AFGHANS PROBABLY WON'T SEE $10 BILLION PLEDGED FOR RECONSTRUCTION

by Sanjay Suri

(IPS) LONDON -- The $10 billion pledged in aid for Afghanistan during a two-day international meeting here sounds like good news for the country, but the average Afghan is likely to see little of that.

"It sounds good on paper, but our concern is that this is going to be undermined by the direction that geopolitics is taking in the country," Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of The Senlis Council, a drug policy think tank, told IPS.

A military solution to drugs "is going to undermine the sovereignty of Afghanistan," he said. "That could lead to major unrest, and all the money pledged -- if ever delivered -- could be for nothing if this is going on."

Promises of aid are often whittled down along the way, and that's if all the countries promising aid actually deliver it.

More than $5 billion in reconstruction aid was pledged over a five-year period at a meeting of donors in Tokyo in January of 2002, $1.7 billion of it pledged for that year. But Afghanistan got only about $150 million in reconstruction aid.

The $1.7 billion pledged for the year was followed up by firm commitments of only $1.1 billion. A total of $900 million has come in by way of actual disbursements, of which about 70 percent went for humanitarian relief such as providing food and to facilitate the return of refugees.

That left about $250 million for actual reconstruction aid that year. After paying for salaries, only about $150 million was left for educational and vocational development, health and nutrition, and for social programs.

More development aid flowed into Afghanistan in the years following, but only a fraction reached the ground.

Afghans themselves have handled only a fraction of the aid. Most of it went to Western non-governmental organizations and companies from donor countries engaged in development projects.

"When you go to the real Afghanistan, you will see that the money is not going to those who need it, the farmers, families, rural people," Reinert said. "Afghan development policy is a myth, out there you hardly see anything."

Afghan officials have been protesting aid in this form. A joint Afghan-United Nations commission will seek to ensure that Afghans have more say where the aid goes. But the aid package is likely to be concentrated on security and poppy eradication, and on supporting education to prevent another generation of terrorists coming up.

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium and heroin, and this is certain to present the biggest challenge for Western influence in Afghanistan -- and the most likely source of conflict. This is the one area the West wants to supervise, rather than leave to Afghan authorities.

"Money should be used for policies and in ways that help the Afghan government help itself," Reinert said. "The new money should be used to support the Afghans to make good use of the opium produced, not to wipe out the cultivation."

The aid pledges come in the wake of growing militancy by the Taliban or Taliban-like groups in the south of Afghanistan. The Senlis Council says forced eradication of poppy could exacerbate that unrest.