should it be done by good ngos like you? >> i think we have a significant role, yes. >> i'm tempted to say yes. >> and you added that ngos can bring the table, particularly in the social sector with governments. i don't think you see a lot of us building roads and doing power plants and that type of thing which is important for economic growth. i don't think we ought to take on the kinds of projects. there is still room for others. >> should the military do that? >> i think who should do it should be the one who can do it best. >> who is that? >> you tell me. i don't know. :

they should be doing that in partnership with the host government and local authorities not with the military. >> i don't have any access to comprehensive studies of this. my information is anecdotal last three years and a couple years before that in pakistan but i would say when we wrote this paper it wasn't with the military in mind, it wasn't

necessarily a private security companies and might or for-profit contractors. we see so much that development in afghanistan across-the-board international ngos had a terrible job. what i would like to see is if these principles be the metric by which anyone is evaluated for it in afghanistan the distinction between private contractors and the military is often not a very meaningful one private contractors operate with heavy blows protection armored vehicles and so forth and so the community is. >> let me draw you out on that because i think it is the head helpful answer. it's the principles that ought to matter most here but is the military capable? aarsele in private contractors capable of taking these principles which are all common sense principles and being as effective implementation as the good ngos?

>> based on what might seem for the long-term sustainable community church in and partial development principles laid out as currently constituted, no. maybe in time in another fight for ten years with the emphasis that's been given on these principles lately perhaps but consistently what we see in afghanistan as if you're interested in long-term and partial afghan driven transparent development ngos are typically the way to go. that's not to say it's 100% one or the other but that's been my observed experience. >> i was thinking about this comparative of vantage and you sit there are ngos and the whisper of the instance of writing the paper is the six organizations can together to say let's put out how we do it because we take pride in that. the large international ngos less than a dozen of them deliver 90% of the funds mobilized by the ngo community globally and probably the four of us are part of that.

so i agree with what they said in their response. >> so it sounds like there's a consensus that the ideal world the whole of the efforts would be undertaken by ngos and let's just stipulate we are talking about good ngos as opposed to the bad and ngos that followed the principles we've laid out in today's testimony i think that is helpful. i'm inclined to agree with that. given that they are considered to be political not taking sides in the conflict, and therefore presumably more accepted by the local populace and your experience each of you says indicates that that is the case. i would think the casualty rate among ngo american personnel and local contractors would be far lower than that for the united states military or civilian personnel and for american

western contractor in the theater. is the right? what is your casual e-rate relative to there's? >> we work as a relatively stable area across the central island of a direct comparison with someone working in kandahar and helmand, the mercy corps and others who work in those more unstable environments but we have had a zero and fatalities of any sort and zero work related utilities and some people killed in a roadside robbery's but nothing to do with their affiliation or their work. >> do you think that has everything to do with the nature of how you're perceived? >> it has everything to do with the quality of our work because if we do bad work we can be as impartial as we want and then drive us out. it has to do with the way we work with the humble approach, the community driven approach

and absorbing following the principles. >> affected a response from each of them and then i will stop. >> did you say before that from the previous round you got the conclusion ngos were doing all of this because i want to correct that my colleagues think if you're building a ring road against afghanistan the ira season the group to do it. clearly some of the things we do like having 98% the afghans has got to be a benefit not just to the sustainability of the programs and getting them done and also the longevity and the security. so, you know, if you look at the prt military they are bringing the civilian surge in the state department young americans who are north americans and don't speak the language necessarily and it's a very different

profile than the hiring to start out working with us when they were refugees in pakistan. >> how would that relate to the military into the private contractors? >> in the percentages it is essential the back. >> essentially what? >> being an american worker is one of the top -- it is the fifth most dangerous job in america today. so i think it is a little relative. it's a very dangerous job. >> mr. paulson and mr. bowers? >> i checked with a colleague before coming into my understanding is we haven't lost any in afghanistan. we have had national employees held but not lost any expense. >> mr. powers? >> we have lost staff before in the past, most of our casualties lately have been natural causes deutsch avalanches and airplane

