Afghanistan: What next?

The latest Nato summit in Bucharest - the one which welcomed Malta back into Partnership for Peace - sent a heartening further signal of international solidarity with Afghanistan. It followed a crucial UN Security Council decision on March 20 to extend the mandate of the UN monitoring and assistance mission in Afghanistan for a further year. Both were important steps, increasing the effectiveness of the UN's, and the international community's, efforts to reconstruct, and secure stability in, Afghanistan. But such meetings and decisions can sound very bureaucratic. What do they actually mean for Afghanistan and for us? Indeed, what is going on there now?

I cannot deny that the challenges Afghanistan faces to-day are immense. It is 174 out of 178 on the UN human development index. Only 12 per cent of women are literate and only 32 per cent of men. About one third of Afghans do not have enough food to eat or safe drinking water. Nearly two thirds of its population are under 24.

But there has been real progress; international engagement is helping in all kinds of ways. The Afghan economy grew 42 per cent between 2003 and 2006, sustaining year on year growth of over seven per cent; per capita GDP increased from $683 in 2002 to $964 in 2005.

The counter-narcotics programme is making progress: the number of poppy-free provinces increased from six in 2006 to 13 in 2007, with an effective eradication figure of 19,047 hectares. A good 82 per cent of people now have access to basic healthcare, compared with nine per cent in 2002. About 5.4 million children are now in school, over a third of them girls. This is up from an estimated one million in 2001, of whom very few were girls; they were officially denied access to education under the Taliban.

International support has also helped form a democratically-elected government and Parliament and the growth of a judiciary. It has trained over 40,000 Afghan national army soldiers and given a national counter-narcotics police force capacity in detection, intelligence gathering and forensic investigation.

What comes next? For the Afghans, this new resolution, UNSCR 1806, means a renewed commitment to helping their government build a peaceful and self- sufficient nation, true to its Islamic principles, and playing a constructive role in an important region. A country, too, with a thriving economy independent of narcotics production.

As for us, the international community, we have renewed our commitment to helping Afghanistan rebuild itself after decades of damaging conflict and to helping its government prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a haven for terrorists. Terrorists who proved so destructive in the past to Afghanistan and to the world.

This new resolution updates priorities for international action, in particular a greater UN role in coordinating the overall international civilian effort, close civilian-military cooperation, political outreach and governance. It also sets the goal of using the UN sanctions regime to target the "narco-financing" of the insurgency.

Helping Afghanistan tackle its problems requires a sustained and realistic approach by the international community. We must encourage and support Afghan ownership of the drive for renewal, and of the security effort, by backing the government's efforts to dismantle the insurgency through a politically-led approach. We must support the localisation of Afghan governance, encouraging political outreach efforts and helping the government meet the - justified - demands of the Afghan people, through economic regeneration and social development initiatives.

Britain is committed to Afghanistan for as long as we are needed and wanted. That commitment is national, within a coherent international effort. We are working closely with others on reconstruction and development and sharing the military burden.

Restoring security and promoting economic development do not come cheap. The UK has 7,800 troops, based mainly in the south of the country, with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). We shall provide £450 million between 2009 and 2012 in development and stabilisation aid, having committed over £1 billion to the reconstruction of Afghanistan since 2001.

Britain is Afghanistan's second largest bilateral donor. Eighty per cent of our aid goes direct to the government because we believe that this is the best way to build effective state institutions, enhance economic management and improve rural livelihoods. You may have heard Oxfam on the World Service a week or two ago echoing this view.

Britain's role in Afghanistan will evolve until the Afghan state is better able to manage its own security and deliver services to its citizens without needing the international support provided today. Until that time we, and all of us - through the UN, the EU and the other international institutions - must, we believe, sustain a consistent and coherent commitment to supporting Afghanistan .

The consequences of not doing so would have an impact on us all: continuing drugs production and trafficking, a continued risk of Afghanistan again becoming a safe haven for terrorists and increasing poverty and deprivation, prompting further illegal migrant flows. So a better life for the Afghan people really is a safer world for all of us.

Mr Archer is the British High Commissioner to Malta.