U.S. to Push for Promised Afghan Aid

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell pledged Thursday to speed up delivery of humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Afghanistan after much of the new Afghan Cabinet said long-suffering people were waiting for the world to make good on its promises of help.

“Afghan expectations were raised, and we hope [international donors] will hold up their words,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan.

So far, $660 million of the $4.5 billion in promised international aid has been disbursed, said Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah. But most of that has been emergency humanitarian aid. Very little reconstruction aid has arrived, he said.

U.S. and Afghan officials agreed that the Afghan people need to see tangible improvements in their daily lives in order to keep political and economic reforms moving forward, and to prevent remnants of the deposed Taliban regime and the Al Qaeda terrorist network from finding sympathetic soil on which to regroup.

Powell said the U.S. is “working hard to make sure that all those who have made commitments to the reconstruction effort in the international community make good in their commitment and send it as soon as possible because the need is great.”

The United States has already sent about $400 million in aid to Afghanistan, well above the $296.7 million it pledged in January at a conference of international donors in Tokyo, officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development said. Some of the money went to the World Food Program to stave off famine that loomed recently, while other funds were used to resettle about 1.2 million refugees who have streamed home.

A massive program to send hundreds of thousands of Afghan children back to school in March, many with textbooks and some with school lunches, was hailed as a success.

But much of the money pledged in Tokyo, including from some Middle Eastern countries and some European Union programs, has yet to materialize.

“When the Afghans look at the huge numbers pledged in Tokyo, they envisioned kilometer after kilometer of paved roads,” said one USAID official.

People have high expectations for Hamid Karzai, their first democratically chosen president, Afghan officials said. Yet a large percentage of the population is surviving on foreign food aid, only 20% have access to clean water, and many of the students who will enter Kabul University next fall are homeless orphans.

“These guys have a political problem on their hands, and if people don’t see a visible peace dividend, it puts pressure on the government,” the U.S. official said.

Powell said the Afghan government is becoming more effective, which “makes it easier for us to deliver aid.”

But the government will have to show progress in tackling the continuing instability and violence. Aid workers have been attacked, and warlords who helped the U.S. oust Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters are now a hindrance to reconstruction, said Roberta Cohen, a specialist in humanitarian issues at the Brookings Institution. The U.S. has rejected Karzai’s request to expand the U.S. security presence to the Afghan countryside, she said.

“You’re not going to get economic development if roads aren’t secured, if there’s banditry and lawlessness, if warlords are running everything, if it’s corrupt and if you’ve got to pay them off,” Cohen said.

Until April, Karzai’s government did not have a bank account into which donors could deposit funds, let alone procedures for accounting for the aid.

President Bush has promised a Marshall Plan-style program to rebuild Afghanistan. Officials said the administration is well aware that America’s reputation is at stake. But the bureaucracies that help pour concrete for roads and schools are far slower than the agencies that deliver emergency food aid, Cohen said. “Between the promise and the arrival is such a long time that it undermines political stability,” she said.

Six members of the Afghan Cabinet were in Washington for a summit sponsored by Georgetown University. While each stressed the dire conditions at home, many cited some successes.

Habiba Sarabi, the newly named minister of women’s affairs, outlined new programs to help Afghan women learn English and computer skills, open clinics to address maternal and child health, and provide literacy and job training for war widows. She noted that the ministry has even succeeded in opening a women’s center in Kandahar, former stronghold of the Taliban.