crashes. >> but i'm talking doll violence, been killed. >> our rate of the ability to stay safe there is remaining high right now. >> this question would be relevant to you. >> we have staff on the ground of afghanistan and we haven't taken any. >> thank you very much. mr. -- mr. tiefer? >> it's a learning experience for me. i -- my students a the university of baltimore law school there is such a thing as grants in the legal world and i don't know enough to really teach it to them. i will know a little more after today. i also want to express my respect for the chairman and the insatiable appetite for going to afghanistan that i think led the way to the trip by chairman shays which has been our

inspiration. this is a hearing we wanted to know as you do from the ground up in afghanistan not just what does washington want to pose on mobile? i'm going to ask this question mr. richard and have a bit of an introduction and it's about the principal of impartiality, would it mean for the future. let's suppose the current conflict in afghanistan doesn't end with an absolute victory for one side or the other but the taliban and that is the work i haven't heard much of today, the taliban and spelling control certain areas and it can't be written out. but the central government ends of and control of other areas. do you think would be possible for your organization or similar organizations for a stepped-up role in the situation since as part of what ever truths or arrangement there is devotee one would hope both sides would want more development going on but there's not a complete end of

the conflict in that sense. would there be a large role in the post conflict afghanistan for your organization? >> i would hope no matter what afghanistan would people to stay and continue working we were in the taliban area, and we did is we had supported schools for schools that were hidden away in people's houses. now, he is completely correct that there is a lot more afghan children being educated today than there were in those times, and we could reach far more and do a lot more out in the open. but i would like to hope that our folks would be able to continue working no matter what the government that shapes out of time is. >> let me ask in your report in asking this for the panel but only one person would need to answer.

there's a case study under impartiality of helmand province i'm curious if the organizations here did that or i can just talk to one of these come should i talk to you about it? why was impressed, and pressed understates it. helmand province is a terrible place in the world not just because of the conflict, is the heroine capital of the world. it's not just in the war interest happens to be in our self-interest as well as russia and iran and all of the nation's inflected that there be agricultural development in the helmand province but until i read this i didn't think it was possible. how is it possible to have agricultural development. how do you get into this paradox the taliban, the number one source of income is growing in

heroin and so helmand province is like a big flow for them. how could you do agricultural development and helmand province? >> you would buy the blended approach we talked about earlier in terms of where you have an afghan that approach at the community level and the espousing the idea of the more you can demonstrate the value a and legitimate production there will meet the needs about the households in the community the more they will buy into that you couple that with the dilemma of the nature the police are under corruption to transport that poppy production you mentioned earlier and the legitimate government has a stake in that eisel we also have a parallel need to not dismember the legitimate government, but to work from the community level approach so you are essentially

building development that doesn't have to exist at the government level but it can be accessed at the community level. the devils also want to be too technical is are you going to do harm as well because in fact is that irrigation canal you helped clean and fixed, are you here with getting the poppy or the wheat plant? and really that is a fine line on how we can control and monitor that and a lot of it has to do with how much the structure has bought into the principles of if you provide uncertain input, the expectations of the input will happen that wheat will be grown or corn and not opium and that if opium is grown the essentially we are not going to be able to offer the same input the year after so you were conditionally in a little bit of your development based upon what the understand and achieve. >> i want to put together what they've asked for you, ms. richard and mr. bowers. let's suppose there's a post

conflict situation, and part of the price we say the taliban must stop protecting the heroine trade and they want to impose something on us like the government we must get rid of corruption. a highest level rather than the calmest denominator could be ngos play a role in that kind of a higher level and could you provide enough if funded enough of a development to fill the place taken by getting rid of that elis economies. >> the possible service the ngos can plan that kind of scenario is the ability to reach so many villages and so many people that the ground level, and that's something that i know everybody involved in afghanistan is just really amazed by. so i think that holds a lot of potential. but in order for us to work with

those villages we need to be able to travel and have it be relatively peaceful. >> impartiality -- >> and also the basic level of security. >> what do you think about that possibility in the post conflict situation? >> in reality that scenario is occurring right now. in fact in many places in afghanistan where you have the defective taliban control of districts most of our staff would already have some sort of dialogue in terms of how we miscible what the to do xy and z and there are many red lines we have to more we deal with pity if it's a program that focuses on maternal child health care how far are they going to allow us to work with women's groups etc.? in terms of working at a higher level i think most of these agencies at the table would agree it is our goal to support the afghan government and the

