Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-15-Speech-3-541"
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"en.20101215.29.3-541"2
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"Madam President, I want to begin by honouring the memory of Richard Holbrooke, a dedicated diplomat, a champion of peace and a man I was proud to call my friend. I want to pay tribute to the honourable Member Mr Arlacchi for the comprehensive report and for work that I know he has done which has provoked a rich debate in this Parliament over the last few months. For my part, I look forward to working very much with him and other colleagues in Parliament in the months ahead as we enter what I would describe as a crucial phase in our engagement in Afghanistan.
Aligning our efforts and our approach is a key aspect of the plan. It identifies areas where we as the European Union believe our action will be most effective. Indeed, European Union development ministers under my chairmanship were discussing precisely these issues last week in Brussels.
That brings me in a sense to the key message I want to give today, namely that the implementation of our existing strategies needs to be the priority. The strategic framework is in place in both the military and the civilian spheres.
Together with both Presidents, I participated in the ISAF meeting in Lisbon last month, where the transfer of security responsibility under the NATO transition plan was agreed. I have met with General David Petraeus three times in recent months and, while much remains to be done, I am confident that the current strategy is beginning to have a real impact.
On the civilian side, we had the successful Kabul Conference. The Afghan Government is to be applauded for the organisation and the focus of the event in July. It was not the usual roll-call of requests and donor pledges. Rather, the agenda focused on how best to prioritise our existing resources and commitments, channelling our efforts into agreed national programmes that have been developed by the Afghanis themselves.
These national priority programmes paved the way for transition across a range of different sectors and we need now to support them, which is precisely what our action plan is doing. We all know that there can be no sustainable military exit from Afghanistan without a civilian framework for stability that can keep the country together. More effective state institutions, better governance, access to basic services, justice and the rule of law are just as important as hard security.
We will thus reinforce our efforts to strengthen Afghan capacity and will work with the Afghan Government to foster effective and accountable state institutions, especially at the sub-national level. Indeed, in all the areas we are engaged in – rural development, law enforcement, border management or tackling the narcotics trade – we will work to build up local Afghan institutions, putting the emphasis on promoting the rule of law and governance and on fighting corruption.
On the question of Afghan institutions, I want to end with a word on Afghan undertakings. Our efforts on development will only become sustainable once the Afghan Government becomes more accountable and inclusive. We need to encourage them to take such a long-term view. At present, half the human capacity in the country is marginalised, and yet we have seen from other examples in the world that the engagement of women in the governance and development processes is fundamental. I was struck by this untapped potential when I met with women’s groups in Kabul last July. This will remain a key aspect of our engagement in Afghanistan, be it in the political support to women MPs in the new Afghan Parliament or through our support to women’s participation in local development projects such as the widely-recognised National Solidarity Programme, which we have been funding through the World Bank since 2002.
As I close, I am grateful to the honourable Member, Mr Arlacchi, for highlighting so many important issues in this report. I believe it comes at a really opportune moment with so much at stake to both our military and our civilian commitments.
As Mr Arlacchi said, the problems that face Afghanistan in a sense concern all of us. Violent extremism extends beyond the region. Drugs grown and produced in Afghanistan find their way to the streets of Europe. Our engagement is spurred by the need to prevent Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorism and criminal activities. But it is equally important that we promote a better, more secure and prosperous future for the people of Afghanistan. Without that, there will not be a solution.
In response to these challenges I want to begin by saying, as I have said many times in other places, that the European Union is in Afghanistan for the long term. We have an assistance programme up to 2013 – and, I am sure, beyond – and we have now increased the baseline of our assistance to EUR 200 million per annum, which is up from EUR 150 million per annum previously.
With that funding we are able to continue to support health and social welfare as well as governance and the rule of law, and despite the fact that security concerns are in the forefront of all our minds, I believe we have had some noticeable success in key social sectors.
I have already mentioned in this House the health sector where, for example, 80% of the country now has some form of access to primary health care, compared with less than 10% in 2001. It is also true that health indictors in Afghanistan are still amongst the worst in the world, so we have a long way to go. That said, we know from the UN figures that, compared with 2001, 40 000 fewer babies are dying each year in Afghanistan, and that is due to considerably improved prenatal care.
We also continue to channel as much of our assistance as possible through the Afghan Government structures to ensure that we get Afghani leadership of the reform process. About 50% of our assistance goes either through national programmes or through trust funds that directly support the Afghan Government. This is good for donor coordination, good for building local capacity and good for reinforcing Afghani ownership. It sets a good example for many other donors too.
But there is always room for improving international coordination. We need to do more and we need to do it better. But looking at what the European Union does, I think we have made real progress, significantly enhanced by the arrival of our new EU Special Representative Head of Delegation Vygaudas Ušackas, who arrived in Afghanistan in April.
Our political messaging is more coherent, and we are enhancing the coordination of our development efforts within the EU through the action plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was approved in October last year by the Council of Ministers.
The action plan brings the instruments that are being deployed collectively and by individual Member States in line with our policy priorities – especially those arising from the Kabul Conference, which I attended in July."@en1
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