Four years after the US-backed campaign which ousted the Taliban, Afghanistan remains one of the world’s poorest countries and security is a major obstacle to development.
The meeting will formalise a five-year plan — known as the Afghanistan Compact — to tackle illegal armed groups, enforce the rule of law, work towards the eradication of opium production and enforce a zero-tolerance policy on corruption.
“The goals which we have set are ambitious but they are achievable and if we reach them we will be making a real difference on the ground to the lives of many millions,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told a news conference.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration would seek approval for $1.1 billion of aid for the Afghan people in the next year, on top of aid commitments of nearly $6 billion. British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged $885 million over the next three years.
But a Taliban leader condemned the conference as an “American drama and stage show” and warned that the Taliban would continue attacking western forces in the country.
“In Afghanistan armed jihadi and suicide attacks against America, Britain and their agents will continue,” Mullah Abdullah Akhund, deputy to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, told Reuters by satellite telephone.
Officials have blamed Taliban and Al Qaeda militants for a string of attacks, including 13 suicide bombings, since November.
DRUGS & AID: Afghanistan got a constitution, an elected president and a parliament since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 following 9/11 attacks in the Unites States. Some 18,000 US troops are helping the Afghan government forces fight insurgents in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
NATO is preparing to double the size of its force in Afghanistan to 18,000 from 9,000 and expand into the dangerous south while the US cuts its troop levels. Britain announced last week it would send an additional 3,300 troops.
But one of the major challenges for Afghanistan will be to crack down on the opium trade, which accounts for about half of the country’s economy.
Afghanistan is the world’s biggest source of illicit opium. Its refined heroin accounts for about 87 per cent of global supply and many farmers depend on revenue from the drug.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his people had turned to growing opium poppies during three decades of desperation and it would take years to eradicate the trade.
“Let us recognise that this is a tough fight,” he said. “Afghanistan will need at least 10 years of strong, systematic consistent effort in eradication (of opium), in law enforcement and in the provision to the Afghan farmer of an alternative economy.”
One former Afghan minister said billions of dollars of aid that poured into the country had done little to improve people’s lives, and that sweeping personnel changes in government and aid agencies were needed.
“The people are asking themselves “if these billions of dollars have been donated, which of our pains have they remedied, what ointment has been put on our wounds,’” former planning minister Ramazan Bashardost said in Kabul.—Reuters