strategy said that the national level and that involves the ministry level. so, you know, we do recognize good community led development cannot be sustained without proper government at some level and that we still need a functioning state organ. >> thank you mr. tiefer. did we have somebody that wanted to quickly respond? >> in response to your questions one of the things in the field as farmers are growing pot because any traditional experience because they love it, there's a culture of poppy growing. it's because it is generally profitable and because they are extremely brisk at first and if you grow poppy it will advance seat and tools and fertilizer on credit and so one of the problems that we see with the stabilization programs which is the cash for work driven let's give these farmers cash for work so they don't grow poppy what happens if somebody comes up and takes the cash for work card and

as the project while the rest of the family grows poppy because they know that it's here today and gone tomorrow. in answer to your larger question, if there is a real emphasis on alternative livelihood and the default and things like that, these principles again hold where you have to be planning for what is the former going to be doing next year, two years, three years, why are the growth in the first place and the need to be confident that we are incredibly destitute and poor. a family of 4i have to provide for i'm not into the project to stop growing poppy unless i know there is a plan for the year after and that is one of the advantages that they can bring. >> thank you very much. commissioner henke. >> thank you. in your statement, you mentioned the fact that protectors implementing the demint programs, private contractors are muddying the waters which lead to a legitimate questions about the accountability rule and conduct of these for-profit

entities could you each give us your response in the general sense does on the contracting side where we have made in implementing organization for aid in implementing the project do we have the right public accountability mechanisms in place to write oversight mechanisms and for your initio will but on the experience working year and with 48 projects do we have adequate oversight of their activities? do we have enough insight into the outcomes from the projects to be effective at fiscal and others? >> i would say probably the umbrella answer to your question is no pity on the experience side i will speak on a roll of law and police issues and when we try to look at the contractors that are providing

police and police assistance in afghanistan the information they hold is proprietary. you cannot get the information that you need to even understand to conduct oversight. >> what kind of information? >> budgetary information. what are their budgets. very simple questions because its proprietary information. so it's difficult. we just did a study of police operations in most post conflict states and we could not get any of the information. do it argues that development, i think it is development of the security forces. these people need to operate. >> these are implementing thune. >> mr. bowers? >> i certainly do well on our oversight. i think the nonprofit world even here in the united states is

buckling under the issue of having collier oversight either the state or federal level. in afghanistan itself, there are a series of initiatives. >> what you mean by buckling under? i don't follow that. >> in terms of even from my experience, we often don't know how to communicate back to the public our accountability in terms of what we do with either private money or certainly when the government gives us the grant. but in terms of oversight of contractors in afghanistan, i think the fault lines have usually been on the expedient nature of when they have to complete something by a date and burn rate which causes a lot of it looks like a short circuit in their own internal compliance system and ability to regulate fraud and waste. >> what do you mean by a short circuit in? >> often these contracts usually they are very high value contracts and under 12 for 18

months. so they are jumping through the hurdles to get these roads built and power plants built in quite a short time span. there's an account of the trade as you're point? >> we see that a lot and then of course the turnover rate in terms of their own oversight from usaid or the embassy is quite high. >> mr. paulson? >> as i mentioned in my remarks we welcome the increased accountability and monitoring evaluation. i don't have the independent you on the private -- >> i think the answer to your question is generally no, and it is partially a function of the nature of the assistance mechanisms versus acquisition mechanisms where there's a great deal of oversight and conversely usaid has a lot of control for a contract to bring a change to the geographical location and completely shaken the entire project so you go this way or that, with a lot of the inherent

nature of the contract is that a lot of the success or failure isn't judged on the impact is judged on how many metric tons we distributed and not with the plant were terminated or distributed through the strong man who kept 75% for themselves and get the rest their family members and with as a lot less control for the monitoring evaluation does tend to be much more focused on the impact the teachers with the learned and so forth. >> to its explained to me over several years now that contractors will subcontract and everybody gets a cut along the way. by the time you get to where the project is being carried out this no money left but i imagine you are much more expert about this than on p.m.. what i fear for in washington is when these big stories hit the news that billions wasted in

