Information Communications Technology Support to Reconstruction and Development: Some Observations from Afghanistan

: Recent United States (US) government experiences with failed-state interventions suggests that telecommunications (telecoms) and information technology (IT) reconstruction initiatives continue to suffer from a lack of adequate understanding of the affected nation information culture and telecoms and IT business cultures. A coherent telecoms and IT-related civil-military strategy and plan for intervening nations and responding international organizations (IO) and non-governmental organizations (NGO) is lacking as well and there are no agreed mechanisms and procedures to enable effective civil-military coordination and information sharing among participants and with the affected nation. National Defense University, Center for Technology and National Security Policy studies suggest that information and IT can significantly increase the likelihood of success in failed-state interventions and subsequent reconstruction if they are engaged from the outset as part of an overall strategy and plan that coordinates the actions of outside interveners and focuses on generating effective results for the affected nation. This paper examines Afghanistan telecoms and IT as a case study of its use as an enabler of sector reconstruction. Some of the successes and related coordination and information sharing challenges encountered by the multinational civil-military responders and affected nation telecoms and IT organizations are illuminated as well.