International aid for Afghanistan’s development sector has fallen by 46 percent compared to 2010, said deputy minister for the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Naheed Sarabi in a press conference held on Sunday, December 01, in Kabul.
As she detailed, the total amount of international assistance has decreased from USD 15.7 billion in 2010 to USD 8.4 billion in 2018.
Military and financial assistance of the international community started to decline after the transition period, started in 2010. Since then, the Afghan government has worked on mechanism and initiatives towards its self-reliance, Ms. Sarabi stated.
According to the deputy minister, Afghanistan’s national revenue has increased by two folds, from USD 1.3 in 2010 to USD 2.6 billion in 2018.
In line with the international aid to Afghanistan development sector, the public expenditure has also seen a downturn since 2010.
The MoF senior official said that the public expenditure has decreased by 35 percent compared to 2010 when the total expenditure was around USD 17 billion. The total amount of public expenditure has decreased to around USD 11 billion in 2018.
According to Ms. Sarabi, of the USD 11 billion financial commitments pledged to Afghanistan in the Brussels conference in 2016 by 29 countries, five billion dollars is currently being spent on different development projects.
Despite the improvements made in different sectors, aid delivery is still largely ineffective in the country and the level of poverty is on an upswing trend.