Gov’t, international community yet to meet Brussels commitments

Based on the Afghanistan Ministry of Finance’s 2017 and 2018 report both the Afghanistan government and the international community have not entirely honored their commitments made at the 2016 Brussels summit.
According to the ministry’s report, a total of 24 commitments were made by the Afghan government and the international community at the summit.
Of these, eight were the responsibility of the international community and the rest should have been fulfilled by Afghan government.
MoF officials said 80 percent of foreign aid destined for Afghanistan’s priority programs is through these eight commitments.
Officials at the Ministry of Finance said that so far 55 percent of Brussels’ commitments have been fulfilled, and it is expected that by the end of this year, these commitments will be implemented 100 percent.
MoF officials said that of the eight commitments made by the international community four, as noted below, will be implemented by the end of this year.
• Effectiveness of Assistance and Capacity Building with global payments from the national budget
• Investment of 80 percent of global aid in Afghanistan’s priority projects
• Integration of parallel project management bodies into government institutions and
• Reporting of high salaries of contract staff to the Ministry of Finance
But the Ministry of Finance report shows that only just over 50 percent of all 28 commitments have been implemented.
“So far, 55 percent of Brussels’s commitments have been fulfilled, and we hope that all these commitments will be implemented by the end of the year,” said Abadullah Darman ministry of finance’s acting spokesman.
In this report, the lack of trust over state institutions, the lack of capacity and the existence of administrative corruption in these institutions, the lack of coordination between government agencies and global institutions and the global institutions’ lack of interest in implementing a number of their commitments were the reasons behind the failure to implement 100 percent of global commitments.