Statement by H.E. Dr A. Abdullah Minister
of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan at Afghanistan Development
Forum - 2005
04/04/2005
In the name of God
Your Excellency President Karzai,
Your Excellencies Vice Presidents,
Your Excellencies, Minister Li Zhaoxing and Minister Nazarov,
Honorable Afghan colleagues,
Distinguished heads of delegations and guests,
I would like to thank His Excellency President
Karzai for his farsighted and all-encompassing remarks. Three
years following the historic Bonn agreement and the establishment
of the interim administration, we are witness today to many
changes in a different Afghanistan, where hope and opportunities
present themselves on a daily basis for every Afghan man, woman
and child. The progress that has taken hold in all sectors could
not have materialized without the strong will and eagerness
of the Afghans as well as the support and generosity of the
international community.
But we all realize that in order to continue to
build a viable, stable, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan,
which is our common stated objective, we have several years
of hard work ahead of us. We also realize that we are at a new
crossroad, and the choice is ours to either take the path that
could lead to a low-grade economy, weak institutions, shaky
stability and unmet expectations, or one that promises a robust
economy, functional institutions, stable environment that delivers
to the people of Afghanistan. As President Karzai has said on
several occasions, it is apparent that our success is your success,
as we need to continue to assure success for all stakeholders
and investors at the global and regional levels.
Together, we have laid the groundwork for sustainable
development. Now is the time to accelerate the reconstruction
and development processes by enhancing our capacities and deploying
the available resources to the priorities important to the Afghan
people.
Our partnership started with Tokyo in 2002, and
increased in scope with the generous pledges in Berlin in 2004.
The donors have taken different approaches and are assisting
in various fields to help Afghanistan’s development goals.
Three years later, this ADF presents an opportunity
to engage in constructive internal and external consultations
to develop an interim National Development Strategy that will
build upon principles of the National Development Framework,
Securing Afghanistan's Future and the Berlin Work Plan, while
continuing to refine our vision for accelerating this country’s
development, promoting equitable growth and reducing poverty.
Essential to the success of this strategy will be decisions
on desired impacts, competing priorities and sequencing.
As a result, we intend to engage in a policy dialogue
on our future strategic priorities. We have identified ten themes
to be addressed in eight panels, among which poverty reduction,
fiscal and monetary stability, counter-narcotics, trust funds,
private sector investment, regional co-operation and issues
relating to security, justice and political participation will
be addressed.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The donor community continues to support our efforts
in all of those areas, and in return, last year in Berlin, we
agreed to a work plan and monitoring the progress in achieving
the benchmarks set. I am happy to tell you that our monitoring
results indicate - not dwelling on the details - that
we have performed satisfactorily in making progress towards
addressing the benchmark targets, with clear achievements in
many thematic benchmark areas. The contributions of the United
Nations, donor countries, NGOs and other international institutions
have been instrumental in all spheres of the work plan. Credit
also goes to Afghan institutions and agencies that are meeting
the benchmarks.
Following the adoption of the new Constitution,
Afghanistan held its historic presidential elections in October
of 2004 and legitimized the democratic rule. We are now preparing
for the other pillar of the political blueprint by putting together
the institutional and legal pieces needed to hold free, fair
and secure parliamentary elections in September.
Our commitment to a civil society, human and gender
rights, justice, governance and rule of law is unshakable, but
requires further efforts through empowerment and functional
reforms that fit the Afghan legal and political molds. We have
seen great strides taken with freedom of the press and political
party activities within the appropriate legal frameworks.
On the security front, the PRT experience under
the NATO/ISAF umbrella, with its innovative designs, has been
successful and is now growing in scope as it is being adopted
by many of our friends in different parts of Afghanistan as
part of a peace-building initiative.
The national demobilization, disarmament and reintegration
program is being implemented with vigor and much success, as
all the targets, including heavy weapons cantonment are being
met. As we concentrate on various aspects of reintegration of
former combatants, the process is moving forward.
The accelerated training of the Afghan National
Army and police constitutes a pivotal development with far-reaching
consequences. But the threat of narcotics remains a real reminder
that we need to muster all of our means to combat this menace
on all fronts, inside Afghanistan, on the smuggling routes and
globally at the level of consumer markets. Finding alternative
crops and means of livelihood, while we rebuild the shattered
lives of rural Afghanistan, are high on our agenda, but let
us not forget that relative to the scope of the problem, your
contributions can go a very long way to effectively defeat this
threat, which feeds corruption, criminality and terrorism.
In this regard and on many other fronts, the role
of our neighbors and countries in our region is vital. During
this Forum, we look forward to discussing initiatives that would
boost our common and shared interests in the context of regional
development that are mutually beneficial.
We continue to work on fiscal management and reforms
to meet standards, as well as promote private sector activity,
institutional and legal reform, which is a cornerstone of our
economic growth strategy.
Afghanistan has started its administrative and
civil service reform, but more needs to be done to train competent
administrators, build up capacity where it is needed, provide
higher education opportunities and address the immediate needs
of impoverished civil servants.
Honorable friends,
For obvious historical reasons, Afghanistan is
lagging behind in many of its economic, social and human development
indicators. We are obliged as well as determined to work on
poverty reduction and social protection to address the problems
associated with acute under-development.
For our efforts and investments to pay off and
yield the desired results, we need to re-examine some of our
priorities individually and collectively, intensify our dialogue
and multilateral engagements to grasp a better understanding
of the needs and allocations, and focus on building the country’s
infrastructure by accelerating the process.
There are many facets to our commitments and expectations.
We are certain that this ADF provides the right context for
addressing the issues deemed important to the Afghan people,
the Afghan Government and all of you as friends of Afghanistan.
We look forward to your active participation in this partnership.
Thank you very much.
