Posted on 12/18/2002 1:38:44 PM PST by knighthawk
OSLO (Reuters) - Donor nations promised Afghanistan $1.24 billion Wednesday to help rebuild the war-wrecked country in 2003 with projects ranging from roads to educating girls barred from schools by the ousted Taliban regime.
Afghanistan's government expressed hopes after a two-day meeting of 23 nations in Oslo that pledges would be kept even if the United States went to war against Iraq and distracted world attention and aid from Kabul.
"We feel that the international community is committed to us," Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai told a news conference after the meeting, when asked if Iraq might overshadow Afghanistan.
A U.S.-led coalition ousted the radical Islamic Taliban a year ago after launching a war in Afghanistan in October 2001. The Taliban harbored Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, blamed for masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks.
Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen, chairing the talks, said donors had promised $1.24 billion for 2003 and that the amount was likely to rise because some nations had not yet fixed budgets for 2003.
"We see $2.0 billion as a realistic target for 2003," he said. Afghan government statistics, however, showed that donors have disbursed only about $1.5 billion in aid by November 2002 of $2.1 billion promised for the full year.
Helgesen and Ahmadzai said it was unclear how much of the pledges were new cash or were part of $5.1 billion over the next five years promised at a conference in Tokyo in January.
And diplomats said the cash, while welcome, was a fraction of the nation's needs to recover from 23 years of wars and occupation.
SCHOOLS, ARMY
Ahmadzai said aid priorities included education, especially for girls who were barred from attending schools during the Taliban regime, water and sanitation, creating a new army, training bureaucrats and rebuilding shattered infrastructure.
"Kabul and Kandahar have been destroyed," he said of the nation's two biggest cities. He also said work would start by March on up to 1,800 miles of highways.
Asked if the cash promised was above, below or in line with his expectations, he said: "It's in line."
President Hamid Karzai urged donors at the opening of the talks Tuesday to shift away from immediate humanitarian aid and to focus more on the longer-term investments needed to aid the shattered nation.
Diplomats say that any U.S.-led war against Baghdad is likely to divert aid budgets toward future reconstruction of Iraq, thinning cash available for nations like Afghanistan.
Washington has threatened to attack Iraq if it judges that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction from U.N. weapons inspectors.
Washington, however, promised continued support to Afghanistan as a key part in President Bush's war on terror.
"We will indeed be with the Afghan people for the long haul," David Johnson, U.S. special coordinator for Afghanistan, told Reuters.
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