U.N., AFGHANS SEEK MASSIVE AID URGENTLY, DONORS WARY.
The UN has issued an urgent appeal to international donors for an immediate $100 million injection to the Afghan interim government so it can pay civil servants and begin to restore a framework for government, reports the Financial Times (p.3). The appeal by Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan, was endorsed by US Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, currently in Kabul to assess foreign aid needs.
Brahimi's request follows a sluggish response to an earlier appeal, says the story. The scale of funds needed by the three week-old interim administration has also been recalculated. A UN-led appeal soon after the formation of the administration was agreed in Bonn last month called for an initial $20 million to underwrite the government's early costs. However, only $16 million was pledged, and less than $10 million has been paid.
Some diplomats in Kabul say any further delay in providing capital risks undermining the new administration's authority. Also at risk, they say, is the credibility of international promises that military operations in Afghanistan would be followed by concerted support for its rehabilitation.
"The response so far is absolutely scandalous," said one diplomat in Kabul. "It is discouraging people and it is worrying about what is going to occur in terms of the international response."
Estimates of long-term needs vary wildly, says the story. The UN has said Afghanistan needs up to $15 billion for emergency rehabilitation over the next two years. In December, the World Bank estimated up to $3 billion was needed over the next two and a half years. Biden, speaking on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, said Afghanistan would need $10 billion-$15 billion over the next five years to help rebuild its economy.
But Kabul's new leadership hopes to raise much more at an international donor's conference due to take place in Tokyo on January 21-22, notes the story. Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, planning minister in the Afghan caretaker government, has called for a $45 billion package over 10 years.
Also reporting, Reuters says donor countries getting ready to pledge new funds seem wary about committing anywhere near that amount. That was three to four times higher than most Western estimates cited so far, and comments from donor countries indicated Kabul could face an uphill struggle convincing the pledging conference in Tokyo to approve such a large sum.
"We need to see the basis for these figures," EU spokesman Gunnar Wiegand said on Sunday in Brussels. The EU has aimed to raise $9 billion for the next five years. "We need to see how much of this amount could be covered by the business sector," he added.
Reuters also quotes Biden as saying on Saturday, "The number I think most people could agree on is going to be at least $10 billion and it may be more over the next five or more years."
Britain's Department for International Development declined immediate comment. "We're waiting for the Tokyo reconstruction conference for the UN to put the package to donor countries," said a spokesman in London.
Mohaqiq said Kabul wanted funds for both its short-term reconstruction needs after 23 years of war and for long overdue projects-including a railway line to Iran and several irrigation dams-that have been lying dormant since a 1978 communist coup.
Asked about UN estimates that Afghanistan needed up to $15 billion, he said, "The $15 billion is for the emergency rehabilitation for the next two years." Kabul wanted to tackle its reconstruction needs and longer-term development goals at the same time so it did not lose time catching up after the long years of war, he added. "If we start reconstruction without starting the development plan, then we would only reach our previous state," he said. "For the time being, we don't have the capacity to absorb $45 billion," he said. "The $15 billion would be for the first stage."
Agence France-Presse also reports, noting that officials from the World Bank, the ADB and the UNDP are putting the finishing touches to a so-called preliminary needs assessment plan for Afghanistan's rehabilitation. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland) quotes the Bank as saying the most important investments to be made are in health, education and agriculture. The Aargauer Zeitung (Switzerland), the Frankfurter Rundschau (Germany), the Kieler Nachrichten, the Neues Volksblatt (Austria), Dow Jones and Kyodo News also report.
In other news on Afghanistan, AFP notes that economist Abdul Qadir Fitrat took over the reigns of a penniless Central Bank of Afghanistan yesterday with a promise to modernize the country's outdated banking system. Fitrat, who was appointed Central Bank Acting Governor on Saturday, said the speed at which the country's banking system could recover would depend on the assistance it is given by international financial institutions, particularly the IMF and the World Bank.
An unhealthy mixture of war, economic mismanagement and drought has conspired to make Afghanistan one of the poorest countries in the world, and put it near the bottom of the UNDP's human development index, writes the Washington Post in Sunday's Outlook section (B4, 1/13).
A November World Bank "approach paper" said "Afghanistan's economy is in a state of collapse." The key economic institutions of the Afghan state -- central bank, treasury, tax collection and customs, statistics, civil service, law and order, judicial system -- are "extremely weak or simply missing," said the report. "Basic infrastructure -- roads, bridges, irrigation, canals, telecommunications, electricity, markets -- have been destroyed or oriented toward the war effort."
The informal and private economic realm also has been decimated. Crop production has been halved and livestock herds heavily depleted, more than erasing the modest gains of the early and mid-1990s, the World Bank report said. Three years of drought and the resulting famine, the ban by the Taliban on opium production, the choking of trade via Pakistan and the massive displacement of population "have exhausted what coping capacity was left among families and civil society," it added.
The gravity of the situation is illustrated by the country's grim statistics on health:
* Life expectancy is estimated to be around 41 years of age. One reason: Only around 30 percent of children under 1 year old are fully immunized.
* Infant mortality is estimated by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations to be one of the highest in the world at around 165 per 1,000 live births, while 257 of every 1,000children born die before they are 5. (In high-income countries, only six of every 1,000children die before the age of 5.)
* The maternal mortality rate is estimated to be 1,700 per 100,000 live births, be 1,700 per 100,000 live births, with nearly 99 percent of deliveries taking place at home and only 9 percent being attended by trained personnel.
* Many Afghans are crippled. "Afghanistan probably has the largest population of disabled in the world as the direct or indirect consequence of war," said the World Bank paper. "A recent study funded by the World Bank estimated that in recent years as many as 500 people a month have been victims of mine accidents and unexploded ordnance."
The country's ability to help itself through an educated, skilled populace has been damaged by the war and the Taliban's policies against education for girls and women. The World Bank report said the enrollment rate for primary school has been most recently estimated at 39 percent for boys and 3 percent for girls. "Secondary and higher education, crucial to producing future skilled professionals, presents an even bleaker picture," the report concluded.