The employees of Voice for Humanity, in a fever of righteous idealism, traveled six hours on donkeys and horses through the remotest parts of the Afghanistan countryside. They were on a mission: to deliver what they thought was an invaluable literacy tool for Afghans. Pink for women, silver for men.

They were custom digital audio players which function like the trendy iPod although they look more like generic radios or MP3 players. They are made in China and filled with public service messages on topics including human rights, women’s rights, Afghanistan’s election process, and health.

There are further questions about the propriety of the US government distributing “public service messages” about an election in which it openly backs one candidate over the others. VHF has gone to great lengths to ensure that the recorders “have no US footprint,” despite the fact they are funded by the U.S. government and distributed by an American NGO.

Assuming that the content of the recorded audio on the players was purely educational and did have value as a literacy tool, it would have been cheaper and more affective to provide these communities with radio transmitters, which cost about $500 total. Radio programming would have reached more people, and is already how most Afghans get their information. Further, the information could be updated on the fly, whereas the VFH recorders must be rounded up and fitted with new chips bearing new material, and then redistributed. Each new chip costs $10, plus the cost of labor and travel.

¨Why not radios?¨ said one aid worker critical of the deal. “You see this time and time again to what (the politicians) think makes political sense regardless of feasibility or viability.”