In the rest of Afghanistan there is relative security in the sense that there is not an armed group fighting on a daily basis. They're not large military operations. When I was travelling around, particularly in the north and west, I found that there was a lot of progress, particularly on the economic front and the development side in the north and west. I said development money can go much further in these places. By that I mean that there are more partners who are willing to work with us. I found that in the north and west there were private sector entrepreneurs, civil society, there were organizations that we could work with and involve in the process of reconstruction and development. So there has been improvement in those areas. That's not to say they don't face their own problems. In the north and west there are issues with government corruption and criminality. There are still quite a few warlords and local commanders who are able to disrupt the flow of goods and the security of places such as roads or city centres.
But in my opinion those kinds of problems can be tackled through law and order mechanisms. We need to make much more of an effort to improve the judicial sector and its ability to confront these kinds of security problems, whereas in the south and the east we need the military to confront these kinds of problems. The police and the judicial sector will not be able to confront the Taliban.
Reconstruction and development has become extremely expensive in the south and east. Over 50% is going to just maintaining the security of the development agencies. It's not at a stage where it can do large development at a relative cost. I think if we can maintain that stability, we will start to see the jump in progress that we see in the north and west.