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Nations pledge billions to revive afghanistan { April 1 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/asia/01DONO.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/01/international/asia/01DONO.html
April 1, 2004
Led by U.S., Nations Pledge Billions to Revive Afghanistan
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
BERLIN, March 31 — Nations from around the world have pledged $4.4 billion in aid and low-cost loans to help stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan next year, with the United States accounting for about half of the contributions so far, American officials said Wednesday.
At an international donors conference here, 65 delegations representing more than 50 nations assembled a financial package that Afghan and Bush administration officials said would total $8.2 billion over the next three years. Administration officials were elated with the outcome, which they said would help allow the Kabul government to pay salaries to its workers, prepare for national elections in September and continue to rebuild the country's infrastructure.
Japan and Germany, which were co-sponsors of the conference, pledged about $400 million and $390 million respectively in donations to be parceled out over time. The Bush administration, which led an invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that ousted the fundamentalist Taliban government, has said it will spend a total of $2.2 billion in 2004 and $1.2 billion in fiscal 2005.
A detailed accounting was not yet available Wednesday as donors worked late into the night. The final figures were elusive because some donors opted for multiyear commitments, and the Afghan fiscal year is different from those of most Western donors.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell praised the democratic government of Hamid Karzai for making remarkable strides in reviving the country.
"In a few short years, with the help of the international community, Afghanistan has gone from being a failed state ruled by extremists and terrorists, to a free country with a growing economy and an emerging democracy," Mr. Powell said.
Mr. Karzai hailed the support and said it would eventually result in a self-sustaining nation dedicated to fighting terrorism and drugs.
Noting that his country is "rebuilding itself from the ashes of over two decades of war," Mr. Karzai thanked international donors for rallying behind his government. "Let us see that in a few years Afghanistan will not be a burden on your shoulders, but a partner that will stand upon its own feet," he said.
However generous the pledges, development experts and Afghanistan specialists said the country will require considerably more money to avoid reverting to a corrupt and tribal state under the influence of drug lords. A study by the World Bank, the Afghan government and the Asian Development Bank, which announced its own pledge Wednesday of $1 billion in loans and grants, said that the country needed as much as $28 billion in outside funds over the next seven years.
Another study, by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, found that reconstruction efforts so far have been undercut by poor security and irregular disbursals of foreign aid. "Without a dramatic increase in international focus and resources, Afghanistan could deteriorate into that which the international community has been working to prevent — a failed state serving as a breeding ground for terrorists and narco-traffickers," the report stated.
Mr. Karzai said that militias outside of government control remained a principal concern as the government tried to extend its authority. About a third of the nation, primarily in the conflict zone along the Pakistani border, remains unstable and the province of criminal warlords, American officials say. Drug cultivation and sales also threaten the government and tarnish its international image.
"Nobody wants to be called a drug dealer," Mr. Karzai said. "Especially not a nation."
Mr. Karzai said he was determined to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in September. The deadline for the vote had slipped from June as officials struggle to register as many as nine million voters. So far, Mr. Karzai said, only 1.5 million Afghans have been registered.
The biggest threat to the elections, which would build on the nation's ratification of a Constitution in January, could come from remnant Taliban forces and militia leaders who are increasingly striking out at international aid workers. Over the last two months, 11 aid workers have been slain.
For organizations with workers in remote and dangerous places, the need for more foreign troops is acute.
There are about 11,500 troops in the coalition force in Afghanistan; about 10,000 of them are Americans. In addition, a NATO-led security force in the capital city, Kabul, has another 5,700 troops. The coalition has divided its its responsibilities, with the British focusing on countering narcotics, the Italians working on judicial reform, the Germans training police, the Japanese promoting demilitarization and the Americans reforming the army.
Mr. Powell insisted that the United States would stand by the Afghan government and not allow it to fail. "Never again will tyrants and terrorists rule Afghanistan, and never again will Afghanistan become a seedbed of instability," he said.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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