afghanistan is undercut our ability to raise money and to continue holding the interest of americans in the enterprise that we are involved in. >> and that really bothers the and that's why i tried to get the press interested in the positives that it's not really news. we have a bunch of us, we try to help together the ngos and we try to get more attention from the jury is oversight bodies looking at the competitive advantages of these different methods of doing reconstruction and development in afghanistan and so we will support of senator lautenberg creating the special inspector general and the afghan reconstruction and that hasn't panned out well at all and so i feel like apologizing that it hasn't been a success. >> why is that? >> i don't know why but i know why we were behind it is because

we felt we could be an open book. it is also mccullough of michael panelists put forward for the general accounting, government accountability office review is also something we would welcome and that is why we welcome your having the hearing this morning because we want to talk about -- >> on the issue of comparative advantage of what ask each of you and the situation that we are in >> in afghanistan but the comparative the advantages of doing what's called development stabilization i'm not sure where there's a bright line but what are the comparative advantages of doing development like work with fi part module and space? any comparative advantages to that? >> ev talked about comparative advantages. >> i can .1 thing out which is

the military, american military representatives and troops were very frustrated that they were being expected to do everything and they looked to the civilian side of the government for help. >> government civilians on a guess. >> so now they have a lot more attention and resources from the civilian side, but our point is that is perhaps not the best. >> use the government side, there's too many governments around here. are you talking afghan or u.s. government? >> u.s. government. i know in talking to the members of the military they are frustrated and they thought they were not showing them up and now with the part there's much more of a u.s. government departmental civilian presence other governments but what we are to launching is the whole approach. >> what is to compare this advantage? if there is one, one or two of them. >> i would say the competitive advantage for the part is the area of police training,

mentoring, capacity building, that isn't something i don't think any of us on this panel would do and we have zero capacity to do that so if anyone is going to do that it makes sense to be the part to be the provincial level. i think for the longer term development we are talking about the don't have a comparative advantage. if for no other reason the tend to be there for a year and that isn't enough time to do what we are talking about here. >> of the security side and the longer term development and at the grass-roots level is best done by the ngos. >> just in terms of development for the part. >> i have to wrap up. >> i think the competitive of feige, the speech from the authority and represent at the very field level and authorize the body most people respect. the people we want to respect. so often they can create some

stabilizing effect it might well by their local commander with governments that our family. >> i will recognize myself for eight minutes. first i would like a shorter answer if you need to get the longer answer do it at your own peril. >> are you, ms. richards, involved in nation-building, is your organization involved in nation-building? >> who wants to start? mr. bowers, are you involved in nation-building? >> in terms of capacity building and building infrastructure for communities, yes. >> mr. paulson? >> if it's about strengthening afghan institutions, yes. >> mr. mcgary? >> in other countries around the world, yes. >> i'm not going to disagree with those guys. >> how about you, do you think they are involved in nation-building? >> i would also say that they are also doing nation-building

in afghanistan. >> the prt is involved in the nation-building? >> i think the prt are trying to be involved in the nation-building. >> why do you think it's so difficult for us to say that we are involved in the nation-building? >> us as a country? because i think it carried a lot of baggage and it is a term that has been bandied about in many ways and there's not a political consensus behind nation-building. >> i'm going to have to report a bias. i loved ngos and what you do and i cannot even be impartial, but i'm going to try. because i love the fact i'm a former peace corps volunteer. i just had a general sense you

reach people and listen to people and are doing more of what they need but there are criticisms, and one of them is how we measure some of what we ask you to do is hard to measure even though you're involved in capacity building and the democracy training, institutional, getting people to realize they can put their head out of the ground and make a suggestion and it will be ripped off and they can ask their neighbors what they think and even build consensus. that's something we intuitively do but overseas and in some places that's for and so you do that but how we measure it? >> we have a fair request of the sessions of metrics on how we do that at mercy corps and we are amply that on the global level with all of our field missions. there's always donor reporting. they like to see output and results. rarely do they ask what the impact is. it's the impact most of us with

