Abbie Aryan, a United Kingdom civil servant of Afghan origin, was
overwhelmed to see his motherland after 20 years. "When I started
to see the mud houses from the plane, tears started falling from my
eyes. I knew it was a poor country, but I couldn't help weeping
when I finally saw it myself," he says.

Abbie is one of the Afghan experts contributing to Afghanistan's
development under the Professional Afghan Expatriate Programme
– EU (PAEP-EU), which IOM implements in close coordination
with the Afghan Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service
Commission.

Funded by the European Commission, the project aims to
contribute to the long-term stability and development of the
country through the deployment of 17 highly qualified Afghan
expatriates living in European Union (EU) member states who will
share their skills and expertise in various ministries and public
institutions during their assignments of up to one year in
Afghanistan.

Abbie assumed his new post as Senior Advisor at the Ministry of
Counter-Narcotics in April 2007. His primary responsibility is to
advise the Minister on a variety of policies and coordination
issues to achieve the ultimate goal of eradicating narcotics
production in Afghanistan.

Abbie argues that the government needs to follow three steps
– security, development and law enforcement – to stamp
out the country's thriving narcotics industry.

In Helmand province, classified as an Extreme Risk/Hostile
Environment by Unite Nations (UN) security officials, for example,
110,000 hectares of opium poppies are currently under cultivation
– equivalent to roughly 40 per cent of the world's opium
production. The reason is lack of security, he observes.

After improving general security, development issues need to be
addressed. "We have to implement alternative livelihood projects
and build bridges, roads, irrigation cannels and so on to give
farmers a chance to switch from an illicit crop to something
legal," says Abbie.

Poppy producers also need understand that life will be better
without the poppy and that those who stop the illicit production
will receive a lot of support from the central government, he
argues.

The Ministry of Counter-Narcotics has already created such a
mechanism called the Good Performance Initiative, which awards
development grants to provinces that stay narcotics free. The
mechanism is closely observed and coordinated through Abbie's
office.

Abbie was 14 when his family immigrated to the UK during the
Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. After completing
a law degree in London, Abbie worked as a civil servant with the
Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office.

His life was blessed with everything one can hope for – a
good job, four children, a home – but something was still
missing, he says.

"About 90 per cent of heroin in the UK comes from Afghanistan. I
know how it affects people's lives and I thought perhaps I could
explore this and do something about it," he observes.

 

Driven by this urge to help, Abbie returned to Afghanistan by
himself. He still feels difficulty living in an environment with so
many security restrictions and misses his family.

But he is committed to his work and one of his ambitions is to
mainstream Afghanistan's National Drug Control Strategy into the
country's National Development Strategy.

Counter-narcotics is a cross-cutting issue across the Afghan
government and therefore it is important for the government to
build a counter-narcotics component within each national programme,
he says.

"One ministry working by itself cannot be successful. It
requires the whole machine of the government to work on this issue.
This is the only way it can succeed and this is my main priority
for now," says Abbie. 

 

"I think I owe this to Afghanistan. This is the country where I was
born. Whatever I do in the UK, it cannot be much because there are
plenty of people there with better qualifications and experience.
But in a country like this, even if I make a small contribution, it
will be big," he smiles.