By SPA,
Kabul : Afghanistan will ask international donors for $50 billion in aid at a conference in Paris next month, President Hamid Karzai’s senior economic advisor said.
International donors have pledged some $24 billion at three donor conferences since 2002, but the level of aid to Afghanistan is still many times lower per head than to other countries struggling emerging from conflict such as Kosovo or East Timor, Reuters reported.
“We did not know the level and depth of destruction of this country,” Ishaq Nadiri, Karzai’s senior economic advisor, told reporters late on Tuesday.
“The Afghan disaster was complete,” he said. “The level of destruction was unlike anything I have seen in the developing world with the loss of human capital, physical capital and social capital.
“The collapse of Afghanistan was total, so now we have to build on all fronts simultaneously,” he said.