Zakhilwal in UK to co-host workshop on uplift aid

KABUL): Minister of Finance Dr. Omar Zakhilwal is leading a high-level delegation to the United Kingdom to co-host a workshop in Sussex, his office said on Wednesday.

He co-hosted with Director-General of the Independent Evaluation Group of the World.

The closed-door event in Wilton Park on Feb. 19-21 is attended by senior officials from Afghanistan’s major development partners and donors, International development and financial institutions and the United Nations.

A statement from the Ministry of Finance said the workshop was designed to bring together representatives from the government of Afghanistan and its major development partners to:

• Discuss and compare lessons from the evaluations of different agencies and the government of Afghanistan, using the synthesis paper as the focal point ;
• Assess potential strategic options for enhancing aid effectiveness and results;
• Outline how to implement identified strategic options for enhancing aid effectiveness as well as to attenuate obstacles to implementation; and
• Examine how development agencies can utilize evaluation results more effectively to inform future strategy and program design.

“Responding to the development needs of Afghanistan during the transition period and transformation decade will require the government and our development partners to adapt to the evolving needs of the Afghans,” the minister said.

In the face of declining aid, business as usual was not satisfactory and transition was an opportunity to assess the engagement in Afghanistan, modalities of aid delivery and how to spend it, Zakhilwal added.  

International assistance to Afghanistan comes from over 50 development partners, and the overall volume of civilian aid from 2002-2011 has exceeded $57 billion. There has been an even larger volume of military assistance over the period.

Zakhilwal also met Justine Greening, the UK’s secretary of state for international development on British development assistance to Afghanistan.

pr/mud

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