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Six years ago, prior to the Tokyo summit on the reconstruction of Afghanistan, Hedayat Ameen Arsala, the interim finance minister of Afghanistan, estimated that it would need "roughly $20 billion" in aid to help in the restructuring of the country.
At that summit in Japan, in 2002, pledges amounting to some $2.9 billion as a "kick-start" to the economy from various nations, including principally the US and the EU, were made.
Subsequently, more funds have been pledged to exceed $25 billion, a huge sum which often gets nations vying against each other as to which is the more generous.
But pledging is one thing, producing the funds is quite another. Once all the bravura and braggadocio of summit meetings die down, once the leaders return to their countries and are faced with the reality of their respective domestic situations, their administrations take pains to point out that the purse is not quite as full as originally thought, and the generosity expressed cannot be matched either in the short term, or even the medium term, but hopefully in the long term.
There are so many instances where funds fall short of commitments that it has become a weary refrain from the leaders of needy countries.
Presently, relief agencies in Afghanistan claim that only 40 per cent of promised aid has been received and of that, the majority goes in quid pro quo arrangements with companies from the donor country.
This, therefore, is a backhanded way of ensuring most of the money effectively never leaves the country, but is channelled back through paying for products, equipment and workers' salaries, leaving aside the suspiciously high prices charged by the contractors to their nation.
The Afghanistan government would prefer a better and more equitable way of distributing funds, but it is an uphill battle donors worry aid would disappear through the corruption of some.
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