Tokyo, 2008 Feb 5, IRNA
Afghanistan needs to invest more than US$2 billion in irrigation, roads and other rural development projects to lure farmers away from booming opium cultivation, the World Bank said on Tuesday.
The World Bank said that that the drug trade, Afghanistan's top business, can only be combatted if impoverished farmers have other means of making a living.
"Only as poor Afghan farmers gain other economic opportunities will they be able to be encouraged to give up dependence on opium production over time," William Byrd of the World Bank told reporters.
IRNA reporter in Tokyo said that the World Bank released the report on the sidelines of an annual international conference on Afghan reconstruction.
Cultivation of opium, the raw material for heroin, has gone up in Afghanistan in recent years following the fall of the repressive Taliban regime. Production soared 34 percent in 2007 largely due to increased rainfall.
The report called for the boosting of community-based development projects, expanded irrigation, increased use of livestock, and help for rural businesses and entrepreneurs.
It recommends investments of US$1.2 billion to expand irrigated land, US$550 million to boost rural enterprise development, and US$400 million for rural road planning, construction and maintenance.
The money would be spent over a period of 10 years, depending on the program. The report's authors also called for greater coordination among Afghanistan's donors, who they said had failed to use their money in complementary ways.
"Assistance is fragmented with 62 donors, many with their own distinct security, political and development interests," said Alastair McKechnie, Afghanistan country director for the World Bank.
Afghan officials said the opium trade was financing insurgent groups, contributing to the lawlessness in the country, and feeding a rise in drug addiction.
"Drug is behind terrorism, drug is supporting terrorism," said General Khodaidad, Afghanistan's acting counternarcotics minister.
Afghanistan is struggling to reconstruct after the rise and fall of the Taliban regime and the US-led military operation against al-Qaeda.
Afghan Foreign Minister Dadfar Spanta met Monday with Japanese officials to seek support for his country's reconstruction.
Spanta, along with a group of other Afghan ministers, is in Tokyo for the meeting of the 24-member Joint Coordinating and Monitoring Board, established to monitor implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, adopted at a London conference in January 2006.
The compact is a five-year blueprint between the international community and the Afghan government to promote security, good governance, the rule of law, human rights and economic and social development in Afghanistan, as well as to fight the drug trade.
The Tokyo meeting is the third to review the progress of ongoing projects over the past year and to discuss future support for Afghanistan.
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