A decade of Western aid in Afghanistan - mission unsustainable?

(Reuters) - Afghanistan has new roads, sections of which many deem too dangerous to use. It has a turbine to fill electricity needs that remains in pieces. Sixteen transport planes given to the Air Force were scrapped having barely flown.

International aid has been the mainstay of the Afghan economysince the Taliban were ousted in 2001, and donors, chiefly the United States, have plenty to show for tens of billions of dollars they poured into the war-ravaged nation.

Yet for all the success of cities rising from the rubble and boys and girls flocking to schools, there are frequent examples of aid poorly spent, with little regard for the long term viability of projects once money taps are turned off.

COSTLY MISTAKES  - More than $100 billion has been spent on aid in Afghanistan, the bulk of it from the United States.

Rebuilding security forces soaked up nearly two-thirds of U.S. funding, leaving tens of billions of dollars for civilian projects, which, according to the U.S. reconstruction watchdog, have not always been spent wisely.

"Evidence strongly suggests that Afghanistan lacks the capacity - financial, technical, managerial, or otherwise - to maintain, support, and execute much of what has been built or established during more than a decade of international assistance," the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said.

"HUMAN CAPACITY" -- USAID says the government led by President Ashraf Ghani, who was appointed in September, can maintain progress as foreign troops leave after more than a decade of war.

"The thing that's changed in 12 years is that Afghans now have human capacity that they didn't have before," Larry Sampler, USAID’s chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told Reuters, referring to progress made in education.  "What Ghani has to do is capitalize on the human capacity."

But three months into his presidency, Ghani has yet to appoint his ministers and some question whether he can deliver on promises to boost the economy, which has collapsed from an average 9.4 percent growth between 2003-2012 to 1.5 percent this year, according to the World Bank.  Read More