Ashraf Ghani urges sustained support at donor summit

KABUL: Afghanistan’s president implored international donors for their continued support on Saturday, saying the “wounded country” faced a host of security and economic challenges while reiterating his vision of self-reliance after 40 years of war.
Donors have pledged billions of dollars over the past decade to reconstruct the war-torn country, convulsed by a 14-year Taliban insurgency and seething with unemployment.
But a lot of that money has been lost to corruption, which permeates nearly every public institution, hobbling development and sapping already bare state coffers.
“Rebuilding Afghanistan is going to be a long-term endeavour,” President Ashraf Ghani said at a conference of donors in Kabul attended by Western delegates and non-governmental organisations.
“Forty years of conflict have destroyed... a vast amount of material and lives... We need to rebuild the country on a foundation that will yield the prosperity and trade that is Afghanistan’s birthright,” he said.
The donor meeting was a follow-up to the December 2014 conference in London, where Ghani first outlined his vision for a self-reliant Afghanistan.
Ghani said on Saturday that Afghanistan is advancing along the path of self-reliance, but stressed to donors that “we continue to need our partnership so that by the end of the transformation decade we will no longer be dependent on aid”.