Afghanistan, personal communication, 2005)

Building South-South Partnerships in Teacher Training

BRAC in Afghanistan

Kazi Arif Anwar - OISE Mir Nazmul Islam - BRAC CIES, May 3rd, 2011 Montreal, Canada

Background
Preview of paper to be published in Prospects (2011) Primary data collected 2005-6 Updated with new insights from BRAC staff and statistics from BRAC Afghanistan

North-South and South-South Collaboration

North-South collaboration: dominant paradigm in international development since WW2 Gradually being supplanted by South-South collaboration in developing economies because of
Increased capacity of Southern NGOs Importance of having roots in the community (Lewis, 1999)

Afghanistan since 2001

Not quite post-conflict Warlordism Fragmented government Corruption

Development organizations and workers associated with unpopular entities such government and allied forces

All players willingly accepted the notion that Afghanistan was in a post-conflict situation, and that therefore the role of external actors, including NGOs, was to support the government. As a result, the existing capacity for addressing humanitarian need that had been built up since the late 1980s and had successfully weathered the Taliban years (1996-2001), when it represented the only visible form of the international communitys engagement in Afghanistan, was dismantled under the fallacious assumption that it was no longer needed. (Donini, 2009, p. 3)

Development worker safety in Afghanistan

Violence against development workers rose steadily from 2002 onwards 114(18 fatal) incidents total in 2009 (ANSO, 2009)

BRAC
Biggest NGO youve never heard of Largest Southern NGO (originated in Bangladesh) Annual budget of US$ 535 million (73% self-funded) Works in Health, Education and Microfinance sectors Has disbursed more than 1 billion in Microfinance loans Runs 50,000 schools in Bangladesh alone; 1 million student body Employs 100,000+ worldwide Present in 17 countries

BRAC in Afghanistan: the first years

BRAC arrived in 2002 First instance of expansion outside of Bangladesh Two-fold goal: Provide schools for girls and in the process employment for women (teachers)

Afghanistan and Bangladesh

Large land area Arid, dry climate Ethnically diverse Linguistically diverse Geographically separated population pockets Socially conservative Small land area Wet, riverine Ethnically homogenous (98% Bengali) Linguistically homogenous Densely populated Socially progressive (relatively)

The BRAC difference

White SUV syndrome Reduced economic distance between BRAC managers and other development workers (Hossain and Sengupta, 2009) Benefits from perception of originating from a fellow Southern Sunni Muslim nation (Chowdhury et al., 2006) Managers encouraged to learn local languages rather than English

The problem
Severe lack of qualified female teachers in Afghanistan Even when qualified, social restrictions to travel and work apply No national daily i.e. cant advertise positions Villages are geographically remote

Recruiting female staff was one of our major constraints because we have to select female staff from local community or nearby area. Finding a literate woman who at least passed the 10th Grade in province like Helmand or Kapisa is very difficult. Even if we find a woman with the appropriate qualifications there is no guarantee that she is going to work for us. (Personal communication, 2005)

The solution
Teachers as para-professionals Students cannot wait for infrastructure to catch up Para-teacher approach reduces qualification standards for teachers so more can be recruited

Criticisms of the para-professional model

Short-term view Danger of quantity over quality Not a replacement for experienced, trained, certified teachers

Criticisms of South-South collaboration

Funding may still come from Northern countries/ donors May recreate power differentials of North-South relationships in a different guise

BRAC in Afghanistan: Now

Working in all 34 provinces Staff: 3,440 (185 expatriates) Community based schools: 2600
146,000 students, 84% girls Also working in Health and Microfinance sectors

MERCI!