Donors pledge over $13 billion for Afghanistan

PARIS (Reuters) - Donors led by the United States pledgedmore than $13 billion (6.7 billion pounds) in aid forAfghanistan on Thursday but said Kabul must do more to fightcorruption and aid must be better coordinated.

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 the Taliban was ousted from power.

About 6,000 people were killed last year in the insurgencyby a rejuvenated Taliban, which sheltered al Qaeda leader Osamabin Laden until it was toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

"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 countries, including Afghanistan.

"It is the duty of all democrats to help you," Sarkozy toldAfghan President Hamid Karzai at the start of the conference,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 aid and help ininstitution 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

A U.S. official on Tuesday told Reuters that he expectedthe conference to raise more than $15 billion.

It was unclear, however, how much of this represented freshmoney. The U.S. pledge, for example, consists of sums that theBush administration has already made public in its budgetrequests to the U.S. Congress.

Among the pledges, the World Bank said it would providearound $1.1 billion over five years, Britain said it would giveabout 600 million pounds through 2012/2013 and Japan said itwould provide an extra $550 million.

Sarkozy said France would more than double its aid and hisoffice said the French government would offer $107 millioneuros (84.8 million pounds) from 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.