Afghanistan crippled by lack of coordination.

Lack of strategic coordination across international military and civilian efforts to ensure aid effectiveness has crippled the Afghan state, a top Afghan diplomat stationed in Washington has said.

A lack of strategic coordination across international military and civilian efforts to ensure aid effectiveness has crippled the Afghan state and left us with no capacity and resources to deliver basic services to people, said Ashraf Haidari, Political Counselor at the Afghan Embassy in Washington, in his speech at the prestigious Emory University in Atlanta Georgia.

Some blame official corruption, which is a major problem in all less developed countries and post-conflict societies for every problem in Afghanistan, he said adding that he believes that corruption is a symptom of weak governance, which cannot be improved in absence of a comprehensive state-building strategy to strengthen the Afghan state so that they can gradually gain a firm hold on and execute the sovereign affairs of Afghanistan.

Haidari said the way the international community has so far operated in Afghanistan has unfortunately had the unintended consequence of further weakening rather than strengthening its state institutions.

We appreciate the diversity of nations present in Afghanistan as a sign of international goodwill and consensus for supporting our country. But each contributing nation has pursued their own aid strategies, which means they have bypassed coordination with one another, as well as with the Afghan government, he observed.

I wish to stress that Afghanistan cannot achieve self-reliance and self-sufficiency unless the international community enables it to do so. In light of our massive rebuilding needs, the international community must match ends with means, he said.

They should not only commit long-term resources to peace-building in Afghanistan but also ensure that aid is effectively delivered through the Afghan state institutions in order to achieve the objectives of our National Development Strategy (ANDS).

We call upon our international partners to deliver on various aid commitments they have made, and to align their aid resources with the objectives of our strategy, a key priority of which is to build capacity in the state institutions, Haidari said.

Regionally, Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment must be persuaded bilaterally and multilaterallyto cooperate honestly in the war against extremism, while the country's civilian government must be strengthened to ensure stability in Pakistan and the rest of the region on the long run.

We are firmly committed to partnering with Pakistans democratically elected government to eliminate sources of instability in our two countries and to work toward long-term security and economic cooperation in the whole region, Haidari said.

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