character will try to achieve because that's where you see the long standing sustainable a fact. and in many cases when you're doing is unless you have a horizon of time that exceeds two years you're not going to measure impact you're going to measure results that are achieved and whether or not to be sold its stake and have changed behavior of population base is the key dilemma of our industry and all ngos are faced with that dilemma. in terms of how we do it at a very pragmatic level, we always create a set of indicators on how we are going to at least get the results based. >> rather than each of you give me a long answer, just elaborate more and tell me where you disagree or agree. so give me an example of something that would be a measurement. >> one measurement right now for instance a very specific example

and we created a microfinance institution in kabul to serve women through the microcredit. so if that isn't a self financing entity by 2014 we probably have field and there's a lot of failures out there right now. so that measurement right now is institutional level measurement of the ability to finance itself. >> but say the rule of law. how would you determine the measurement of the ruble fall? >> in the culture of afghanistan, if the altar hasn't shot some of their family member in an informal justice system, a wall measurement i'd think is the traditional system that is actually performing in the way that it set up by the institution. >> how would you all the elaborate or disagree to the answer to? >> one thing is to distinguish between the measurement of a particular project and then serve a broad context with project specific measurement and

health intervention you're looking at increased coverage and how many more local community health lives are providing the coverage then was the case on the baseline. the broad perspective is can you actually then lead the community and they can to get over. so the broad impact of building self sustaining institutions is harder measured and means a number of years and you also have the question sometimes of a tradition. save the children is the scene in afghanistan were a number of years ago we were doing a lot of basic health package service provisions and three years ago some of the local left and ngos started taking them over so we no longer provided that and had the same impact. >> let me ask you to respond to money that commanders and emergency response program and thank goodness for people like petraeus but realize it wasn't

just finding in iraq al qaeda and other dissidents but to realize they had to start to be involved in the nation-building. >> is there a danger that when the military does it people then look at anything where the development is taking place as a military instrument and rather something on military. you can go first. >> i think there is a danger and it can be overstated. a lot of times communities assume our money is coming from the u.s. government. they know we are an american catholic organizations of their certain risks involved and the degree to which we stick to the principles. >> injury devout conservative muslim society. there's a danger of development

assistance gets painted as being somehow part of the conflict but there's also the risk that if it's done not for the development means that if it's done largely for the force protection if it doesn't work out well just as the development is done badly by an ngo or contractor whoever else but then becomes that much more difficult to do effective development in that community for the next organization be it an initio or the military. >> but i do have a sense that and it's probably not standardizing but some of the military tried to involve the community and use the model that you will use. >> if that gives the kabul answer i can give the d.c. answer which is we have a double standard in our programs. and the agency for difficult for the long term development done by development experts title of all sorts of checks and balances that have been imposed by the congress to prevent waste and fraud and the serp money is none

of that. >> thank you very much coming and i made my best effort to be aggressive. mr. dixon, fellow commissioners invited you to stay and we think you. >> thank you. and good morning to you all. i share high regard for the work that you and your personnel to around the world and i might call this morning as we meet here on of the mandates for this commission is to focus on waste, fraud and abuse and in preparing for this, mr. bowers, i read some of your statement for record and i'd like to bring up one a sample you cite, but then i would like to have you respond and then the other witnesses respond as well. in this example, you are referring to southern afghanistan, 2008 where usaid a

word of the development alliance awarded $2.1 million grant for agricultural development and and subsequently the u.s. government awarded a 300 million-dollar grant to another organization for agricultural development in the same area and in that case and ultimately led to the attainment of farmers to work in their own fields. so in that sense the u.s. government was competing with itself. and we found another place that competing programs can contribute to waste and inefficiency. the question is how we avoid that. you talked with the right actors and the right goals. the question is who does that, with the ngos and with usaid and the military and these kind of contingencies who is responsible for kind of like the architecture of the strategic plan and making sure hopefully all of the arrows are went in

the right direction. >> in the ideal world would be the host government at the provincial level or capital level. the coordination that most ngos would normally find in the development context are extraordinarily difficult to accomplish. the organizations that routinely need to at least share some of that, and in some cases the u.n. leaves that cause where the government is weak or nonexistent, and in some cases we have seen in other places you may share that information with a military force such as the prt. often we would share that with the prt but frankly there are so many actors with competing interests and contractors are one of these actors that unless they complete the deliverable they will be reimbursed so they don't really care of the end of

