Brussels, 20/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The political message of the Donors Conference for Afghanistan (that opened in Brussels on Thursday) is that the international community is committed to helping rebuild Afghanistan in the short and medium-term. The two day conference is being organised by the European Commission and the Belgian Presidency of the Council (see p.14 of EUROPE of 17/18 December). In Washington on 21 November, the Steering Committee of the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Commission and the Presidency of the EU decided to open up to a wider circle of potential donors - EU Member States, Canada, Russia, Australia, Kuwait, Qatar, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Afghanistan's neighbours and international organisations like the United Nations Development Programme, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, Afghanistan support groups, and the like. The Afghan Minister Designate for Finance and various NGOs will be participating in the meeting, which is not a meeting where commitments will be made, but rather a meeting to assess priority needs for the launch of rapid impact projects and organise essential co-ordination of outside intervention and provide a framework for bilateral aid for Afghanistan. Food security, the return of refugees and displaced persons, rehabilitating agriculture, education and health and getting women involved on the social and political fronts are the most often mentioned areas of intervention and are expected to be the subject of the short-term Priority Projects (over the next 6 to 12 months) on which the conference participants are hoping to strike agreement. Short and medium-term financial commitments will be made at the ministerial Donors Conference in Tokyo part way through January 2002.
Chris Patten, European External Relations Commissioner, said there was no time to lose and words had to be turned into action. He welcomed the operational nature of the meeting, highlighting the regional dimension of the problem since the countries bordering on Afghanistan have taken the lion's share of the refugees.
Poul Nielson, Commissioner for Development Policy and Development Aid, mentioned the huge obstacles that remain - general insecurity due to inter-tribal clashes, banditry, unexploded mines and bombs, and also - most disturbing of all - the warlords' barring or plundering of international aid convoys. He echoed the words of the Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah (whom he met in Kabul), saying that the challenges here were greater than in Bonn. Mr Nielson said the message had to be clear - the international community will only help rebuild regions of Afghanistan where local stakeholders provide play an active role in restoring stability and security. Calling for a genuine partnership between donors and the new government, and "donor discipline", he highlighted that the situation on the ground in Afghanistan required extraordinary co-ordination efforts with the absolute priority being accorded to continuing humanitarian aid for the winter and beyond, in the knowledge that the survival of millions of Afghans depended on emergency aid. He added that the gradual return to peace was bound to see the arrival of new humanitarian organisations in the country and it was crucial that they built on the expertise and professionalism of the NGOs that already know the terrain. He said that the Commission would be continuing to provide humanitarian aid and providing additional support to the rebuilding of the country.
On behalf of the Presidency of the Council, Belgian Co-operation and Development Minister, Eddy Boutmans, emphasised that Afghan women had to have a higher status in life and civil society had to be involved in rebuilding the country and called for projects aiming at parity between men and women and urgent action in the fields of health and education.
Andrew Natsios, from USAid, said that the US would be supporting the interim government that covered all regions and all ethnic groups (for the first time since 1997). He said the priorities for the US were rebuilding the destroyed agricultural system, restoring food security (1/3 of the population relied on food aid), the return of refugees and displaced persons, relaunching the economy, creating jobs and fighting drugs. The US representative made no attempt to hide the fact that the US "expected the International Community to pick up the lion's share" of the reconstruction burden since the US had provided the lion's share of the military action.
Commission undertakes to pay EUR 2.5 million to the United Nations Fund
On the fringe of the conference, Chris Patten gave concrete evidence of the Commission's commitment to support the United Nations Fund for short term support to the Afghan interim administration with the payment of EUR 2.5 million to this fund on behalf of the Community. The decision was jointly signed by Chris Patten and by Mark Malloch-Brown, Administrator for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), before the press. From this amount, 2 million will go to the functioning of the interim government (mainly salaries) and 0.5 million will finance technical assistance to the task force of the UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Mr Brahimi (establishment of an independent committee of civil service, a judicial commission, and a commission on human rights).