PARIS, 13 June 2008 — Donors led by the United States pledged more than $16 billion in aid for Afghanistan yesterday but said Kabul must do more to fight corruption and the international assistance must be better coordinated. At a conference in Paris, Washington promised $10.2 billion to help one of the world’s poorest countries, which is grappling with an insurgency, poverty, drug trafficking and corruption six-and-a-half years after US-led forces ousted the Taleban from power.
More than 12,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan during the past two years and the Taleban movement has vowed to step up a campaign of suicide bombings to try to break the will of Western nations that have forces in the nation.
“Afghanistan was taken hostage by a regime allied to terrorism,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the conference of 68 nations, including Afghanistan.
“It is the duty of all democrats to help you,” Sarkozy told Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the start of the meeting, attended by representatives from more than 15 international organizations, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Afghanistan asked the donors to help fund a $50 billion five-year development plan and Karzai told the conference that his country needed aid to be better coordinated as well as more help in institution-building to fight corruption.
“The current development process that is marred by confusion and parallel structures undermines institution building,” Karzai said. “While Afghanistan needs large amounts of aid, precisely how aid is spent is just as important.” While often politely expressed, minister after minister pressed the Afghan authorities to do more against corruption.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said aid offered by donors should be more effective and coherent, “ensuring that it reaches Afghans and addresses their most urgent needs.”
“This means successfully fighting corruption, improving accountability and it means Afghan ownership of development,” said Rice.
Donors were not expected to pledge a full $50 billion but the meeting was intended as a show of support for Afghanistan after a NATO summit in April examined military strategy for the more than 50,000 NATO-led foreign troops stationed there.
It was unclear how much of the more than $16 billion pledged in loans and grants was fresh money. The US pledge consists of sums already made public in budget requests to the US Congress and $7.1 billion has yet to be approved by lawmakers. Afghanistan depends on aid for 90 percent of its spending. But international donors have fallen behind in paying what they have already pledged, and much of the money goes straight back to donor countries in salaries, purchase of goods and profits.
