Will next US president rethink Afghanistan? BBC

Ravaged by war and in the grip of a terrible drought, the people of Afghanistan are in desperate need of foreign help.

Currently nearly $100m a day is being spent on the war, yet since 2001 just $7m a day has been spent on Afghans themselves, according to the Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella organisation representing 100 aid agencies working in Afghanistan.

From 2001 to 2004 Ashraf Ghani was finance minister overseeing efforts to reconstruct Afghanistan. He says his country's current predicament is a product of a lack of investment, compounded by corruption and inefficiency. So Mr Ghani believes the US needs a new strategy.

"You need to win the people over if you want to break the back of an insurgency. That approach is yet to be embraced and practically applied in Afghanistan," he said.

"So what would you say to the next US president?" I asked him.

"I would say Mr President if we win the people, we will win this conflict. "If we focus on the wrong objective, body count, number of insurgents who are killed, bombardment, kinetic action, it is not going to be the answer," he said.
Afghan rethink