Engineering sustainable economic growth depends on whether the Afghan government will be successful in creating a competent, functioning state; whether it can hold together Afghanistan’s many fractious tribes and ethnic groups; whether it can effectively sideline anti-government elements; and whether it can clamp down on criminal drug lords who destabilise the rural areas. And it has to do this all before donor funds and assistance dry up.
“I think we have reached a point where we have done a lot of ‘unseen’ work. Results will become far more visible in the next three years. In the first three-and-a-half years, we re-established services like education. In the next three we must focus on the quality of these services. We will also see the country’s security forces becoming more effective,” says the finance minister.
