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Afghanistan and Yemen

He is in Northern Ireland, actually. Our aim was to mobilise international resources—military and civilian—behind a clear political strategy to help to deliver the ambitious agenda that President Karzai set out at his inauguration last November. Our goals are threefold: first, to win over the active support of more of the Afghan population; secondly, to split the insurgency; and, thirdly, to encourage Afghanistan's neighbours to become part of the solution. Following my consultations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Washington, Istanbul and Brussels, representatives from more than 70 countries and international organisations travelled to London to attend the conference. The communiqué, which was agreed among all conference participants, provides the detail of what was agreed. First, in respect of security, the focus was on the Afghan national security forces. The growth and development of the indigenous security forces are intended to give the Afghan population the confidence to resist Taliban intimidation and bribery. Afghanistan now has almost 200,000 soldiers and police, and they are already assuming greater responsibility for military operations, but the London conference agreed new, more ambitious targets to increase the Afghan national security forces by more than 50 per cent. by October 2011 by training 70,000 additional members of the Afghan national army and 38,000 more police. The conference also marked the beginning of the transition process, by agreeing the necessary conditions under which we can begin, district by district and province by province, the process of transferring responsibility for security from international forces to Afghan forces. The intention is for some provinces to transition by late 2010 or early 2011, on the road to meeting President Karzai's target that within three years Afghans should have taken the lead and be conducting the majority of operations in insecure areas. The additional troops—Afghan and international—will mean that the insurgency will come under increasing military pressure. President Karzai is launching a peace and reintegration programme for those who can be persuaded to switch sides; the rest will face growing military danger. It is essential that all the ethnic groups of Afghanistan are given a route back into Afghan society, as long as they respect the Afghan constitution and break links with al-Qaeda—we support all effort towards this goal. The Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund announced last Thursday is the vehicle through which the international community will provide financial assistance, and some $140 million has already been pledged for the first year. Governance and development was the second priority for the London conference. Local and provincial government in Afghanistan is chronically weak; less than a quarter of Afghanistan's 364 governors have electricity in their offices and some receive only $6 a month in expenses. That is why the conference agreed to provide additional support to train, over the next two years, 12,000 sub-national civil servants in core administrative functions vital to the exercise of local and provincial power. However, if the Afghan Government are to win the support of more of the population, they need to govern in the population's interests, so the commitments that the Government made at the conference to take steps to end the culture of impunity are important. They have promised to do the following: first, to strengthen the independent High Office of Oversight in order to investigate and sanction corrupt officials; secondly, to bring their laws in line with the UN convention against corruption; and thirdly, to invite a group of Afghan and international experts to develop benchmarks for progress and report regularly against those benchmarks—their first visit will take place within the next three months. Those promises must be translated into rapid action. The international community again pledged its support on Thursday, and for the first time it said that, once key conditions are met, it will increase the proportion of development assistance channelled through the Afghan Government, and will support the Government to meet those conditions. Development assistance is important in its own right in Afghanistan, which is the fourth poorest country in the world, but it will also help to draw people away from the insurgency and the drugs trade. That is the significance of Thursday's announcement that Afghanistan will receive up to $1.6 billion extra in debt relief from major creditors and that there will be a new International Monetary Fund programme from June 2010. The legal economy—notably agriculture—needs substantial support, and progress in reducing drug production is important in that respect, as well as in its own right. The third element is relations between the countries of the region. The situation in Afghanistan threatens to destabilise the whole of south Asia: crime, drugs, terrorism and migration spill across borders. There is a growing awareness within the region that the status quo in Afghanistan benefits nobody. Afghanistan's neighbours also increasingly accept that no country within the region, let alone the international community, will allow Afghanistan to become a client state. In these twin changes—a recognition