Donors pledge $4.4 billion in aid to Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN: International donors have pledged $4

AFGHANISTAN: International donors have pledged $4.4 billion for the financial year 2004-2005 towards the reconstruction and budget costs of Afghanistan, Afghanistan's finance minister said last night, writes Derek Scally in Berlin

Mr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai added that the donor nations had also agreed to commit to a total of $8.2 billion for the coming three years. The figures fall short of what the Afghan delegation had been looking for.

Earlier the Afghan president, Mr Hamid Karzai, presented the international community with a stark choice yesterday: give more money to rebuild Afghanistan or allow the country become a "haven for drugs and terrorists".

Mr Karzai told the International Donors Conference in Berlin yesterday that $28 billion in aid over the next seven years could transform Afghanistan into a self-sufficient state within a decade. "Afghanistan will be able to stand on its own feet, will be able to feed itself, to pay for itself from its own revenues, to protect itself. That requires your sustained assistance, your sustained help. This help will give us in Afghanistan, and by extension in the region and the international community, stability and peace."

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But, he added, regional warlords and drug production were "undermining the very existence of the Afghan state".

"Afghanistan's agriculture, Afghanistan's economy, Afghanistan's way of life, Afghanistan's tradition and culture is being threatened by drugs," he said.

Mr Karzai called for international assistance to tackle opium production, which accounts for nearly half of Afghanistan's economy.

Mr Ghani warned that western neglect could have "dire consequences" for the country. He said the Afghan development programme appeared to demand a lot of money, but added: "We are not asking for the Mercedes Benz [of programmes], we are asking for a bicycle."

Chancellor Schröder said Germany's commitment was long-term. "We'll need to have a lot of staying power. And that we have," he said. - (Additional reporting Reuters)