"Afghanistan is not your ordinary post-conflict country", economic advisor says

In an interview Sunday, Ishaq Nadiri, senior economic advisor to President Hamid Karzai, says that reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan have been hampered by an underestimated level of devastation brought on by almost 30 years of constant conflict, Reuters reported today.

Nadiri argues that the international community had high expectations as to the ability of this post-conflict country to quickly rebuild. “We have to build the institutions, we have to build democracy, we have to educate the kids, we have to feed the people and we have to bring the hundreds of thousands per month or whatever of immigrants back, refugees back ... which other society has done that?” he said. Mr Nadiri also discusses the quest for security and recovery through aid projects in Afghanistan and expresses concern with the $1.6 billion used on so-called “technical assistance” from 2002 to 2005.

According to an account cited by New America Foundation senior fellow Peter Bergen in testimony to U.S. Congress, 86 cents out of every U.S. aid dollar going to Afghanistan is “phantom aid” that will not be appropriately distributed.

Last week, Afghanistan saw the opening of its first agricultural trade fair, an event considered of great significance in a country facing so many problems.

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