By KUNA,
Kabul : The Senlis Council, a UK-based think tank, has asked donor countries participating in the Paris Conference to focus on tackling Afghanistan’s burgeoning illegal opium economy.
The donors must focus on opium economy instead of making generous, but ineffective aid pledges that fail to address this major crisis, said The Senlis Council in a statement released on Thursday. “Empty promises from previous donor conferences have done nothing to improve the everyday situation in the war-torn country, while the illicit opium economy continues to hamper Afghanistan’s reconstruction, development and stabilisation efforts,” said the statement.
Just three-fifth of the international aid pledged to Afghanistan since 2001 has actually been delivered, and most of this has been to projects that have little positive impact on the basic needs of the Afghan population, it added.
Criticising the aid delivery mechanism, The Senlis Council called for the international community to harness market forces to address the country’s illegal opium problem by adopting pragmatic initiatives like Poppy for Medicine projects. “Despite the best intentions of the international community, pledges of aid will be in vain if they fail to address the problem that is the lynchpin of Afghanistan’s crises,” said Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher of The Senlis Council.
“We must not forget that tackling Afghanistan’s opium crisis will also go a long way to severing the link between the local populations and the Taliban insurgency, who are currently benefiting from our misguided policies,” he added.