Tokyo, Japan (BBN)- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for the international community to continue its engagement with and support for Afghanistan.
“We must all continue to stand with the people of Afghanistan in their quest for security, stability and prosperity. An Afghanistan at peace with itself would at long last respond to its peoples’ hopes of better lives for themselves and their children,” Mr. Ban said at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan on Sunday.
“And an Afghanistan living in harmony with its neighbours, near and far, would make a tremendous contribution to regional and international peace and security,” he noted.
Hosted by the Government of Japan, the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan drew representatives from 70 countries – including Afghan President Hamid Karzai – and international organizations to the Japanese capital on Sunday to chart future assistance for Afghanistan, ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014, a UN statement said.
The gathering was the third international conference on the Central Asian nation in three months.
According to media reports, the Conference’s participants agreed to provide $16 billion in aid through 2015 for Afghanistan’s economic and development sectors, with Japan alone providing $3 billion in aid through 2016. The pledge came as Afghanistan reportedly agreed to new conditions to deal with endemic corruption.
In his remarks to the event, the UN chief said that the world had reached a critical moment in Afghanistan’s history, with a transition from reliance on aid that has enabled the country’s institutions to take root, to a normalized relationship of a sovereign, functioning Afghanistan with its people and with its international partners.
Mr. Ban welcomed the establishment of a so-called Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework – which sets out the principles of the partnership between the international community and Afghanistan – as a means of providing confidence to Afghans and international donors that the commitments they have made to each other will be monitored and honoured.
BBN/SSR/AD-09July12-11:58 am (BST)
