“Despite the challenges we face, a nation emerging from three decades of violence can be healed and strengthened; and our country and the whole world can be safer; because together we have the values, the strategy and the resolve to complete our vital task.” - Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Afghanisation

We will have succeeded in Afghanistan when our troops are coming home because the Afghans are doing the job themselves.  From that day on, we will be able to focus our efforts on supporting the elected government on security and on development and on human rights.

Our four-pronged strategy for accelerating Afghanisation:

• Partnering a growing Afghan army presence in central Helmand.
• Strengthening civilian-military partnership, including on policing.
• Supporting the governor of Helmand by strengthening district government - backed by targeted aid - and a more effective, cleaner government in Kabul.
• Building on the success of the “wheat not heroin” initiative - extending it to thousands more farmers.

Afghan forces are already running security in Kabul, and over time they will take over other districts. Britain supports the ambitious target of expanding the Afghan army from 80,000 to 134,000 by November 2010.  

Drugs

In 2009 there has been a 22% decrease in poppy cultivation nationally and a 33% reduction in Helmand. The number of poppy free provinces has increased from 18 to 20. This builds on last year’s success, when UN statistics recorded a 19% fall in cultivation.

In Helmand, Governor Mangal has given people a real alternative to drugs and the Taliban.  Through his ambitious “Food Zone programme”, with support from the UK, he has distributed wheat seed to 32,000 households Central Helmand – once the breadbasket of Afghanistan, calling on Afghans once again to feed themselves and reject drugs, corruption and the Taliban. This programme is backed by The Civilian Military Mission and Task Force Helmand.

The drugs trade threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan state by supporting corruption, and provides funds for the insurgency. Where security and governance are improving, the trade is in decline. Joint Afghan and NATO efforts have resulted in the seizing traffickers’ opium stores; the arrest of corrupt figures; and narco-barons behind bars.

Afghanistan’s neighbours and Iran

It is in the interest of all Afghanistan's neighbours to have a stable and peaceful state in Afghanistan and it is important for these neighbours to definitively accept Afghanistan’s future as a secure country in its own right. The new dialogue between Afghanistan and Pakistan is important. This trend must be maintained and deepened, including with Afghanistan’s other neighbours.

It is obvious that we should seek to work constructively with Afghanistan’s neighbours like Iran to achieve progress. Iran has important and legitimate interests in Afghanistan, and provides valuable support through its development and humanitarian activity in the west, and bilateral cooperation on counter narcotics and border management. A responsible Iran can and should play a constructive role in rebuilding Afghanistan.

The insurgency

The insurgency we face is more complex than a single “Taliban”. Afghans are drawn into the insurgency for different reasons. There are soldiers paid $10 a day, narco-traffickers who want safe passage for their drugs, and those who fear the Taliban will win and so hedge their bets.  The insurgency has proved resilient, adaptable and deadly. But its weaknesses are also clear. It is a wide but shallow coalition of convenience. It is deeply unpopular: only 8 per cent of Afghans say they want the Taliban back. Its support base is limited to Pashtun areas. And it cannot take and hold territory for long against conventional forces.

Reconciliation

Our military efforts are essential to the process of reconciliation and reintegration of former fighters - because it must take place from a position of strength: the insurgents must come to believe they will not win, but also all those that can be reconciled must see an alternative way forward founded on the renunciation of violence; acceptance of the democratic process, and the severing of any links with terrorists.

We support the Afghan government's attempts to reach out to reconcilable insurgents, which are not intended to bring the Taliban movement, nor its ideology, back into power. The intention is to persuade these individuals, many of whom have taken up arms because of coercion or for a price, rather than ideology, that there are alternatives to fighting and to reintegrate them into normal society.

Other challenges

Over half of Afghans live below the poverty line and 40 per cent are unemployed - around three quarters of which are men under the age of 35 - poverty and lack of opportunity is a problem that must be addressed. This is why we are committing £36 million over the next four years to a national Afghan programme for employment which will create 20 thousand permanent jobs and boost incomes for 200 thousand Afghans.

Basic healthcare now covers more than four-fifths of the people. 40 thousand more Afghan children will see their fifth birthdays this year compared to 2002. When the Taleban ran the country, only a million children were in school, all boys. Today there are 6.6 million - with more than 2 million girls.