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World Leaders Gather For Afghanistan Aid
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| Karzai mingles with donor nation representatives at a reception in Tokyo |
TOKYO, Jan. 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Officials from more than 60 governments and international organizations will meet in Tokyo Monday and Tuesday to attend the "International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan."
As donor countries readied their pledges of funds to rebuild post-war Afghanistan Sunday, the country's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, arrived in Tokyo expressing hope the contributions would be enough to do the job.
Participants agree that a significant show of financial support for Afghanistan will be key to ensure the country does not breed movements such as the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
“I'm hoping very much that I will go back to my country and my people with my hands full,'' said Karzai.
“I will be conveying to the conference the extent of the destruction in Afghanistan and the extent of the needs of the people of Afghanistan and request them to see to it that those needs are taken care of,'' the 44-year-old Afghan leader said.
Members of non-governmental organizations meeting Sunday said the need for assistance was both massive and urgent.
The United Nations, World Bank and Asian Development Bank have estimated reconstruction will require $15 billion over a decade with $5 billion needed in the critical first 30 months and $10 billion in the first five years, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
While the Tokyo conference will seek to map out long-term financial assistance, the United Nations has complained that Afghanistan is on the brink of imminent financial ruin and needs help now.
No cheques have been written to help the interim Afghan government, which says it is down to its last 10 million dollars after replacing the ousted Taliban regime last month, according to the U.N.
"It is very disappointing," said Ahmed Fawzi, spokesman for U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi. "Reassurance is good. Cash is better."
A "start-up fund" established for the government after the inter-Afghan conference in Bonn last month had called for donations of 20 million dollars, but pledges of only 17.8 million dollars were made.
Of this, only 8.6 million dollars has been committed, according to the U.N.
The cost of failure to rebuild the country would be unthinkable, said Haji Abdul Salam, head of the Afghan planning ministry's social services department.
"If the reconstruction of Afghanistan does not take place, Afghanistan will reverse back to the civil war and will turn back to be the nest for terrorists and terrorism," he warned.
But the Tokyo conference is not just about money, delegates say.
"Out of this we have to develop a nation," Ishaq Nadiri, co-chair of the NGO meeting and a professor at New York University, told reporters.
Donors, for their part, want proof that Kabul has a viable plan to establish a democracy, tackle the drug trade, and promote equality for women, harshly oppressed under the Taliban rule.
“This is something that we want to monitor on a constant basis,'' said a senior official from one of the four co-chairs of the conference. The four co-chairs are Japan, the European Union, the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Experts say ensuring speedy aid for Karzai's month-old administration is critical for its survival, but note that the government itself is starting from scratch.
When the United Nations sent $6 million to Kabul this weekend just to keep the government running, the cash had to be flown in from Europe to empty Afghan central bank vaults. “Six million dollars requires a very large suitcase,” U.N. senior official, Mark Malloch Brown, told a briefing Sunday.
The list of challenges includes resettling refugees, reopening schools and removing land mines, rebuilding roads and bridges and reviving the nation's farming sector.
Establishing peace in a land still plagued by feuding warlords and roving gangs of thieves is a top priority.
“Unless the security issue is grappled with, there isn't going to be a viable program,'' Brown said.
The World Bank has strongly recommended that aid money be funneled through an umbrella trust fund for ease of coordination.
But Japan, the United States and Saudi Arabia have said they would be providing aid through bilateral delivery channels, while the E.U. has said some of its money would be spent bilaterally and some would be turned over to a fund to be run by the World Bank.
Saudi Arabia has promised $20 million immediately in substantial aid to help rebuild Afghanistan during Karzai’s meeting with Saudi King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah in the Gulf kingdom, Afghan officials told the BBC.
An Afghan spokesman said further assistance will be announced at the Tokyo conference.
Saudi officials have not confirmed the amount, although the official Saudi Press Agency reported that King Fahd expressed Saudi Arabia's "constant support for the Afghan people".
Saudi Arabia was one of few countries that recognized the Taliban regime which was ousted by the U.S.-led military campaign last year.
Karzai began his visit Friday by performing an Umra, or lesser pilgrimage, at the Islamic holy places in Mecca and attended a royal banquet given in his honor in the capital Riyadh Saturday.
Saudi Arabia froze ties with the Taliban in 1998 to protest against the presence in Afghanistan of the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, and severed completely after the September 11 attacks in the U.S., which Washington blamed on Bin Laden.
U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, also arrived Sunday afternoon to take part in the conference. U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, arrived Saturday.
The U.S. donation will be "very substantial," a senior U.S. official told reporters Sunday while refusing to divulge how much Powell will announce, AFP reported.
After attending the donors' conference in Tokyo, Karzai is due to visit China.
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