لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
World Bank committed to support Afghans with development challenges
World Bank President sees success in power of community leadership
Kabul, 24 July 2008 ─ The World Bank is committed to supporting Afghanistan’s
efforts to overcome poverty, promote economic and social development, and
strengthen governance and anti-corruption measures amid a challenging security
situation, World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said here today.
Concluding a three-day visit to Afghanistan Mr. Zoellick not only met with the
country’s leadership but also village leaders whose development efforts in the
poorest rural areas are demonstrating the power of local governance and
community entrepreneurship.
“Creating a better tomorrow for the Afghan people will take a real coming
together to address the challenges of building institutions, fighting corruption
and improving service delivery to citizens,” said Mr. Zoellick. “We in the
international community can help, but Afghan leadership is critical to getting
ahead of these fundamental issues holding development back.”
Mr. Zoellick noted that much had been achieved in Afghanistan in a relatively
short time and there was much to be learned from these successes. On Wednesday
he visited rural projects in Bamiyan, one of the poorest provinces in the
country. He met villagers who had used their funds for a micro-hydro project to
generate electricity, others who decided to pool their funding to build a
school.
“What I heard from rural people was really an extraordinary demonstration of
community governance in action,” said Mr. Zoellick. “Communities, men and women,
have come together in collective ? and effective ? decisions about their
development. They are a real lesson to the big governance challenges facing
Afghanistan today, and a real hope.”
Microfinance borrowers told the World Bank Group president how they used their
credit to create businesses. Among them was a woman who opened a tailor shop and
employed five other women; another had started a mobile-phone business. “This
shows the people of Afghanistan are entrepreneurial and can achieve amazing
things,” Mr. Zoellick said. Access to microfinance services has reached 450,000
Afghans since its inception in 2003.
Mr. Zoellick said he appreciated the government’s recent drafting of an
anti-corruption law, which envisages an anti-corruption body reporting directly
to the president, a special prosecutor and a special court. He said there was a
“strong need for concrete action against corruption and for ensuring that
reforms reach all areas of the public sector, otherwise government’s credibility
and legitimacy might be at risk.” Afghanistan has slipped sharply in
Transparency International’s corruption index from 117 out of 159 countries
surveyed in 2005, to 172 out of 180 countries in 2007.
Mr. Zoellick also announced support to Afghanistan from the Bank’s new Global
Food Crisis Response Program, which will give US$8 million for the
rehabilitation of around 500 small, traditional irrigation schemes critical to
the recovery of the country’s agriculture.
The additional funding for community irrigation would bring to nearly 6,000 the
number of small irrigation schemes supported by the Bank since 2002. In addition
the Bank has also funded nearly US$100 million for the rehabilitation of
medium-size irrigation systems. But Afghanistan will still need significant
support in the current food crisis. Mr. Zoellick said the Bank’s support was
aimed at the medium-term investments needed to increase food security over time
but that the institution was working closely with Afghanistan’s other
development partners and relief agencies to address immediate shortfalls.
In Kabul, Mr. Zoellick met President Hamid Karzai, cabinet ministers,
representatives of the donor community and private sector. The World Bank Group
president reaffirmed his institution’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan and
support for its new five-year plan to reduce poverty and promote economic and
social development, as discussed at the donor conference on the country’s future
in Paris last month.
Since the resumption of operations in Afghanistan in April 2002, the World Bank
Group has financed 41 projects, committing around US$1.69 billion of which
US$1.25 billion is grant and US$436.4 credit (interest-free loan). The World
Bank funded projects mostly support rural livelihoods, rebuilding
infrastructure, education and basic health services. The World Bank also manages
the US$2.5 billion Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund. Since 2002, the IFC,
the World Bank Group’s private sector arm, has provided US$50 million of equity
financing while its Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency has guaranteed
US$80 million of investment.
