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| Updated: 19-Jun-2007 | Speaking Notes |
Press Conference 10 Jan 06
Military operations, taking the fight to the Taleban, have continued this week. We are beginning to see increasing signs of the population giving less support to the insurgents. In a recent incident a number of insurgents surrendered and threw down their weapons – a sure sign that they are becoming less effective. In contrast, many of the more hard-liners continue to cause death and destruction, and you will have seen that just recently, and tragically, a car coming back from hospital with 2 mothers and 2 new born babies was blown up by a mine on the road. The mothers and children were all killed. Our assessment is that the mine was recently placed – by insurgents who have no regard for innocent civilians. But despite that, the number of incidents, as I described last week, is down across the country, in many areas lower than the same time last year. I have been heartened, while talking to various agencies in the country, that many share the same view of the insurgency, that the Taleban have suffered a serious blow to their capability in 2006. Meanwhile, our momentum is being maintained through the winter, providing development and reconstruction throughout the country eve in the cold winter months. And we are working very hard with the Afghan government and Afghan Security Forces to ensure that the Taleban do not come back in strength later this year. Despite the adverse weather, the development story from the Provincial Reconstruction Teams is a good one. The PRTs are currently working on over 800 projects, and have spent over $284m. For example, there are over 1000 projects in education, over 200 agriculture projects, and nearly 400 water and sanitation projects that are being carried out as we speak. And on the national infrastructure side, the picture is the same. Some $4 bn has been spent to date, with over $813m’s worth of projects being carried out right now. There is another $462m worth of projects that are being planned and are funded. One of the areas that ISAF generally can help is by buying local goods, especially food, which boosts the local economy and is cheaper than importing goods. To date this HQ has spent a total of about $60m since we arrived in April. 52.5% ($31.5m) of that was spent on the local economy, including a local paper supply contract. Whilst this represents an increase of nearly 450% over last year, we still want to do better. Just yesterday, we let a contract with the Crystal water company here in Kabul, and the first bottles were delivered here last night. We are currently looking at contracts for carbonated drinks, vegetables and other foodstuffs. And in Bagram, the US are already using water from a local bottling plant, opened formally by Vice President Massoud this week. We are also looking to see where we can further increase the use of local staff within the camp, providing both employment and income into the local community. In conjunction with the Peace Dividend Trust and the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce, we are delivering training here in Kabul to Afghan businesses, on international tendering procedures and contracts. Our military actions over the summer in the south and east, and in the autumn and winter over the whole country have won us an opportunity. An opportunity to grow the reconstruction and development effort and to encourage local business by both buying from them and tutoring their management. Contact Information:
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