KABUL, 3 April 2008 (IRIN) - As NATO sets about exploring ways to boost its military effort in Afghanistan at a summit in Bucharest on 3 April, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide are urging a "holistic approach" and better coordination by all parties to defeat the Taliban and restore stability.

Ban and Eide are calling on NATO to increase non-military support to the Afghan government in order to tackle the insurgency more effectively and help rebuild and develop the country, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

"To defeat the insurgency we need to see more than just military efforts; we need to see political outreach efforts; we need to see development efforts; we need to see humanitarian assistance efforts; and more broadly, regional cooperation," Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for UNAMA, told IRIN in Kabul.

"The insurgency cannot be defeated and peace cannot be achieved only through military means," he said.

All parties involved in peace-building and development in Afghanistan - chiefly NATO, the UN and the Afghan government - should "step-up coordination" among themselves, Siddique said.

NATO role in humanitarian activities?

Apart from its military operations in coordination with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) [http://www.nato.int/isaf/topics/history/index.html], NATO also runs Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in 26 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces and has carried out over 7,500 development projects, said a NATO report released on 1 April.

While some aid agencies criticise the increasing involvement of NATO soldiers in development and humanitarian activities and consider this a major reason for the "shrinking humanitarian space" in Afghanistan, UNAMA says Afghanistan needs more than the traditional distinction between help from the military and help from aid agencies.

"We want to get away from this black-and-white scenario where it is purely the military that are responsible for security and purely the international community and the government that are responsible for political outreach and the development," said Aleem.

However, aid agencies such as Oxfam America, member of Oxfam International, have said the military should not be engaged in humanitarian and development activities unless there is no other way to meet life-threatening needs [http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/news_updates/archive2003/art4362.html].

Civilian casualties

At least 1,500 Afghan civilians lost their lives in insurgency-related violence in 2007, the UN has reported.

Preliminary reports compiled by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) indicate that almost half of civilian casualties in the past two years came about as a result of aerial strikes and other military operations conducted by international forces.

During the Bucharest summit, Ban and Eide will reiterate the UN's concerns about civilian protection and ask NATO leaders to adopt stronger measures to minimise the impact of the conflict on civilians, Siddique said.

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