Donors will provide around $2.6 billion to finance development in Afghanistan through a World Bank-administered reconstruction fund over the next three financial years, the fund said on Friday. Representatives of donor countries met in London on Friday, a day after a major international conference on Afghanistan, to discuss the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which is backed by 31 countries.
"At the meeting, agreement was reached that allocations from the fund will now follow a clear Afghan government strategy, with an estimated financing envelope of around $2.6 billion for 2010-2013. This represents a 32 percent increase in available funds over the past three years," a fund statement said.
The fund has mobilised over $3.6 billion since it was established in 2002, and has now become the main financing vehicle for Afghan development priorities, it said. "It is the Afghan government which has to respond to the people and it's the Afghan government which has to be trusted with the resources," Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said in the statement.
In laying out its new strategy for the fund, the Afghan government focused on priorities in the agriculture, infrastructure and irrigation sectors. "ARTF donors are financing around half of the total civilian wage bill, in particular supporting the work of teachers and doctors across the country," said Nick Krafft, World Bank country director for Afghanistan.
"ARTF donors are also financing a quarter of the government's core development spending, in critical areas like education, rural development and national power supply," he added. US President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to weaken a long-running insurgency and convince the Taliban to accept a peace deal.
The Afghan government on Thursday invited the Taliban to a peace council as its Western allies worked out plans to try to end the war in the country. Zakhilwal told Reuters at the London conference on Thursday that Afghanistan may need up to $1 billion to help reintegrate Taliban fighters into society. That fund is separate from the reconstruction fund.