Progress and Pitfalls of “Peace-Building”

in Afghanistan continues...

With the Bishkek Conference of 2004, the Government moved to a concrete programme of economic regional cooperation. Afghanistan and

the UK convened and co-chaired a conference on Regional Economic

Cooperation during 4-5 December, 2005. This conference brought together 12 countries from the four major zones of which Afghanistan is at the centre, plus donor countries, the UN, and International Financial Institutions (IFIs).

The countries include the six sharing a border with Afghanistan and India, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and

the Kyrgyz Republic. All the major economic groupings (Economic

Cooperation Organization (ECO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization

(SCO), and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)) of the region were present, as was the CAREC (Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation) program. The regional countries were represented at Foreign Minister or Senior Minister level.

The focus of the conference was on promoting cooperation; electricity and energy generation; transport, transit trade, and trade facilitation, including

border management; and trade promotion, investment, and

improvement of the business climate.

Agriculture, in the case of Afghanistan has largely been damaged or

destroyed by fighting. Many agricultural lands remain land-mine

affected. In addition, inadequate distribution of land and resources has

weakened the community’s ability to recover from war wounds. It is

difficult to provide an accurate information and an economic profile of

Afghanistan.

However, some reliable statistics are now available as government and financial institutions have been re-established. Social indicators in Afghanistan have been the worst in the world, the human development index being 174 out of 178. In 2002 problems such as severe food and fuel shortages, the lack of infrastructure and the difficulties posed by the return of millions of refugees began to be

addressed. A National Development Framework for the reconstruction

programme focused on these challenges. It placed emphasis on allowing

the private sector to lead Afghanistan’s recovery and on streamlining the

public administration.

To be continued......