PARIS – Donors at the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan must focus their attention on tackling Afghanistan’s burgeoning illegal opium economy instead of making generous but ineffective aid pledges that fail to address this major crisis, said ICOS on Thursday. Empty promises from previous donor conferences have done nothing to improve the everyday situation in the war-torn country, while the illicit opium economy continues to hamper Afghanistan’s reconstruction, development and stabilisation efforts.
Just three-fifths of international aid pledged to Afghanistan since 2001 has actually been delivered, and most of this has been to projects that have little positive impact on the basic needs of the Afghan population.
Criticising ineffectual aid delivery mechanisms, ICOS called for the international community to harness market forces to address the country’s illegal opium problem, by adopting pragmatic initiatives like Poppy for Medicine projects. By stimulating the creation of a sustainable economy, such projects can wean Afghanistan off its reliance on international aid.
“Despite the best intentions of the international community, pledges of aid will be in vain if they fail to address the problem that is the lynchpin of Afghanistan’s crises,” said Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher of ICOS.
“We must not forget that tackling Afghanistan’s opium crisis will also go a long way to severing the link between the local populations and the Taliban insurgency, who are currently benefiting from our misguided policies.
“Counter-narcotics policies must become an integral part of a strategic counter-insurgency and stabilisation strategy for Afghanistan.”
ICOS’s Poppy for Medicine proposal would see village-cultivated poppy transformed into morphine tablets in Afghanistan’s rural communities. Like other fair trade schemes, farming communities would benefit from the significant value added by transforming poppy into morphine at the local level, and sales of Afghan morphine would address the current world shortage of these pain-relieving medicines.
ICOS’s Poppy for Medicine initiative was endorsed with an overwhelming majority by the European Parliament in October 2007.
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