For the Afghan population and the international community alike, corruption has a devastating impact. Afghanistan’s pervasive corruption profoundly effects security and economic development, and if left unaddressed it will continue to impede progress.

Transparency International's Defence and Security Programme (TI DSP) is actively engaged with Afghanistan. We are providing practical tools to help the defence and security sector build integrity and tackle corruption. We work directly with Afghans—the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of the Interior, Afghan National Army, and Afghan National Police—as well as with international forces active there—NATO Training Mission Afghanistan (NTMA), International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and the UK military.

TI DSP firmly believes that coalition forces in Afghanistan must recognize and address their role in Afghanistan’s rampant corruption. We believe the international community must:

• Press for progress in bringing the major corrupt players before the law.
• Disrupt corrupt networks and organized crime, and prevent them from becoming endemic and capturing state functions.
• To reduce and monitor international funds in and out of Afghanistan, including aid and military funding.
• To strengthen and extend corruption prevention structures, including education and training.
• To immediately address corruption issues where it is the international community which holds the levers for eradication and improvement.
• To build citizens’ and NGOs’ capacity to monitor aid projects and construction efforts.
• To ensure common governance and external messaging across the international community on anti-corruption support.

Read the full recommendations in 'Afghan Political Context', Director Mark Pyman’s speech on at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Our counter corruption work in Afghanistan

• The TI DSP team facilitated a Leader’s Day in 2009, which was attended by 30 top-level Ministry of Defence and Ministry of the Interior officials. Attendees identified key security corruption issues and discussed how they might be addressed. The event brought together Defence and Interior ministers, and allowed them to discuss the sensitive issue of corruption openly. This event, which was discussed on Afghan television, was a good first step in publicly raising the issue of corruption.  
• 6 Training Courses have been delivered to senior officers in the Afghan Ministry of Defence and Ministry of the Interior. These courses, which are held as part of the NATO-TI Building Integrity initiative, are attended by 30 to 40 senior officials each, with rank levels covering Colonel to 2 star generals.
• Afghan Ministries are currently completing the Integrity Self-Assessment Process.
• The TI-DSP team has co-hosted three workshops in the UK that brought together Afghan officials, the British armed forces, British ministries, and academia to discuss and develop strategies for improving counter-corruption work in Afghanistan. The report from the 2009 workshop, ‘the challenge of countering corruption in Afghanistan: Developing ways the British Military might respond’  can be downloaded here.
• In 2010, Transparency International sent this open letter to the leaders at the London Conference on Afghanistan.

Integrity Watch Afghanistan is an Afghan NGO that works on issues of accountability, integrity, and transparency in their country. 

Read publications related to defence and security corruption in Afghanistan.

Read more on Defence Corruption News Stories from Afghanistan.

Explore our Interactive Map of Defence Corruption around the World.