Скачать или смотреть US aid agency announces multi-million dollars aid

(26 Jan 2002)

1. Soldier with gun and US flag behind
2. USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios at podium
3. Journalists and soldier
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Natsios, USAID Administrator
"80 percent of the people in this country live in rural areas. Two thirds of them are farmers, are herders. Almost all the legitimate exports from this country are agricultural. If we do not get the agricultural economy up and running, the country is not going to recover. So we are going to be focusing our major attention on reconstruction broadly speaking of all aspects of the agricultural system in Afghanistan."
5. Natsios surrounded by reporters
6. Hand writing on notepad
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Natsios, USAID Administrator
"Also if we move rapidly in this reconstruction programme, which we are prepared to do, and get people back to work, then I think the attraction to militias and weapons and all that will disappear fairly quickly. The economy is what it is all about and the economy means the agricultural system and the markets, getting public services back up and people with money in their pocket."
8. Soldiers
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Natsios, USAID Administrator
"It does work in some countries where there is local leadership and I have been impressed with many of the Afghan leaders that I've met in the interim government in terms of their level of education, their managerial skill, their level of commitment and their integrity."
10. Reporters
11. Soldiers
12. Natsios walking away

STORYLINE:

The head of the US Agency for International Development announced on Saturday that one of his agency's top priorities in Afghanistan would be agricultural development.

Andrew Natsios is in Afghanistan to inspect projects that receive funding from
his agency and to assess how the US should apportion the 296 (m) million US dollars it pledged this week at the Tokyo conference on aid for Afghanistan.

Natsios said much of the money would be targeted towards the agricultural sector, the mainstay of the Afghan economy.

He also expressed the belief that economic regeneration would help break the hold of militias in the country.

The agency operates few projects directly, instead supplying funds to non-government organisations and national agencies.

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