Article was published in the daily newspaper SL Õhtuleht on June 16, 2008

Afghanistan Deserves our Help

By U.S. Ambassador to Estonia Stanley Davis Phillips

Afghanistan is one of Estonian's highest foreign policy priorities, and Estonian military troops are making tremendous and invaluable contributions on the ground in extremely dangerous conditions. Although this work is extremely hazardous, Estonian's direct development assistance is nonetheless helping the people of Afghanistan establish a safe environment in which to rebuild their communities and their lives. However, the work is far from finished as the most recent news of two Estonians injured in attacks on their patrol in the Now Zad district in Helmand province demonstrates. Attacks like this one reflect the tremendous challenges today in Afghanistan, but let me tell you about some good news you may not have expected.

In the southern province of Helmand, 600 Afghan teenagers are attending a newly rebuilt high school, thanks to the work of an international team from the United States, United Kingdom, Estonia and Denmark, working alongside Afghan partners. In nearby Farah Province, American and Italian members of a Provincial Reconstruction Team have built a school, dug wells, distributed wheat seed to farmers, and re-built a market. Nation-wide, tens of thousands of infants survive each year because their families now have access to basic medical care.

These development efforts—and thousands more like them—were made possible by international pledges made at or before the 2006 donors' conference in London. The international community decided then that Afghanistan, once the home of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, will never again be allowed to deteriorate into a failed state that tyrannizes its citizens and exports terrorism.

Though aiding Afghanistan was clearly the moral choice, our assistance was not purely magnanimous; it directly benefits our own security in Europe, America and around the globe. That is why NATO leaders, at their Summit in Bucharest in April, renewed their long-term commitment to the Alliance mission. These generous commitments of money and manpower are helping the Afghan people build a future that is stable, democratic, and economically viable. This is an investment in security for all of us, because the problems that the donors are confronting in Afghanistan do not respect international borders. Illicit narcotics from Afghanistan's poppy crop kill on the streets of Europe, and the terrorists who found shelter in Afghanistan have already shown that they can murder innocent people across the globe. As NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said: “Afghanistan was the Grand Central Station of terrorism. If this mission were not to succeed ... Afghanistan would once again pose a clear and present danger to itself, its region and the broader international community.”
More than 80 countries including Estonia are gathering once again in Paris to renew their long-term commitments to build a secure and more prosperous Afghanistan. New pledges will be critical. Even though enormous progress has been achieved, the work is far from over, and success is not guaranteed without the international community's continued commitment. The United States and other supporters are calling on the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan to exceed the pledges they made at the 2006 donors conference. This will enable our Afghan partners to take the next step in their reconstruction and begin to meet the goals they set out in the new five-year Afghanistan National Development Strategy. The United States, which has contributed $26 billion, will pledge a substantial amount in support of these priorities.

Make no mistake, rebuilding Afghanistan is no simple, quick, or cheap task. Security and development are inexorably linked, and we face a tenacious enemy that, though increasingly marginalized, has no qualms about purposely targeting civilians, destroying schools and clinics, or killing Afghan teachers and officials who are trying to rebuild their country.

Fortunately, the vast majority of Afghans oppose these terrorists' terrible goals and tactics. So despite the hurdles, Afghanistan has come a long way from the days of the Taliban, who stoned women to death and barred girls from attending school. Today, more than 1.5 million Afghan girls are attending school, and total school enrollment has risen from about 900,000 to more than 6 million. In the past six years, more than 13,000 kilometers of roads have been improved or built, including the new Afghanistan-Tajikistan Friendship Bridge, and three-quarters of the population have access to telecommunications. Per capita GDP has risen by over 70 percent. Afghans today not only live more prosperous lives, but also healthier ones. The percentage of residents with access to health care has risen from 9 percent to 85 percent just in the past four years.

Afghanistan is on the path toward democracy: over 75 percent of eligible voters turned out for the nation's first free and democratic presidential elections in 2004, and there are now more than 100 registered political parties in the country. To continue this progress, Afghanistan needs pledges of support for elections in 2009 and 2010, including funds for voter registration, election administration, and voter awareness programs.

Meanwhile, we must make clear that we have increasing expectations for the Afghanistan government. Its new National Solidarity Program, a government-initiated, bottom-up development scheme in which thousands of Afghan villages have become actively involved in designing their own development projects, is a welcome sign of the support it is getting from the Afghan people. But corruption remains a serious problem, and donors have to know that their contributions are fully accounted for and reaching the Afghan people. International donors can do their part by better coordinating their development projects, decreasing the proportion of tied-aid, and improving assistance monitoring. Meanwhile, the Afghan government must take charge of its own development projects through capacity-building programs, demand-driven assistance, and rewarding good performance.

Future generations will look back to see how we helped the Afghan people recover from nearly three decades of brutal war. They will also ask whether we did enough to protect Europe, America and the world from the threats of instability and terrorism. Like London in 2006, the donors conference in Paris will be a milestone and a test. The world will be watching. Rather than historians later asking “Did they do enough?,” let them instead ask: “How did they do so much?”