On the face of it, the two-day Afghan aid conference in Tokyo, jointly hosted by the European Union, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the US has been a considerable success. Though the UN target of $10 billion has not been met, the $4.5 billion that has been pledged, including $220 million from Saudi Arabia, is seen to be a positive start. There is little doubt about the sincerity of the donors’ commitment to rebuild Afghanistan.
However, the seeds of future difficulties were identifiable in some of the things that were said and done at the conference. References were made by World Bank officials to the need to ensure that funds are not misused by corrupt officials. Pointing to the deteriorating law-and-order situation in Kabul, one World Bank aide briefed about the danger of funding a "kleptocracy". Despite the presence of foreign troops driving around Kabul with members of the new Afghan police force, crime and disorder there are getting out of hand. Reports suggest that in many other areas of the country, matters are becoming equally grave. It is not hard to see a point in the no-too-distant future, when aid donors will start to protest.
However, this apparent crime wave deserves closer attention. There are thugs associated with particular warlords, who use their weapons to take what they want. The existence of these groups is an almost inevitable consequence of any war. In unfortunate cases, such as Somalia, they do not fade away with the return of peace. But the opportunity now exists in Afghanistan to engage these sometimes unsavory characters in the rebuilding process, by giving them economic opportunities which are contingent upon their abandonment of banditry.
Then there are a huge number of little people, for whom crime of one sort or another seems to be the only option if they and their families are to survive. In the countryside, farmers whose crops have been blighted by three years of drought may be planning, in desperation, to restart cultivation of the profitable opium poppy, despite the clear interdicts of the interim government and the international community. It will be easy to condemn these people for their wrongdoing, but they should never be used by the international community as an excuse to withhold aid. They should rather be a spur to greater effort.
What is most important for Afghanistan is that the aid is creative, that it allows the country to rebuild the little that it had before, and then construct fresh opportunities on top of that. What must not happen is for the aid effort to revert to the subsistence levels that we have seen with other man-made or natural disasters. In such circumstances, enough money and physical aid is provided to keep a disaster-hit population alive, but not a cent is given to help the victims help themselves climb out of the pit into which they have fallen.
As Afghanistan fades from the headlines in the coming months, the temptation to water down commitments to its rebuilding will become stronger. If the country appears to have become a corrupt den of thieves, a tailor-made excuse will lie to hand. However, for them to abandon the ambitious goals set this week in Tokyo will be to abandon the Afghan people to a return to instability; the world has learned that instability in Afghanistan could have serious international consequences.
