Donors pledge over $15 billion for Afghanistan

PARIS (Reuters) - Donors led by the United States pledgedmore than $15.54 billion (8 billion pounds) in aid forAfghanistan on Thursday but said Kabul must do more to fightcorruption and the international assistance must be bettercoordinated.

At a conference in Paris, Washington promised $10.2 billionto help one of the world's poorest countries deal with aninsurgency, poverty, drug trafficking and corruption 6-1/2years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban from power.

About 6,000 people were killed last year in the insurgencyby a rejuvenated Taliban, which has vowed to step up a campaignof suicide bombings to try to break the will of Western publicopinion to keep international forces in Afghanistan.

More than 50,000 foreign troops are based in the countrytrying to restore stability following the late 2001 ousting ofthe Taliban, which had hosted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Afghanistan was taken hostage by a regime allied toterrorism, a regime that represents the very negation of thevalues of Islam," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at thestart of the conference of 68 nations, including Afghanistan.

"It is the duty of all democrats to help you," Sarkozy toldAfghan President Hamid Karzai at the start of the meeting,attended by representatives from more than 15 internationalorganisations, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Afghanistan asked the donors to help fund a $50 billionfive-year development plan and Karzai told the conference thathis country needed aid to be better coordinated as well as morehelp in institution-building to fight corruption.

"The current development process that is marred byconfusion and parallel structures undermines institutionbuilding," Karzai said. "While Afghanistan needs large amountsof aid, precisely how aid is spent is just as important."

Donors are not expected to pledge a full $50 billion butthe meeting is intended to be a show of support for Afghanistanafter a NATO summit in April examined military strategy for themore than 50,000 foreign troops stationed there.

FOCUS ON CORRUPTION

It was unclear how much of the $15.54 billion pledged inloans and grants represented fresh money.

The U.S. pledge, for example, consists of sums that theBush administration has already made public in budget requeststo the U.S. Congress and much of it has yet to be approved bylawmakers.

Among the pledges, the Asian Development Bank said it wouldprovide $1.3 billion, Britain promised $1.2 billion and theWorld Bank around $1.1 billion. Germany promised 420 euros (333million pounds) and, before the conference, Japan pledged $550million.

Sarkozy said France would more than double its aid and hisoffice said the French government would offer 107 million eurosfrom 2008 to 2010.

Envoys pledged to improve coordination of an aid effortoften criticised as chaotic and inefficient and demandedgreater efforts by Afghanistan to fight corruption.

"There must be a greater determination on the Afghan sideto improve the quality of administration, pursue -- secure --greater accountability and to combat corruption morevigorously, the U.N.'s special envoy for Afghanistan, Kai Eide,said.

Afghanistan depends on aid for 90 percent of its spending.But international donors have fallen behind in paying what theyhave already pledged, and much of the money goes straight backto donor countries in salaries, purchase of goods and profits.

The lag in aid is partly due to concerns about corruption.Of the $25 billion pledged for Afghanistan from 2001 until now,only around $15 billion has been spent, aid agencies say.