By ROD NORDLAND
Published: December 5, 2011
Although President Hamid Karzai hopes to continue aid to Afghanistan for another 10 years, the American withdrawal from Afghanistan is already being felt among civilian aid workers, raising anxieties that Afghanistan will be abandoned and that the hard-earned development gains will be reversed.
The US provides two-thirds of all development assistance in Afghanistan, but it cut its $4 billion aid budget to $2 billion in the 2011 fiscal year. In 2012, it might be going to cut the budget more.
CARE has lost 80% of its budget here. CARE is deeply involved in setting up schools and improving life for Afghan women. 400 of its 900 workers were unemployed. Other American-based charities are suffering from the budget cut.
Mercy Corps, which is another American-based aid organization, has lost its $32 million "Cash for Work" program in northern Afghanistan and gone to an end. International Rescue Committee's budget for Afghanistan next year is also almost halved to $9.5 million although the committee is still hopeful.
Total foreign aid to Afghanistan in 2010 was equal to the country's entire GDP, $15.7 billion. The World Bank said that this cannot be sustained. By 2018, it is predicted that 90% of that aid will be gone.
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