Afghanistan: what will happen when the troops and their dollars depart?
When thousands of foreign troops pull out of Afghanistan, they will take their services, experience, hardware and dollars with them. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
It would be a challenge for any leader: balance the books after years of systemic corruption, battle a resurgent rebellion and form a government despite entrenched ethnic divisions. But Afghans new president, Ashraf Ghani, must do all this as thousands of foreign troops pull out, taking their services, experience, hardware and dollars with them.
Ghanis most pressing task at a summit with international donors in London on 3-4 December may be to make sure the world does not forget Afghanistan once foreign soldiers are no longer fighting on its soil.
Nato troops are due to withdraw from Afghanistan by 31 December. From a peak of around 140,000 in 2011, the force will shrink to 12,000 soldiers, who will stay mainly to train Afghan security forces.
The withdrawal leaves Afghanistan more vulnerable to Taliban insurgents, who have been gaining ground this year, and deprives the economy of the benefits of having tens of thousands of foreign troops stationed in the country.
The Afghan economy is a war bubble and we are seeing it slowly deflate, says Graeme Smith, senior analyst at International Crisis Group. He says the budget deficit was $300m-750m, with security costs eating up around $650m of the governments meagre funds.
If the Afghans were not paying that to fight the war which, to be frank, we started, then most of these budgetary pressures would disappear overnight, he says. While were putting Afghanistan through these shocking political and military transitions, it behoves us to try to ease the economic transition, to smooth the way with some cash.
However, many international partners are disillusioned after 13 years of rampant administrative corruption. Although Ghani represents a new start after Hamid Karzais discredited presidency, it is not clear yet whether this will be enough to guarantee continued, long-term financial support.
At the London conference, Afghanistan and its international partners are meant to review progress against the 2012 Tokyo mutual accountability framework, which includes commitments on governance, democracy, finance and rights.
Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador to France and Canada, says Ghani may want to recast some of these commitments to try to make aid more effective and accountable.
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Afghanistan: what will happen when the troops and their dollars depart?