the day of that farm has been to set some device to actually do something voluntarily because that is the data point they have to accomplish. so the u.s. aid officer may not even be aware that mercy corps already has a pre-existing program to support that initiative. there's the dillinger requirement they coordinate, but again, like afghanistan where we have seen an exorbitant amount of money really flowing into only three different regions of the country and it's extraordinarily difficult to crystalize who is in charge, it's either incapacitated or lack of ability and lacks the sense of how to get all of those sectors together, if the afghan government can take that on that's the place to do it from the example it sounds like on the part of the u.s. government it's not taking place you'd need

an interagency mechanism both in the field both for the mission but also that here in washington to make sure that the work that's been done is aligned and certainly you don't have the duplication. >> of the village level it's to duplicate someone else's level because these are small the which is largely in the middle of nowhere and we know what's coming on and in the regular contact with the villages and the example used light that is a kabul u.s. government based decision that we don't of any influence over and communication with the great and helpful to resolve that sort of problem. >> ms. richards? >> i don't really have anything to add. >> this cole? >> i would say after five or six years of building the capability

of the united states that we are far from achieving any kind of predictable way to bring the agency together let alone lashup with the non-governmental organizations and the host nations. it is a critical gap in and would continue to plague us as we go forward any country we can think about that isn't just in disarray. libya planning is going on at the moment and its experience the same kind of disarray we've seen in other places. so it's a serious problem. the long term and the short term and the value that ngos bring for the long-term. there's a paucity of short-term and in iraq and afghanistan we find a tremendous amount of time has passed for their resources

and contingencies for all of the military and the u.s. aid and the role of ngos, how do we as a country plan for and prepare for short-term contingencies, how does that change the equation for your role of that of the u.s. military and usaid and i would ask to go down the line starting with ms. cole. >> it's produced in the working group you will see we recommended that the interaction the umbrella organization for the ngos have a memorability the scope of the body with the command as the are preparing for contingency operations in the very short term. so that's one recommendation. it's not going to solve everything. we do need a more predictable that the process and i think that the military and others have recognized they can't plan

the abstract. they need to consult with the organization here and elsewhere that have some very specialized skills and will allow them not to have to repeat and duplicate the skills. >> if anyone has a comment, ms. richards. there's a couple of accounts that are supposed to be used for responding to the contingencies internationally there is the account, migration account is the department and there's also any urgency refugee migration account that can be kept within unanticipated refugee crisis cap. at the agency for international development there's the from the office of foreign disaster assistance and that tends to get oversubscribed because there's only one account so that's used for promoting disaster prevention and readiness

overseas is the first thing that goes out the window the response to natural disaster since responding to the complex emergencies such as afghanistan the funding has been used for the humanitarian crisis in parts of the afghanistan and also a ied takes the word on the internally displaced persons all around the world, in my mind there ought to be more funding for the contingencies but as you all know that is usually the first thing cut from the budget. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. ms. cole, you mentioned libya. frankly, part of the fact our commission is thinking about lessons learned for the future, not just afghanistan and iraq, to me that is a nightmare. we decided to go into libya very quickly and we still haven't decided how we are going to stay and libya and now you're talking about planning.

i'd like to hear from you whether this administration and our government has in fact changed its process he said all in terms of the kind of issues we are discussing as it looks at libya and we like to hear from the ever panelists with a gift and brought into the conversation at all or whether once again we are going to find ourselves just doing it catch as catch can ms. cole, talk about libya, please. >> i will talk about a little bit that i know. you know, we have brought together an array of organizations under an interagency planning committee at the white house to do regular planning. they had been brought together. they are looking at various sectors and seeing where the united states might bring resources to bear. it's say very imperfect process.

