Remarks Upon Afghanistan's Receiving the USTDA Country of the
Year Award
Ambassador Said T. Jawad
02/15/2006
Chairman Kolbe,
Representative Ros-Lehtinen,
Deputy Director Lee Zak,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank the U.S. Trade & Development
Agency for organizing this event, and Director Askey and other
USTDA officials for their dedication and support for Afghanistan.
I am particularly grateful to Chairman Kolbe and
Representative Ros-Lehtinen for their continued friendship and
valuable support to Afghanistan. Chairman Kolbe has recently
met with President Karzai at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland. Representative Ros-Lehtinen returned from a trip
to Afghanistan where she visited Kabul and Jalalabad to meet
with our President, members of our new parliament and community
leaders.
We appreciate your commitment to Afghanistan.
Your support, advice and insight have always been very instrumental
to both President Karzai and me.
We are also grateful to our friends at the National
Security Council, the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce,
USAID, OPIC and the Office of the USTR as well as my fellow
Afghans particularly members of the Afghan-American Chamber
of Commerce, who are here today, for their support and enthusiasm.
While the Afghan government, in partnership with the United
States, is working hard to create the enabling infrastructure,
private sector has been the main engine for economic growth.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am honored to accept the award and very proud
that the announcement for Afghanistan’s selection as the
USTDA’s Country of the Year was made at the London Conference,
about two weeks ago.
The London Conference reasserted the unity of
purpose and the international consensus that has been the hallmark
and the foundation of the Afghan people partnership with the
international community.
In London, we launched the Afghanistan Compact,
which sets out an ambitious agenda with quantitative and time-bound
benchmarks for rebuilding Afghanistan. The Compact is a realistic
reflection of what we need to do in order to consolidate the
peace and state-building process in Afghanistan. We need to
enable our new national and democratic institutions, all of
which are successfully created under the Bonn Agreement, to
deliver services to the Afghan people, to improve security,
to fight the menace of narcotics, to create job and opportunities,
to enforce laws, and to protect our citizens, both men and women,
from crimes, corruption and human rights violations. The Compact
recognizes that a sense of urgency is needed to face these challenges.
Improving security is the heart of the joint efforts
of our Government and the international community. It must be
to be done through military and non-military means. Considering
a rising level of terrorist infiltrations, attacks in the Southeast
and Southwest, and further incidents of suicide bombers generated
outside Afghanistan, the continuing strong presence and robust
role of the U.S. military is needed and welcomed by the Afghan
people. We hope that NATO is capable and determined to meet
the expectations of the Afghan people to fight the war against
terror effectively and decisively.
We have also presented our comprehensive National
Development Strategy for the next five years in London, and
asked our partners and the donors to channel more international
assistance through the government’s budget and recognize
our national development priorities.
We are extremely grateful for the new pledges,
amounting to about $10.5 billion dollars with $4 billion coming
from the United States. These pledges demonstrate a continuing
donor confidence in Afghanistan. The full impact of these pledges
will only be felt if they are disbursed in a timely and efficient
manner. We are demanding improved efficiency of use of funds
from our partners.
We have also launched our new National Drug Control
Strategy. Narcotics are not only the greatest challenge to the
long-term security, development and effective governance in
Afghanistan, but also represent a significant risk to global
security and health.
The opium trade rewards terrorists and those who
plunged our country into decades of lawlessness, chaos and left
us at the hands of terrorists. We need alternative development
and a sustained real economic growth rate of 9% per year in
order to provide our people with a tangible sense of improvement
in their daily lives and fight narcotics effectively.
In sum, in London, the Afghan Government committed
itself to further reforms and meeting specific benchmarks and
goals over the next five years and unveiled its strategies for
doing so. In return, the international community committed to
long-term financial and military support. These pledges must
be realized, and the security must be improved if the promise
of the London Conference is to be fulfilled.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As part of the standing U.S. commitment toward
Afghanistan, USTDA has played an important role in assisting
Afghanistan with economic development. Over the last four years,
the USTDA has committed over $9 million toward Afghanistan and
has completed a number of valuable programs in Afghanistan;
including feasibility studies, technical assistance programs
and a multitude of trainings for both the private and public
sectors. Areas of crucial cooperation have included telecommunications,
power, and transportation, all of which are vital to Afghanistan’s
reintegration in the regional economy, and building our capacity
to serve as the transit route and trading hub. Also, such projects
are in accordance to our national development strategy and our
goals of contributing to regional cooperation, stability and
prosperity, and helping Afghanistan to resume its role as a
land bridge between Central Asia, the Middle East and the Indian
subcontinent.
The top three constraints for the private sector
growth in Afghanistan are lack of physical infrastructure, in
particular unreliable power supplies, land & property rights,
and limited access to credit. We are thankful to USTDA for their
assistance toward our Industrial Parks which can address some
of these needs, and seek your assistance to help us remove other
constraints.
The emergence of a stable, democratic, and thriving
Afghanistan, eager to partner with the United States, is a great
opportunity for the region and an important asset for global
security. In today’s divided and troubled world, the goodwill
and commitment of the Afghan people to partner with the United
States is an important asset for regional and global security.
We are grateful to USTDA for recognizing this asset and paying
close and careful attention to our country.
Thank you.
