International donors to Afghanistan, led by the U.S., Japan, Germany and the UK, pledged to USD 16bn in civilian aid for four years for the reconstruction and stability of Afghanistan after foreign forces leave in 2014.
The Afghan economy relies heavily on foreign aid, which compensates for 95% of Afghanistan’s GDP.
Afghanistan agreed to new conditions to deal with endemic corruption in order to ensure that the aid is spent for the right purposes.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to make all the effort to fight corruption.
He said that despite the progress made in the past 10 years, Afghanistan’s economy remained vulnerable and security a major obstacle.
“It will take many years of hard work on our part as Afghans, as well as continued empowering support from our international partners before Afghanistan can achieve prosperity and self-reliance,” he said.
“We must do what we can to deepen the roots of security and make the transition irreversible.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also called for reforms, including fighting corruption, improving governance, strengthening the rule of law, increasing economic opportunity for all Afghans especially for women, to safeguard the achievements of Afghanistan.
Failure in the transparent management of billion of aid over the past decade should be a lesson to the Afghan government and the international community. In order to reinforce investment and not to let waste the 10 years of investment, efforts should be made to ensure establishment of good governance, proper justice system, development of human rights, and improvement of employment and society.
