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A guest post by Mohammad Mojtaba Salem

What lies ahead for Afghanistan, now that the international community has decided to transfer state-building responsibilities to the Afghan government? However frightening this transfer might look, it forces us to think about a fundamental crisis, which is going to be present today and for the years to come: namely, corruption. Admitting that the government is too corrupt for inspiring a national thinking process, who else might have the potential to do so? Students, I would say.

On Tuesday, 27^th September 2011, AUAF students inaugurated the first Student Counter-Corruption Seminar. The seminar’s name indicates its theme, but, in fact, the latent objective was recognizing the key role civil society and particularly university students should play in national policy making. We laid out this vision in more detail in the seminar’s agenda and the concept paper.

The first session of the seminar was hosted with the support of CJIATF-Shafafiyat  (Transparency) ISAF unit. Indeed, this seminar is the principal outgrowth of a unique interaction between a lead counter-corruption organization and university students. The Tuesday session will be followed by working group sessions on various aspects of corruption: good governance, legal incentive-structure, identification of corruption patterns (petty and grand corruption as well as state capture). Students’ proposals, suggestions, and creative solutions that contribute to the enrichment of counter-corruption strategies will be gathered into a final resolution to be presented on International Anti-Corruption Day on 9^th December 2011.

The seminar has attempted to broaden the discussion beyond frequently repeated generalizations about corruption by breaking up corruption into sub-categories, each of which has hindered the progress of a particular sector of the state. Considering the affected sector and the way(s) its progress has been hindered, proposals and mechanisms for dealing with corrupt policies are asked to be developed.

Endemic corruption in the Karzai government is healable if donor agencies, the media, and students (as active citizens) engage in a set of coordinated activities to push the government to implement counter-corruption strategies. This “pushing” is necessary since, in Afghanistan, the government has the most to lose if anti-corruption strategies yield positive results. Therefore, the seminar poses the following core questions: how should such coordination take place? And, what strategies must be formed as a result of that coordination to effectively address corruption in Afghanistan?  

The seminar has invited students to formulate their thoughts and opinions in a written form. The best papers will be chosen to be published in the national and international journals and newspapers. Their authors will also have the chance to present what they think is the best counter-corruption strategy to the audience on 9^th December, when the seminar ends by marking the International Anti-Corruption Day.

Mohammad Mojtaba Salem is a junior at the American University of Afghanistan pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Legal Studies Certificate.