President Karzai's Washington visit last month was basically a "be-nice-to-Karzai summit." After a period of harsh and direct US criticism this past fall, the air is cleared, but issues remain. Corruption in particular—hardly touched upon during the visit—threatens to imperil success in Afghanistan even if the military and security challenges are mastered. Transparency International ranks Afghanistan as the second most corrupt country in the world, after Somalia. A study from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime reports that corruption is the second-largest contributor to the country's gross domestic product. Clearly, corruption is Afghanistan's Achilles' heel. A few weeks ago, RAND hosted a gathering of the Afghan government's director general for the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, civil society activists, investigative journalists, parliamentarians, educators, and bloggers in Kabul to discuss Afghanistan's future.
Confronting Afghanistan's Corruption
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