Thank you very much, sir, and thank you for the privilege of being able to be here.
As you said, I'm very pleased to be able to work with Chris Alexander, who is an outstanding diplomat, and also with your ambassador in Kabul. We work very closely with them and also with your mission at the United Nations. We will see them tomorrow.
As you said, I in fact took my duties up on March 28, and I've been travelling for two weeks, so my experience on the ground is, as you understand, limited, but I've been there many times in my former capacities as NATO ambassador and also as political director of our ministry.
If I may, I'll say a few words about what I see as being the immediate challenges.
We had the Bucharest meeting in April. That was a great success. I think the Afghan president came back with a strong commitment from the international community, and we have also seen that there's been an increase in troop levels, which is important. It's important to ISAF; it's important to you and to all of us.
There will be a conference in Paris on June 12, which will concentrate on other aspects of our entire efforts in Afghanistan. That means, in particular, the development aspects and also on some political topics. At that juncture, the Afghans will be able to present what is called the Afghan national development strategy, which is a strategy that covers the next five years and lays out what they see as the basis for their work and our work over that period. It's a very important document and it deserves our full support and commitment when we come to Paris in June.
In addition to that document, we'll also review the so-called Afghanistan Compact, which was agreed in London on February 1. There's no doubt that when we review that document we can see that very significant progress has been made in some aspects, and we all know them: within education, within health, with the Afghan National Army, and also some other areas.
At the same time, there are shortfalls. What are the major shortfalls? I think within the police and justice system, certainly, and within governance you will find—to my mind—the most important areas where we need to make progress fast. I think we're making some progress on the police, on the justice system, and on the governance issue. We still need to make a lot of effort.
Why I'd like to highlight those particular issues is because we put a lot of effort into security, and you, Canada, certainly do, and we all appreciate your tremendous effort in that respect. You put an effort, and the national community puts another effort into the development side, and we're making progress. You also contribute generously.
But for what we do on the security side and on the development side--in order to enable us to make that sustainable--we will have to have a state administration in place, a set of law enforcements and institutions, ministries, sub-national governance, etc., which will enable us to allow the Afghans to increasingly take that over in the years to come. It is extremely important--from my point of view--to put extra emphasis on areas having to do with governance and law enforcement.
In addition to that, we also have to look at the economy, and see how we can stimulate economic growth, because what we have to seek is of course that not only is there this pillar, this basis underneath our institutions, but also see to it that the economy grows. There was, of course, a growth of about 13% last year, 8% this year, but that is from a very, very small base, and we also know that much of this stems from the fact that international aid is flowing in the way it is.
We need to stimulate the Afghan economy. I believe that the basis of this is agriculture. Afghanistan will remain an agricultural society for a long, long time to come, and we have to see to it that that sector can expand. That means investing in the modernization of their agriculture, reforming agriculture, and also putting in place the infrastructure required to enable that to happen. That means that irrigation projects are of critical importance.
These are some areas that I believe are priorities in the years to come:
Let me mention that in Paris I hope we will all commit ourselves to ensuring that the right resources are there. I would certainly like to see countries that do not donate so much today becoming more generously involved on the financial side.
Second is aid effectiveness. We do not spend our resources as effectively as we should, and we are all aware of it. There was a report that came out only a few weeks ago from a group of NGOs. We may question some of the figures in that report, but the basic arguments are right. We have to take them seriously and try to address them.
May I again say that the way you in Canada spend your resources is a way that I would see as an example for many other countries. You use channels that give the Afghans as much ownership as they can possibly absorb at the moment. We have to continue in that direction, because building Afghan capacity is the only way to move forward. That is, the right amount of money, the right aid effectiveness, and coordination.
Today we have a situation where a fragmented international community that is strong meets a fragmented Afghan administration that is weak. This is not the way we can proceed. Therefore, one of my most important tasks, according to the new mandate, is to ensure better international cooperation and coordination. That is hard, because we've spoken about coordination for quite a long time, but what I sense now is more of a readiness to be coordinated. When I travel, I always say to my interlocutors that coordination means being ready to be coordinated, and readiness to be coordinated means asking yourself what you can do differently from what you've done in the past. That is the question I want everybody to ask themselves.
I do perceive a greater readiness today among major donors to do precisely that, and I look forward to seeing if that will lead us somewhere with regard to spending our resources better.
Let me finally mention two or three other topics that I believe would have to be at the top of our agenda as we move forward.
One issue is certainly elections. There will be elections in September 2009, presidential and provincial elections, and then we have parliamentary elections in 2010. We had successful elections in 2004 and 2005. The international community and the Afghan people must be able to see that in 2009 and 2010 we are able to conduct equally successful elections. If we are not, you as politicians understand the impact that may have both inside Afghanistan and in the international community. So elections are important.
The regional dimension—we all know that a stable Afghanistan is important to a stable region. So the regions I mention are also put on my agenda as one of the priority areas. We intend to go both to Islamabad and Tehran over the next few weeks in order to start conducting such a dialogue with these two countries and with other countries in the region.
Finally, one issue that I see today mentioned in the Globe and Mail is the reconciliation effort. I have always said that, yes, we need military forces there, and only NATO and ISAF can provide that kind of framework in the foreseeable future. But it is important to underline that the solution to Afghanistan's problem is not a military solution; it is a political solution. Therefore, we have to give the political aspects of what we're doing greater prominence. Reconciliation certainly will be one of those elements, but I would like to underscore two or three things that are important here.
First, a reconciliation process, when it comes about, must be a process led by the Afghan government with the support of the international community. It must be coordinated and led by the Afghan government.
Second, it must be a political process, not a security process or intelligence process.
Third, it must be based on the Afghanistan Constitution and on what we have achieved over the last few years. And the achievements are important. Look at education. Look at how girls can take part in society in a different way from what they did before. There are about 300 newspapers and periodicals in Afghanistan, 14 television stations, and so on. That's dramatically different from what we had before. Those achievements have to be protected and preserved. No political process should take place at the cost of these achievements.
Finally, it must be a process that is conducted on the basis of strength and not as a replacement for our military operations.
Mr. Chair, I think that concludes my introductory remarks.