>> is it better than it was last year around? >> with each aberration we get a little bit better. >> but i think that the problem remains we really do not have any lead actors we talk about bringing together the assets from across the government we have the team on libya as we speak. not talking about the government planning. >> at the washington level there is always seemingly another innovation that seems to be improving it. at the field level which is what i represent, very hard to see right now. specter has been of reach. we saw that in the case for the contingency planning were the

state department and office of the disaster assistance. and something similar i think with the office of foreign disaster has occurred with regard to libya. >> all afghanistan all the time until a couple of weeks ago. it's working on both sides of the border and if they've been involved in the planning. >> ms. richard? >> we have sent teams to the e egyptian side of the border and parts of the government have been in touch with of the team's libya is an odd situation right now because there haven't been a lot of refugees following the border. the people that have come have been workers from third countries wingback and they did to help on that, that there is a puzzle why we are not seeing more refugees from libya. but we've also been contacted by

the nato forces to make sure they don't inadvertently bomb us. >> let me switch to something else. several of you mentioned the attribution and you talked about the fact their needs to be or coordination with respect to afghanistan. let me ask you this though, several of you have talked about success in educational programs and agricultural programs, how do i and you know who's behind the success, is it you all, which organization is it, is it serp in spite of everything? how do you figure that out when you say i think there was a number of 2.5 million kids in school? it's for the education successes in afghanistan. >> so if you heard people both i think there's probably a lot of -- >> would that include serp as

one of the problems? >> what i would suggest and one of my colleagues killed by insurgents in afghanistan taught me a lot about this in terms of education is that education afghanistan is more than building schools, so a lot of groups have taken credit for building school buildings. but education in afghanistan is also getting the support of the communities, have the parents send kids to school, having female teachers so the girls can go to school because there's a man as their teacher having a curriculum that's real so that they are not just going to the motions and have a parent teacher decisions created so that there is the continued involvement in the school the we have in the u.s. so this gets back to the question about benchmarks. you can count how many school buildings have been built but when you really want to do this test to see are the children learning in afghanistan? and i think in some of the places where we've been working

these community-based schools there are no other -- nobody else to take credit so i think we have made a contribution. >> we wouldn't take credit for the 2.5 million, we only take credit for the stuff we can measure and quantify ourselves. i know in our case for the education achievement the last five years recalled 13,000 children, 60% gross achieve a primary education as a part of the consortium and with care and the foundation that members goes up to 110,000 across the country. i think and this gets back to the chairman's question earlier about measuring these more abstract high level impact questions. one of the reason which we do it which is fairly straightforward is we ask people and ask them over and over we ask the same people and write down what effort is the tell us sometimes looking at the four principles we violate some of them ourselves and we don't always get a ride all the time but when we get it wrong we try to ask

and take corrective action. >> so for you modify the question a little bit. does serp get in your way when you try to do these sort of things? >> i don't think -- we don't access the money. >> those who are doing serp out of the prt who also get involved in the exact same activities we have reserves and for instance teaching farming techniques coming out of iowa and indiana and places with farmers teaching those techniques and are involved in the schools. do you find those kind of activities across lawyers with your activities? >> what i would say is i don't know for sure we have encountered than in the community level work we've been giving. were we to encounter them i think our impartiality could be called into question. >> mr. bowers? >> they have at times for instance and helmand we were privatized in the field units for many years in fact and often commanders their right and what to do something for a quick and

meaningful for the population so they do what is called the attack missions and provide free vaccinations to animals so easily destroy the market for building for the private debts. >> what is your impression of this? >> the only thing i would add here is how would we know? how would we know who we is responsible for what and what is attributable to what? we simply do not have a system to extract lessons from the field. the military is an incredible system. it's been incredible to understand exactly where they try any way to understand what leads to what. we don't have that on the civilian side. it doesn't exist. >> let me point out i think that is fair and let me point out i know i have over one my time if we can't measure that we can't really say unless you have an explicit case like mr. bowers the military gets in the way. you just don't know. the military does to education and agriculture, so i'm not sure. you said earlier that in effect

the military gets in the we very often and shouldn't be into this and you said you can't measure it so how do you square that circle? >> we have case studies. we have some evidence but in terms of a whole string of case studies that doesn't exist. i think that we can extrapolate from the experiences of the various sectors about serp. >> so it's more tentative rather than the conclusion? thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i just want to start with a quick editorial comment. but we had as a commission 23, 24 hearings, something like that over the course of our tenure. this is the most important one we have had. i hope very much the staff is taking note of everything that transpired and they are doing that because i think there are some tremendously important lessons to be captured and i think of the money that can be saved as important as this and that is important indeed

