KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Conservative government plans to make the refurbishment and expansion of a dam bordering a sapphire-coloured lake in northern Kandahar the jewel of Canada's development effort in the war-torn region.
Refurbishing the Dahla dam in the northern Arghandab district is one of three signature projects announced Tuesday. Canada will also build, expand or renovate 50 schools in Kandahar province and finance an ambitious project to immunize seven million children across Afghanistan against polio.
These commitments are part of Canada's end game in the country, looking ahead to a scheduled 2011 pullout.
Canada will spend $50 million on refurbishing the Dahla dam. Other international partners, including USAID, could also contribute to the project.
The schools project will cost $12 million and the immunization program will get $60 million.
In addition to building schools, Canada will also help finance adult literacy and vocational training projects.
Afghan is one of four countries in the world where polio remains endemic, but the mass immunization program, aimed at children under age five, could go far to ending that.
Acting Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson said at an Ottawa news conference that these projects represent an increased commitment to development and reconstruction in Afghanistan as recommended in the Manley report last fall.
"Our ultimate goal in Afghanistan remains the same; that's to leave Afghanistan to Afghans in a viable country that is better governed, more peaceful and more secure.''
"What is new is that we will significantly concentrate Canadian efforts and our resources on those areas most likely to help us reach that goal.''
These plans and other development initiatives will raise Canada's 10-year commitment to Afghanistan to $1.9 billion by 2011.
The intent of the dam project would be to help improve irrigation along the Arghandab River Valley, a semi-lush concourse that weaves its way across the parched moonscape of southern Afghanistan.
Officials with the Canadian International Development Agency inspected the dam in late March.
There will be three phases to the project, but Canada will not contribute to all of them.
Donor countries meeting in Paris
The dam has three small turbine-operated power generating stations right now that are barely functional, but the project will not be aimed at restoring them.
Donor countries involved in Afghanistan, including Canada, meet in Paris on Thursday where they intend to map the way ahead on aid and development.
Restoring the dam would be a lasting, visible contribution to rebuilding a region once considered one of southern Afghanistan agricultural heartlands.
Three decades of war, particularly the brutal Soviet occupation of the 1980s, left the centuries-old web of irrigation networks and canals in both Kandahar and nearby Helmand province in ruins. As they withdrew, the Russian carried out a deliberate campaign to wreck the waterway system.
One of the first development initiatives undertaken by the Canadians was to see local waterways and aqueducts cleared of debris and reopened.
Haji Mohammad Qasim, a provincial councillor and a member of the Kandahar Industrial Association, says local officials have been lobbying the government of President Hamid Karzai to make the restoration of the dam a priority.
"The Dahla dam is very important,'' he said in a recent interview.
"We discussed it with Canadian (ambassador) Arif Lalani.''
Qasim said people throughout the troubled province "would not forget this big help.''
Constructed in the 1950s by the Americans, the Dahla dam is supposed to feed water to seven districts in the province, covering 40,000 hectares of farmland.
The Canadian project will repair the dam, restore the generating capacity and dredge the silt that has clogged the dam spillways and the canals which carry irrigation water.
Canadian military engineers say bridges and roads leading to the site would have to be improved before any work is carried out on the dam.
The Taliban might decide to make the project a strategic target, in much the same way they have repeatedly attacked the Kajaki dam in Helmand province.
The British have fought pitched battles over two years to secure the area around the dam, which only has one of three turbines operating. NATO hopes to have the Kajaki dam at full power some time later this year.
Recognizing the military significance, Canada has already established important fortified outposts in the region.
But military officials downplayed the threat, saying efforts to get the locals to buy in are showing signs of success and area power brokers are willing to provide "security,'' which in this country means an armed militia.
Improving water flow from the dam could in the long-run ease the insurgency, one officer suggested.
In Ottawa, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and International Co-Operation Minister Bev Oda said Afghans will recognize the importance of the dam to their own lives and will help protect it.
Better irrigation throughout the Arghandab River Valley would increase agricultural production throughout the province, providing jobs and a stable income for Afghans driven into the arms of the insurgency by unemployment and hunger.
