KABUL: Afghanistan’s leaders will head to Brussels this week, seeking billions of dollars in aid as the country confronts an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency and pervasive corruption.
President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah hope to secure pledges totaling about $3 billion a year at the conference, which will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday. Afghanistan already receives about $5 billion a year, mostly from the United States, to cover defense costs. The last donor conference, in Tokyo in 2012, secured $4 billion in annual subsidies for development.
Afghanistan has been mired in war for decades. At the height of the 15-year U.S. and NATO intervention, billions of dollars flowed into the country, creating a false economy with growth in the double-digits. But the drawdown of troops in 2014 led many aid workers and international agencies to depart or scale back their operations, causing the economy to all but collapse.
Officials estimate up to 50 percent unemployment. Deteriorating security deters foreign investment in key fields such as mining and infrastructure, and drives the country’s youth onto the migrant trail to Europe in search of opportunities. Ghani will nevertheless argue that progress has been made since Tokyo regarding corruption and judicial and electoral reform.
“Afghanistan is no longer just receiving a blank check, this time we have to make sure the support we are receiving goes to the right places, in the right hands, and there is mutual accountability on both sides, Afghanistan and the donors,” said Javid Faisal, a spokesman for Abdullah.
