Based upon the initial councils set up in Helmand and sponsored by DFID, USAID issued a request for proposals for a large contract to roll out similar programs in eighty "key" districts across the country.86 While technically a national-level initiative of the government of Afghanistan, both the British and American versions of the ASOP program were funded and heavily steered by international donors. In Helmand, DFID employees and stabilization advisers from the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) on forward operating bases organize much of the election process, meet with government officials, and oversee the project. At a national level, the American version of ASOP did seem to coordinate more closely with IDLG. Despite the overlapping design of these ASOP councils, the versions sponsored by the British and the Americans were set up with a limited amount of consultation with each other.87
USIP visited over a dozen of these districts where ASOP was operating. Discussions with residents in these districts suggested that the influence of ASOP councils was primarily restricted to the district center. his contention is supported by a selection of justice subcommittee records analyzed by Sarah Ladbury, primarily from shopkeepers and homeowners in the district bazaar, which suggest that the group's influence does not reach far beyond the bazaar. In 2010, Ladbury reported that councils were hearing on average two to four cases a month in Helmand, and "the number does not appear to be increasing."88 Similarly, in districts in Helmand where USIP research projects overlapped with ASOP councils, there were no reports of the justice subcommittees playing an important role in resolving local disputes.89 Opinions were also split in a survey overseen by Ladbury as to whether these councils were linking the government with the people, increasing awareness of human rights or access to justice for excluded groups. It is possible that this changed as the committees gained more traction.
At the national level, political tensions within the government of Afghanistan were exacerbated by this new international funding. he Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), whose National Solidarity Program (NSP) was considered by many to be the premier local governance program in the country, argued that the local councils already set up by the NSP program should be the focus of local governance efforts. In the meantime, the IDLG has used funding from the British and the Americans to strengthen its positi