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India On Media |
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| Politics
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| If US troops leave Afghanistan, |
| If US troops leave Afghanistan, much civilian aid
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| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 26-December-2013
3:22:17 AM |
| For years, US officials have pointed to the improvements in the everyday lives of Afghans made possible by billions of dollars in aid from the United States and elsewhere.
In Afghanistan, people now live 20 years longer on average than under Taliban rule, they say; 7 million more children attend school and women are 80 percent less likely to die in childbirth.
The specter of an abrupt departure of all US and NATO soldiers from Afghanistan at the end of next year now imperils these gains, they warn, and endangers progress on the massive development challenges that remain.
Unless the Obama administration can persuade Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign a security pact that would permit a modest US force to remain beyond 2014, the United States is almost certain to drastically scale back aid to Afghanistan.
That would force aid groups to work under more precarious security conditions and compete for scantier aid dollars.
It would be "a complete catastrophe" to pull the entire US force from Afghanistan next year, said Andrew Wilder, who directs Afghanistan and Pakistan programs at the US Institute of Peace and spent years working in the region.
A deterioration in security conditions would hamper oversight of aid projects, possibly making a deeply skeptical Congress even more reluctant to fund Afghan aid.
A smaller staff at the US embassy in Kabul would also make it more difficult to sustain many US aid programs.
"My judgment is no troops, no aid, or almost no aid," James Dobbins, the US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told Congress this month. "The political support for the aid comes from the military presence."
Last year, the United States and other donors promised to provide Afghanistan $16 billion in aid through 2015, at least half of which must go through Afghan government coffers. Afghanistan's government also promised to work toward benchmarks in governance, human rights and fighting corruption.
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