Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: UK aid effort in Afghanistan "dysfunctional"

UK aid effort in Afghanistan "dysfunctional"
Luke Baker
Reuters North American News Service
Feb 06, 2008 10:13 EST
LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Britain's aid efforts in Afghanistan are
failing, undermining military gains and fuelling the Taliban insurgency, a
think-tank with long experience in the country said on Wednesday.
The Senlis Council, an international policy group with offices across
Afghanistan, said research in the country's violent southern provinces in
recent weeks showed next to no impact from Britain's Department for
International Development.
"DFID in Helmand is dysfunctional, totally dysfunctional. Basically it
should be removed and its budget should go to the army, which might be
better able to deliver assistance," Norine MacDonald, Senlis's president,
told Reuters.
Senlis's outspoken comments come at a testing time for Britain, the United
States and their NATO allies, with the seven-year struggle to bring
security to Afghanistan under intense scrutiny and widely seen as falling
backwards.
The Department for International Development (DFID), the government's
foreign aid arm, has spent 490 million pounds ($980 mln) on Afghan
reconstruction and development since 2001 and is budgeted to spend another
$210 mln this year.
But Senlis, which has more than 50 employees conducting research in
Afghanistan, said there was little evidence of aid and development
projects working and said refugee camps that lacked aid were now hotbeds
of Taliban recruitment.
"If DFID think they are making a difference in Lashkar Gah and other
towns, they clearly haven't been out to take a look. I haven't seen any
signs of DFID aid or development projects," MacDonald said, referring to
the main city in Helmand province.
DFID dismissed the criticism, saying it had spent around $70 million in
Helmand in the past two years, building roads and bridges, providing
sanitation and wells, and supplying funds to boost small business
development.
"Our funding has helped the Afghan government to set up almost 500
community development councils, empowering local communities to meet their
needs," a spokesman for DFID said.
The organisation said it was aware of 23,000 internally diplaced people in
Lashkar Gah and said it was working with the United Nations and other
agencies to provide aid to them.
LOOKING FOR SUPPORT
Senlis's criticism comes a time when Western powers our struggling to
coordinate their effort to help Afghanistan.
The United States has criticised its European allies saying many of them
don't know how to conduct counter-insurgency operations and that others
have shown a distinct unwillingness to commit more troops to combat roles
in Afghanistan.
Around 42,000 troops under NATO command are currently serving in
Afghanistan, a fraction of the force in Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Britain on Wednesday for
talks with Foreign Secretary David Miliband, ratcheting up efforts to
coordinate the Afghanistan operation and see if it can strengthened.
But there are also frictions between NATO and the Afghanistan leadership.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai last month rejected the United Nations'
choice of Britain's Paddy Ashdown -- a former high representative in
Bosnia -- to be "super-envoy" to the country, regarding him as too much of
a "viceroy".
Senlis said in its report "Afghanistan - Decision Point 2008" that NATO
needed to double its force if it were to have any impact against the
Taliban, which it said was fully entrenched throughout southern regions of
the country.
MacDonald said Taliban militants, or those allied to the movement, were in
control of most roads in Helmand and were running checkpoints dressed in
stolen Afghan police uniforms. (Editing by David Clarke and Ralph Boulton) 
-- 
visitate 
http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/frames/index.htm
 
http://www.larinascita.org
http://www.italia-cuba.it/associazione/associazione.htm
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 Ah il rischio di boomerang del copiaincolla.
nessun rischio, si riporta la notizia e poi se si vuole se ne discute.
Tu invece, come sempre, in mancanza di argomenti ti riduci all'insulto.


 razziste?
quel "come te" sullo sputare sperma in faccia (questo modo di parlare ti
e' degno) e' falso. 
Sui vermi di letame invece ribadisco che arduino lo è per tutta una
svariata serie di motivi. E' interessante che prendi le difese di un
fascista meschino come lui. Evidentemente lo trovi assai simile a te.


 sessuofobico tipicamente fascista,
quando tu dai del "frocio" ai tuoi interlocutori invece che tipo di
insulto sessuofobico è? da porginatiche dei nazisti, giusto?

 Non cercare di buttarla in caciara
tagli via perche' la cosa ti imbarazza, nazipedofi?


 fa niente, abbozzerai...
Poi si lamenta che gli do' del pedofilo. Certo MMAX e' un po'
cresciuto...
Quindi non avertene se ti do' del 'molestatore omosessuale' o *checca
isterica*
Am.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 incitazione all'odio.
mi sa che non otterresti niente, se c'è gente che scrive che gli ebrei
si sono meritati le camere a gas e non va in galera, sergio è
intoccabile...