PARIS - The World Bank will maintain its aid to Afghanistan steady at $1.1 billion over five years but will press Kabul to improve its tax system and fight corruption, a senior official said on Wednesday. The 65 nations attending a donor conference in Paris on Thursday are expected to push strongly for more action to fight rampant corruption in a country that provides the bulk of the world's heroin."We will support the Afghan government and people with about $1.1 billion over five years, very similar to what we did in the past," World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters ahead of the donors' conference. She said the money would largely be made up of grants. "This amount will of course be dependent on the progress that they make in those areas that have been outlined," she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said she hoped the Afghan government could identify two or three areas, including strengthening the judiciary and the rule of law, where it could show progress to reassure donors wary of widespread corruption.
The World Bank is one of about 15 international organisations taking part in the conference which will be opened by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
As well as action on corruption, donors also wants the Karzai's Western-backed government, which relies on aid for 90 percent of its spending, to do more to increase the amount of revenue raised from legitimate taxation. Currently equivalent to around 8 percent of gross domestic product, official government revenue is among the lowest in the world, Okonjo-Iweala said.
"If they can improve that upwards to 12 percent, that would be good," she said.
Since resuming operations in Afghanistan in 2002, the World Bank has committed around $1.6 billion but is aware donors will be unwilling to keep pouring money in if confidence does not improve. Already there have been problems with donor countries falling behind with existing spending pledges, partly due to concerns over where the money was going.