MANILA, Jan 13: At least 15 billion dollars will be needed to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan in the first 10 years under plans that stress policy reforms and self reliance, say officials finalising a deal ahead of a donors meeting in Tokyo.

Officials from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Development Programme are putting the finishing touches to a so-called preliminary needs assessment plan for Afghanistan’s rehabilitation.

The plan was to be sent this week to Japan, which will host the January 21-22 ministerial conference of more than 50 donor countries for an aid strategy to rebuild Afghanistan after years of civil war and the more recent impacts of the US military campaign.

“Under the plan, reconstruction and humanitarian assistance will go hand-in-hand and simultaneously with basic policy and institutional reforms so that we can avoid the pitfalls of previous multilateral reconstruction experiences,” ADB director general for South Asia Yoshihiro Iwasaki said.

Officials from the three multilateral aid agencies attending the meeting hosted by the Manila-based ADB said about 10 billion dollars would be needed in the first five years of the reconstruction under proposals being finalised.

But for a 10-year period, the reconstruction effort would roughly cost one to two billion dollars per year or between 40 dollars and 80 dollars per capita, the officials said.

“I think the number will be somewhere in between — something like 60 dollars per capita or around 1.5 billion dollars per year — but this is still not final,” Iwasaki said.

Afghanistan has a population of 25 million, about 20 per cent of whom are refugees.

But Iwasaki made it clear that the cost under the preliminary needs assessment plan covered only reconstruction and not humanitarian assistance, like provision of tents, food and medicine to the refugees displaced by 23 years of conflict.

“So, the total assistance for Afghanistan will be larger because it has to include also humanitarian assistance,” Iwasaki said.

He did not give an estimate for humanitarian assistance.

Iwasaki said special emphasis was given under the reconstruction plan on Afghan ownership and a community-based approach and to lay the groundwork for self-reliance in financing, particularly of recurrent costs in the medium term.

“We have to build up their ability to mobilize domestic resources from the start,” he said, adding that by doing this, funding requirements could ease five years after the implementation of the plan.

In the first years of the plan’s implementation, it was proposed that emphasis be given to technical assistance for training, capacity building and introducing policy reforms right down to the local levels.

Iwasaki said reconstruction also required the deployment back home of millions of Afghan professionals and experts.

“I am really impressed by the quality of Afghan expertise and the very rich human resources within and outside Afghanistan compared to some other countries which have gone through destruction from war,” Iwasaki said.

In Germany alone, the Afghan diaspora comprises 80,000 to 90,000 people, including many highly-educated intellectuals, entrepreneurs and technically-skilled workers.

“So the key to success of the reconstruction of Afghanistan is establishing a conducive environment for these people to return home,” he said.

The multilateral aid plan might favour labour intensive building methods, for example, to create as many jobs as possible.

“They may not be economically efficient but will provide job opportunities and on-the-job training, and facilitate the return of refugees as well as lure Afghan entrepreneurs to the various construction activities,” Iwasaki added.

The plan calls for greater cooperation between land-locked Afghanistan and its neighbouring states.—AFP