Corruption in Afghanistan: An Aid Worker’s Experience

I think as aid workers we all accept that an uncorrupted social or economic transaction would be suspicious in its own way here. Most accounts of living or working in Afghanistan touch on corruption for a reason, after all, and I’ve learned that Afghans are as exhausted by it as we are.

It is more than the bribes offered to be seen sooner in a clinic, or those required to get access to appropriate and unexpired medicines, or those requested for an official’s signature on a cooperative agreement. It is actually the corruption of priorities that challenges the very core of what we’re trying to do, day to day.