AFGHANISTAN:PEACE IN Afghanistan is undermined by Western nations' failure to deliver promised aid and 40 per cent of funds that do reach the country return to the West in profits and salaries, aid agencies said yesterday.
Afghanistan relies on inter-national aid for 90 per cent of its spending as it tries to rebuild state institutions shattered by nearly 30 years of war and at the same time fight off a renewed Taliban insurgency that killed 6,000 people last year.
Foreign spending on aid and development is dwarfed by that spent on international military operations in Afghanistan.
The US military alone now spends some $100 million (€65 million) a day fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, but spending on aid by all donors since 2001 amounts to only $7 million a day.
"Given the links between development and security, the effectiveness of aid also has a major impact on peace and stability," the Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief (Acbar) said in a report. "Yet thus far aid has been insufficient and in many cases wasteful and ineffective," said Acbar, an umbrella group for non-governmental organisations work- ing in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan received just $57 per capita in aid in the two years after international intervention, compared to $679 a head in Bosnia and $233 in East Timor, it said.
The international community has pledged to spend some $25 billion, but, the report said, "just $15 billion in aid has so far been spent, of which it is estimated a staggering 40 per cent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and salaries".
- (Reuters)