that a client state is out of reach for all and that an unstable state is damaging for all—is the seed of a shared interest. That shared interest should be the basis of greater regional co-operation. Each neighbour needs to know that their restraint and co-operation will be reciprocated so they need reassurances about each other's behaviour and intentions. That is why last Tuesday I attended the regional summit in Istanbul to discuss how Afghanistan's neighbours can support stability in Afghanistan and enhance regional co-operation. At the London conference the Afghan Government requested that the relevant regional bodies develop a co-ordinated plan for Afghanistan's regional engagement as soon as possible. The prize of regional co-operation is immense: Afghanistan's neighbours will cut off the lines of funding, support and shelter that stretch across Afghanistan's borders. This political strategy and the agreements reached on Thursday need to be pursued with drive, determination and without delay. The Afghan Government will host a further conference in Kabul later this spring. By then, President Karzai will need to have made real progress on security, governance and development. The international community also has an important role to play in ensuring effective implementation. That is why three new international appointments are being made: at the UN, where there is an upgraded Senior Representative; in NATO, where the NATO Secretary-General has created a new NATO Senior Civilian Representative to strengthen the co-ordination of development and governance work with the military effort—our ambassador in Kabul, Mark Sedwill, took up this role on Thursday—and in the EU to create greater unity of civilian command. Afghanistan and Yemen are 2,000 miles apart. They have diverse histories, different cultures and are fighting different enemies, but there are common themes. In both cases the lack of development, weak governance and absence of security provide a vacuum for extremists who threaten our shores. In both cases, these underlying long-term causes must be addressed. The purpose of the London meeting on Yemen on 27 January, as agreed with President Saleh of Yemen, was threefold: first, to forge international consensus about the challenges the country faces; secondly, to build impetus behind the economic and political reform agenda; and thirdly, to improve international co-ordination of support for the Yemeni people and Government. The Government of Yemen were represented by Prime Minister Mujawar. The Foreign Ministers from the Gulf Co-operation Council countries and the key regional and international partner nations all participated alongside representatives of the EU, the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international institutions. Prime Minister Mujawar gave an honest appraisal of the challenges his country faces—"brutally honest", in the words of the US Secretary of State. The threat from al-Qaeda has put Yemen in the headlines but it has long been the poorest country in the Arab world, with a rapidly growing population, fast dwindling oil and water reserves, an armed conflict in the north and increasing civil instability in the south. All present were clear that responsibility for tackling those challenges lay first and foremost with the Yemeni Government, but decisions were taken to upgrade international support in five important respects. First, all present committed to support the Government of Yemen in the fight against al-Qaeda. The meeting welcomed the recent UN sanctions committee decisions on designation and called on all states to enforce the terms of the designation under UN Security Council resolution 1267. Secondly, the meeting agreed to engage in further helping Yemen to address its broader security challenges, including through increased international support for the Yemen coastguard. Thirdly, Prime Minister Mujawar confirmed that his Government would continue to pursue their reform agenda, notably on economic reform, and start discussion of an IMF programme. The director of the IMF made a compelling case for the way in which economic reform could be supported by the IMF. Fourthly, participants agreed concrete actions to improve the disbursement of aid, an issue that was raised when we discussed this matter in the House two weeks ago. The GCC Secretary-General called a meeting of Gulf and other international donors to share analysis of the barriers to effective aid disbursement and establish a joint dialogue with the Government of Yemen on their reform priorities. The meeting will take place in Riyadh on 27 and 28 February. Finally, the 25 countries and organisations represented also agreed to establish a Friends of Yemen group to help the Government implement their national reform agenda. Two working groups on economy and governance and justice and law enforcement will report at the first Friends of Yemen meeting. Conferences and meetings can seem—and are—a long way from the daily danger of improvised explosive devices in Lashkar Gah or the 40 per cent. unemployment rate in Yemen, but neither problem will be resolved without coherent plans confidently advanced by sovereign Governments with huge support from the international community. As a result of last week's efforts, there is a new confidence and clarity. The test is to turn these words into deeds. That is what we are now committed to doing.