Food not troops needed in Afghanistan
Aid efforts in Afghanistan too focused on military objectives, leaving millions at risk of hunger, Oxfam says
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By Alistair Potter. |  |
Wednesday, 19, Aug 2009 05:00
By Matthew Champion.
International aid efforts in Afghanistan are too focused on military and security objectives, leaving millions at risk of hunger, it was claimed today.
On the eve of the country's presidential elections, a new report says too few people are benefiting from billions of dollars worth of aid.
Humanitarian and food aid already supplied is too "woefully insufficient" a response to three decades of internal conflict and outside interference, Oxfam, which released today's report, said.
According to Oxfam, the US is spending $100 million a day on security in the country, compared to a total aid budget of $7 million.
Large parts of that budget are wasted, Oxfam said, through "ineffective, uncoordinated or wasteful" foreign government programmes, despite major reforms to the contrary.
Two in five Afghans currently live in poverty, 7.3 million people are at risk of hunger and a woman dies every 30 minutes from pregnancy or childbirth, with much of the country still off limits to aid workers.
In the face of such gloom, however, the charity is urging people to consider that the country's problems "aren't intractable", citing improvements since the US-led invasion of 2001.
"More children are in school, health facilities are better and the infrastructure is slowly improving," said Grace Ommer, Oxfam GB's country director for Afghanistan.
"But Afghanistan should and could be doing much better than it is."
A massive Nato and American security operation is currently underway across Afghanistan in order for presidential elections to go ahead.
Forty-one men and two women are standing for election, including incumbent Hamid Karzai, whose strongest challenge is expected to come from former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Election observers have described the polls as taking place against the most challenging backdrop ever encountered.