especially in these budgetary times as important as that is the lives that could be saved, and the likelihood of our increased stability to achieve america's strategic objectives and war zones would benefit enormously from the recommendations that here coming out of the hearing today so i just wanted to start with that. two other quick things. i wanted to follow-up on where i began my first round of questions. it sounds like the consensus is the only unique role that in your judgment, your collective judgment of the military plays and they played better than you is the role of police training, that is a security like function obviously and the military is a security focused organization. and ms. richard, you talk about road building. i'm not sure what military is capable -- >> i was referring to big contractors. >> big contractors should to the

building but everything else in the long term development sounds like in your judgment ought to be done by the ngos everybody disagrees with iain but i'm going to take that as a given a fight of hear anything from the contrary. >> i think the military is a role in the development of large. >> okay. fair enough. second, i want to follow-up on mr. dixon's line of questioning. you mentioned in your testimony, ms. cole, that usip was called upon to play this kind of coordinating role in the absence of anybody else doing it and you've gathered at least some of the relevant parties to try to work out issues and that's commendable. i want to ask what you in particular if anybody else has any comments on this one of the things we want to do this commission is to reach out to the relevant actors, relevant parties in the enterprise with regard to your views on the

recommendations we've already made and we are out with another report a couple of months ago and one of the recommendations we made goes to this issue for the need for there to be more toward nation in the field and in washington and among the recommendations is establishment and dual headed official one person dead will have it who has an omb function to insure all of the relevant resources are provided in the contingency context of which obviously the development is a big part and that person would play a role at the national security council to ensure the function. do you have any thoughts about that recommendation? >> i think i would want to reserve judgment and look at that in more detail and there's been a lot of recommendations about the various entities we should construct in the u.s. government. i think there's one floating around in the house side. we just in terms of the role in terms of the complexion, it

provides a safe space for these organizations, the entities but he was committed on government to come together. we don't the conflict among themselves and it's a very important role and should be kept and preserved. i'd like each of you to submit for the record your views on that particular recommendation, it is recommendation 11 in the last report. a couple of questions for you, ms. cole this is neither here or there but i am just intrigued by at. the views you are expressing are those of your own and not usip and i wouldn't think there would be daylight between the views expressed and -- usip is there and if not, why did you say that? >> usip is an organization that advocates the specific policies. so it's a individual capacity i come before you today my views

are a result of the work that they allow me to do so there's a direct correlation. on usip you referenced this in your statement and of the funding has been under attack it's fair to say recently the organization is more important now than ever. can you quickly give us the status of things in that regard what is the likelihood of your being able to continue? >> we are funding under h.r. one in the house representatives. was preserved in the democratic senate alternative but of course you know now there's a deal so we expect to learn what the number is today and early this week we've been gratified by the support of the defense of the commanders and colleagues here and usaid and others in support of the mission that we hope to

continue that mission for the american people >> another question, we kind of touched on this in a number of rounds to explicitly get your views on this, kind of a threshold question is whether stability has to precede the development for there to be sustainable and are we wasting money and putting contractors at risk by working in more dangerous areas. it seems you've had success in those areas, so what are your views about this question mr. paulson? >> i would say there is a continuum, so it is an all out battlefield you have to be held in the compound. we don't do that. but if it is an area where which is insecure when you are able to work out access to communities and receptivity on the part of the community for the work to be done we will do that. in afghanistan we are in some of the more insecure provinces in

kandahar for example as well as places in the north, but we are not, if it is an all-out pitched battle we aren't there but if it is in secure and we are able to gain access to the community and they want assistance we can work in those areas so in that sense it's not clear-cut black-and-white with proceeding we are fully developed. >> yes comer c-corp thus, too. >> we talked a lot about the fact, the commendable fact it seems to me that the vast majority, i think 90% is the figure i heard from you of your employees on the ground and the field or local afghan nationals in the case of afghanistan, that having been said it's also the case that there can be a rather large percentage of local nationals employed by contractors etc., etc..