Role of donors

1 Afghanistan Marble Industry Association (AMIA) members bought land in Arghandai (West of Kabul City) for the purpose of building an industrial park. They are asking the government to provide the infrastructure facilities such as electricity and road construction. But AMGPA members are not involved in this initiative. Therefore AMIA members are left alone in their request and demand for the construction of the industrial park. According to the World Bank data, Afghanistan has been one of the major aid recipients in the last decade. Since the fall of Taliban regime, $30 billion of aid through the assistance of donor countries. Most of what has been done in the process of economic development in Afghanistan is the result of such huge foreign aid inflows. However, there is no doubt that the foreign assistance could have been spent more effectively and could have been more successful.

Donors as supporting institutions should provide hand-on support to productive and promising sectors such mining, manufacturing, production of construction materials, etc. To help the marble industry grow, donors can consider the following recommendations:

• Major donor agencies such as USAID, DFID, European Commission, the World Bank and others should allocate part of their funds in the form of long-term credit and investment to Afghan marble enterprises. These institutions can practice different forms of investment and credit facilities which can be in accordance to their agencies’ objectives and programs.

• They can also provide technical assistance to quarrying and processing firms on different areas such as on industrial management, production techniques, installation and operation of machineries, marketing management, distribution activities, etc. The donor institutions can also fund exhibitions, trade shows and other events which can help market the Afghan marble products.

• Donor agencies can fund geological surveys in order to determine the size and quality of existing marble deposits in Afghanistan, and to discover new marble deposits in the country which could be designed in the form of new investment projects.

• Donor institutions should provide capacity development programs to the Ministry of Mine’s personnel and help them in designing strategies and policies to attract foreign investment in the marble sector.

Chapter 4

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 715