November 26, 2001	Monday	Ramazan 10, 1422

An action plan for the reconstruction of Afghanistan is being put together by the donor countries and multilateral agencies. One high level meeting for the purpose was held in Washington last Tuesday in which the major players were the US and Japan.

No pledges were made at this meeting but an amount in the range of $10 billion was discussed. Another equally important but more comprehensive conference on the subject is being held in Islamabad on November 27 ( Tuesday) for the same purpose. This is being organized by the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank.

The theme of this conference is: ‘Preparing for Afghanistan’s reconstruction’. About 200 persons including representatives of various Afghan factions will attend this conference to discuss the country’s humanitarian, social and economic needs.

The emphasis at this conference is expected to be on getting the Afghans themselves to talk about their problems and make suggestions for overcoming them with the international community led by the multilateral donor agencies providing them with technical assistance.

The main focus of the discussion would be on agricultural recovery and food security, community participation and leadership, demobilization, employment generation, mine action, private sector development,public sector capacity building, education, health, the role of women, water and sanitation and infrastructure, including environmental considerations.

Among the international community the NGOs, the development banks, the UN and the donor community will be the main players at this conference. Like the Washington conference held last Tuesday, this meeting too would focus mainly on identifying the problems and the strategies required to tackle these problems on the short and long-term basis. No pledges would be made at this conference.The framework of these strategies evolved at these conferences would then be given as position papers to the new political government in Kabul which is in the process of being put together at present. The final decisions on what to do and how to do would then be taken by the new government in consultation with the donors.

The countries which have a presence in Kabul at present include, the US, UK, France, Russia, Iran and India. The UN and its agencies and other multilateral donor agencies like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank would also get in perhaps earlier than the establishment of a new government. Pakistan on the other hand would be missing from Kabul because of its reluctance to patch up with the Northern Alliance or perhaps it is the Northern Alliance which does not want to have anything to do with Pakistan. In both the cases, there is a possibility that Pakistan would be left out when the reconstruction and rehabilitation work is distributed among the close and distant neighbours and the donors.

However, logistics demand that whether one lik