Afghan Reconstruction Aid Falls Short

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
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Another example of how Iraq has taken our eye off the ball. Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, actually wanted our help in building a democracy and restoring their society. But anyone can figure out that Afghanistan isn't going to recover when we're spending $100 million per day on military operations (that have failed to eliminate al-Qaeda and the Taliban since 2001) while only spending $7 million per day in aid.

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Western countries have failed to deliver 10 billion dollars' in promised aid to Afghanistan, undermining prospects for peace that depend on development, according to a report released Tuesday.

About 40 percent of the aid that does arrive returns to rich countries in corporate profits and high consultant costs, according to the Agency Coordinating Body For Afghan Relief (ACBAR) report.

The funds going towards reconstruction are, meanwhile, just "a fraction" of military expenditure, with 25 billion dollars spent on security-related assistance, such as building the Afghan security force, since 2001.

The US military spends about a 100 million dollars a day in Afghanistan, while the average volume of international aid from all donors since 2001 is just seven million dollars a day, the ACBAR document "Falling Short" says.

The international community had pledged 25 billion dollars to Afghanistan since 2001, when the extremist Taliban government was removed from power, it says.

However, "just 15 billion dollars in aid has so far been spent, of which it is estimated a staggering 40 percent has returned to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries," it says.

"For example, a road between the centre of Kabul and the international airport cost the United States more than 2.3 million dollars per kilometre, at least four times the average cost of building a road in Afghanistan."

Most full-time expatriate consultants working for private companies in Afghanistan cost 250,000 to 500,000 dollars a year, including salary, allowances and associated costs, ACBAR says.

The United States is the biggest donor to Afghanistan, contributing one-third of all aid since 2001.

But it also has one of the biggest shortfalls, with the Afghan government saying it delivered only half of its 10.4-billion-dollar commitment between 2002 and 2008, ACBAR says.

Similarly the Afghan government reports the European Commission and Germany distributed less than two-thirds of their respective 1.7-billion-dollar and 1.2-billion-dollar commitments, the document says.

The World Bank was listed as distributing just over half of its 1.6-billion-dollar commitment, while Britain has pledged 1.45 billion dollars and distributed 1.3 billion dollars.

"Increasing insecurity and criminality is jeopardising progress in Afghanistan," the report says.

"With low government revenues, international assistance constitutes around 90 percent of all public expenditure in the country," it says.

"Thus how it is spent has an enormous impact on the lives of almost all Afghans and will determine the success of reconstruction and development."

The report says the shortfalls could be partly attributed to "challenging operating conditions, high levels of corruption and weak absorption capacities -- and government data may not capture all donor spending."

However, it showed the importance of donors increasing efforts to work with such problems.

"Given the slow pace of progress in Afghanistan, and the links between poverty and conflict, the international community must urgently get its act together," says author Matt Waldman an advisor with the British charity, Oxfam.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
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$250,000-500,000 for most consultants?? Get rid of the wasteful contracts and hire government workers.
 

Drift3r

Guest
Jun 3, 2003
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Originally posted by: Throckmorton
$250,000-500,000 for most consultants?? Get rid of the wasteful contracts and hire government workers.

Privatization of nation building FTL.
 

vhx

Golden Member
Jul 19, 2006
1,151
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Originally posted by: Drift3r
Originally posted by: Throckmorton
$250,000-500,000 for most consultants?? Get rid of the wasteful contracts and hire government workers.

Privatization of nations FTL.

Fixed.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,599
19
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It still amuses me to this day that there are really people out there (I've met some) who think that there's no way for anyone to profit from a war. It's like being told, 'Nuh uh! There is NO water anywhere on Earth! It's all a lie!" What can you really say to something like that?
 

chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
10,038
36
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We - The Western World - are totally failing these people...and it's a F'ing disgrace.

The US alonehas enough resources (men and materials) to rebuild everything significant in that country 3x over. Why we're not going in there with management specialists, specialist blue collar SME's, and getting the local's to help with the grunt work...all the while giving them pride in re-building their own country and pride in earning an honest wage is beyond me.

I can understand EU not doing sh1t comparetively for the Afghani's, but that doesn't mean the US should just be a little better...we should be worlds better.

Chuck
 

dahunan

Lifer
Jan 10, 2002
18,191
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^^ dude.. we let Haliburton hire slaves from other countries and pay them slave wages INSTEAD OF HIRING locals... OH.. and they probably charge US Taxpayers $100/hr while paying the slaves $1/hr
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,085
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Originally posted by: dahunan
^^ dude.. we let Haliburton hire slaves from other countries and pay them slave wages INSTEAD OF HIRING locals... OH.. and they probably charge US Taxpayers $100/hr while paying the slaves $1/hr

Yup, Foreign Aid is simply Payoff to Domestic Companies. It's disgustingly corrupt.
 

palehorse

Lifer
Dec 21, 2005
11,521
0
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The answer for Afghanistan is now, and always has been, one simple thing: paved roads.

Ask the Japanese and Germans how many miles of paved road they've laid down since we handed them the reigns to do so... (hint: not many) ... DOH!

25,000 miles of paved road would solve nearly every problem in Afghanistan. Throw in 25,000 miles of communication infrastructure (fiber?), and it's GAME OVER for AQ and the Taliban -- forever.

It's all about Karzai and NATO having 24/7/365 ACCESS to the people. Without it, we are all just spinning our wheels. As it stands, due to snow, mud, and otherwise impassible terrain, we visit some villages once or twice a year, for a day, max... how the hell is that enough to curb the Taliban's influence over them during the other 363 days of the year!??

Throw in access to the NW frontier of Pakistan, and we'd be done.

you heard it here first folks.