Speaking of institution-building in Afghan governance, over at the Washington Independent, I took a look at what Saturday’s U.N. update on Afghanistan assessed about its current levels of development. It’s actually more of a mixed picture than I thought, with the U.N. finding improvements on the national level for directing and implementing a short-term-impact development strategy. But down below the national level is a different story:

The ability of the Government to accurately plan, monitor and evaluate development at the subnational level faces capacity and resource limitations. UNAMA, in cooperation with United Nations agencies in the field, carried out a snapshot survey on the capacity of provincial sector working groups to deliver services and to coordinate development activities. The UNAMA survey identified four trends in subnational development. First, the capacity of subnational government to coordinate through the sector working groups is limited in many locations where mechanisms are operating below expectations. Second, coordination and implementation of sector strategies was strongest in health and education and relatively weak in private sector development. Third, in several provinces with significant security challenges, there were no sector working groups or similar coordination structures. Finally, where capacity-building programmes had been carried out, whether by United Nations agencies or other partners, sector working groups demonstrated improved abilities to plan, coordinate and monitor sectoral activities.

So perhaps I was wrong to assess earlier that the Karzai government reacted to July 2011 exclusively by emphasizing peace talks rather than governance. But governance is still a lagging indicator precisely at the time when it most needs to accelerate.