AFGHANISTAN

Documents & Texts from America.gov

11 June 2008
Afghans Appeal for Aid at Paris Conference

By David McKeeby
Staff Writer

Washington -- Building a nation remains an all-too-literal description of the challenges facing Afghanistan’s 32 million citizens after decades of conflict.

"This was one of the poorest countries in the world in the '50s and the '60s and the '70s, and then went downhill for 20 years," says Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher. "It shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody how much there still is to do."

Boucher, the State department’s top diplomat for South and Central Asia, briefed journalists June 10 as representatives from 80 countries, international organizations and aid groups began arriving in Paris for the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan.

The overarching goal of the June 12 conference, he said, will be to secure international backing for the Afghan National Development Strategy -- a five-year plan formulated by the Afghan government to define its development needs and allow more effective coordination of thousands of aid projects sponsored by a host of foreign governments, international organizations and private aid groups across the country.

Conference organizers expect pledges to exceed the $10.5 billion raised at the 2006 London Conference. These new pledges will be a down payment toward the strategy’s $50 billion price tag.

“We’re going to see not only a very substantial pledge from the United States, but substantial pledges from many other countries as well,” Boucher said. He declined to provide specifics ahead of expected announcements from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will be joined at the conference by first lady Laura Bush. (See ”First Lady Urges Redoubled Effort in Afghanistan.”)

The development strategy is one example of how seven years of international aid and support have helped Afghans build a government capable of delivering schools, health care, roads and essential services. The challenge ahead, Boucher said, will be to move from building the government “up” to moving it “out” to all corners of the country.

Governance at the provincial and local levels is improving, an often overlooked but important factor, Boucher said. “We have more good governors out there, governors that are eradicating [opium] poppy, working on provincial development plans, galvanizing their provinces or their districts and moving them forward.”

Additional progress can be seen in Afghanistan’s army and its health and education ministries, as well as the Afghan national solidarity program, which has delivered more than 35,000 small-scale building projects in 25,000 villages across the country. Afghan contractors are taking on a growing share of construction and development projects once dominated by foreign aid agencies.

Despite these hopeful signs, corruption remains a serious problem and one that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will have to address in Paris to build confidence among the donor community, Boucher said. “It's been an endemic problem in Afghanistan; it's something that we all know needs to be dealt with.”

The United States is ready to do its part to continue helping Afghanistan, Boucher said, by building on more than $26 billion in aid with support for reforms in underperforming government ministries; funding to expand roads, electricity and other infrastructure; and promoting new economic opportunities through rural development and agricultural aid, in addition to preparations for elections in 2009 and 2010.

Visiting Afghanistan over the past seven years, Boucher has watched businesses open under tents, move into cargo containers, shift into market stalls and finally transform into established shops in finished concrete buildings -- a fitting metaphor for how the world is helping Afghans to rebuild their country.

“We've been starting from less than nothing and built an Afghanistan now that's seen as a nation,” Boucher said. “If this place is going to be stable for the long term, it's not going to be [by] building half of it and then walking away. It's going to be by sticking to it and continuing to build a nation.”

For more on the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan, see the French Foreign Ministry’s Web site. The site hosts the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, a 288-page PDF file.

A transcript of Boucher's briefing is available on America.gov.

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