Task of rebuilding grim, costly

Afghan men walk among the ruins of Saray Khoja, some 20km from Kabul. The task of rebuilding Afghanistan could cost as much as US$20 billion. PHOTO: REUTERS

It has none of the usual structures of government, millions of destroyed houses, limited water and electricity supplies, minimal health care and education, severely disrupted agriculture after three years of drought, no manufacturing and no exports.

Children suffer one of the highest death rates in the world, with an adult life expectancy of just 41 years. Afghanistan is more a hole in the map than a country.

With the prospect of some form of peace after 20 years of war, international agencies are turning their minds on how to put Afghanistan back together again. The large size and population of Afghanistan, and its utter devastation, means the task dwarfs that of rebuilding Kosovo, Bosnia, Kuwait or East Timor, and could cost as much as US$20 billion.

The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) are meeting next week in Islamabad in Pakistan to discuss the problem. Plans already drawn up focus first on humanitarian relief, and then on rebuilding the physical infrastructure of the country and re-establishing law, order, local and national government and a functioning economy.

The massive task ahead *Only 39 percent of boys and 3 percent of girls are in primary school> *One in four children dies before the age of five; life expectancy is 41 years. *Some 3,000 people are killed by unexploded mines each year. Mines will cost US$500 million to remove. *77 percent of Afghans have no access to safe water and 88 percent no access to adequate sanitation. *12 million Afghans have been affected by the three-year drought, and 3.8 million are dependent on food aid. *Until this year's ban on poppy cultivation, in some provinces 95 percent of households sold opium to earn a living. The drugs trade was worth US$2 billion a year to Afghanistan.

The plans are dependent on peace being established, and rely on large numbers of skilled and educated Afghan refugees returning to help and on finding work for former soldiers who have lived by the gun for two decades.

David Lockwood, deputy director of the Asia and Pacific Region for the UNDP, who lived in Afghanistan for five years, said: "It is the biggest post-conflict reconstruction project in the world since the Marshall Plan in Europe. We need the whole world to pull together to rebuild this place."

Afghanistan has up to 25 million inhabitants, including refugees. A World Bank paper published last week says that reconstruction help for Lebanon (population four million) totalled US$4 billion over 10 years, in Bosnia (population five million) it was US$5.4 billion over five years, and East Timor, with just half a million people, is receiving US$350 million over three years.

Spending on a similar scale -- about US$1,000 a head -- would mean that rebuilding Afghanistan would cost about US$20 billion.

The UNDP is working to restart its emergency humanitarian aid program, but although most main roads are still passable and airports are being opened up to aid planes, some roads in Northern Alliance-held areas are still subject to ambush by Taliban groups.

After humanitarian aid, the most important task is re-establishing agriculture, including seed production and irrigation. Other immediate concerns include rebuilding housing, clearing mines and setting up health clinics and hospitals, and an education system that includes girls.

Other projects include rebuilding electricity and water supplies, telephone systems and national broadcasting networks. The fabric of society needs to be rebuilt, with police forces, courts, public administration, national government buildings, a central bank and treasury all needed.

The World Bank and UNDP are wary of flooding Afghanistan with Westerners, and are concentrating on helping the Afghans to help themselves, although a whole generation has had no education and most people with useful skills have left.

International agencies hope that Afghanistan will eventually resume its traditional exports of dried fruits and nuts, textiles including carpets and gems. A planned oil pipeline across the country could prove a big source of revenue.