Samenvatting

Assessing the effectiveness and progress of efforts to ‘build states in order to build peace’ (Call and Wyeth, 2008) is inevitable for several reasons. Politicians want to know what is being achieved with the resources that they have allocated to the state building endeavours abroad. They want to judge the progress that is being made in terms of moral values, cost-efficiency and general effectiveness. Do they get value for the money and the lives that are at stake? This is the issue of political accountability. At another level yet no less important is the issue of command and control. Commanders on all positions in the operations need to know how things are going in order to decide on future actions and the allocation of scarce resources. No longer can such decision-making be left to the intuition of the single commander (Rietjens et al., 2011). Assessing progress and effectiveness may also lead to the improvement of future activities because lessons may be learned from previous activities. A final reason is that measurement can improve the communication between participating military organizations, NGOs and host nation authorities. This can contribute to aligning expectations of the international community with those of the host nation stakeholders, something that has been coined by General David Petraeus as ‘managing expectations’ (Petraeus, 2008). From its very beginning ISAF has made use of systems to evaluate and assess the progress that is being made in Afghan society. Of course, such operational analysis and measurement systems have also guided the operations and activities in Uruzgan. In general, the mission in Uruzgan has pursued the goals that have been set for the ISAF mission in general. These goals include stabilization of safety and public order, humanitarian aid, post-war reconstruction, economic and social rehabilitation, security sector reform and democratization. The Uruzgan Campaign Plan (UCP), the latest strategy document of the TFU, is exemplary in this regard. It stated that the TFU campaign objective, within the context of the UCP, as part of ISAF, in partnership with ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces], and in coordination with GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan], United Nations Assistance Mission Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the International Community, is to contribute to a reliable and effective government that can bring the government and the people closer together, and is able to provide a stable and secure environment and development progress in Uruzgan, in due course, without ISAF support’ (Van Bemmel et al., 2010). This chapter addresses the efforts of the TFU to measure its performance as well as the progress that has been made. From the start in 2006 the TFU used an effectsbased approach to operations as its main measurement methodology. To illustrate this approach we focus on one theme of the campaign plan, namely the establishment of the Rule of Law. In addition to the effects-based approach, several other measurement instruments were used. Examples of these include the assessments that were made by The Liaison Organization (TLO), the use of the Afghan Country Stability Picture (ACSP) and pollings. We will review each of these. At the end of this chapter we will discuss the variety of ways to assess the progress in the operation and state building activities. It will show that reaching agreement about the effectiveness of operations and activities is a highly social process in which all actors need to be involved.