The impact, nature, and prevalence of corruption in Afghanistan have received enormous attention but the problem continues to metastasize. The large volume of effort put toward combating corrupt practices has yielded some benefits. As the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported, the incidence of bribery has fallen. Also, recent procurement reforms have garnered international praise as a significant positive step. However, the “problem” of corruption is broader than specific reforms or the actual incidence of corrupt practices. The Afghan public continues to prioritize their concern over corruption and report that they perceive the situation they face as unchanged. Citizens overwhelmingly do not even bother to report bribery solicitations as they do not believe that their complaint will matter.

Rightly or wrongly, blame for this situation inures to the current government. The perception of a growing corruption problem and ineffective governance undermines public confidence in the government, widening an existing gulf between citizen and state and negatively affecting government legitimacy. Whether citizens regard government agencies and personnel as legitimate affects their willingness to cooperate and participate in government programs. Citizen responses vary from resignation to emigration, but of increasing concern is the fact exposure to corruption is positively and strongly correlated with the perception of sympathy for armed opposition groups.

Watching the growth of this citizen-state legitimacy divide with concern, and taking into account prior programs and a growing evidence base, the U.S. Agency for International Development hypothesizes that focusing on improving service delivery might help ameliorate the situation. USAID is not alone in this assessment. The World Bank, Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, and Transparency International have each concluded recent research on the failings of Afghanistan’s public sector to effectively deliver vital services to the public.

To enhance this potentially virtuous circle, USAID has commissioned this political economy analysis to better understand the constraints and current openings to improve the capacity for Afghan government entities to deliver services and engage citizens. It seeks to respond to the question of the current incentives at work, which ascertain what incentives for better public sector performance can work in the Afghan context. Simplifying complex business procedures and replacing manual systems with electronic ones, for example, make services more effective and also remove opportunities for corruption by eliminating unnecessarily lengthy processes.

At the request of the USAID/Afghanistan, Democracy International (DI) undertook this political economy analysis to inform work to be performed under the Advancing Effective Reforms for Civic Accountability (AERCA) project. This analysis was guided by the new political economy analytic framework developed by USAID’s Cross Sectoral Programs Division in the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance in USAID/Washington. The analysis recommended several methods to go about implementing change, such as including responsible ministries in the selection of priority services, mapping the services in detail, working with the responsible ministry to form a reform team, focusing on specific problems, and prioritizing public communication. Additionally, DI has identified specific ministries and services that are important and perceived as not functioning sufficiently by Afghans, some of which DI will partner with for service delivery improvement programming in the future.