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E.O. 12958 N/A 
TAGS: ECON OTRA PREL AF
SUBJECT: JCMB VII - TOKYO POLITICAL DIRECTOR'S MEETING ON AFGANISTAN 
STRUGGLES ON THEME, BUT IS STILL THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  On February 5 in Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister 
Komura, Afghan Foreign Minister Spanta, and Acting Special 
 
Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General at the United Nations 
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Asplund kicked off the 
annual Political Director (PD)-level gathering of the seventh Joint 
Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB).  The meeting yielded a 
steady chorus of long speeches and familiar themes covering a 
four-hour span, but struggled to define a common theme after UNAMA's 
integrated strategy paper, which was to have been the basis for the 
PD discussion, got pulled by the Afghan delegation at the proverbial 
eleventh hour.  JCMB delegates (except for the U.S.) were 
conspicuously silent on the issue of appointing a new, high-level 
U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan (though this point was 
added to the final version of the PD Communique).  France announced 
it would host an international conference on Afghanistan in June 
¶2008.  Most delegates also spoke approvingly of the plan to expand 
the size of the Afghan National Army by ten thousand, an increase 
from its current ceiling of 70,000 to 80,000.  END SUMMARY. 
¶2. (SBU) Although UNAMA's integrated strategy discussion paper was 
pulled by the Afghan Government (the Afghans said they did not 
require another strategy document), the need for a more combined 
donor approach linking security to development persisted throughout 
many subsequent interventions by delegations.  In deference to 
Afghan objections, delegates danced around the term "integrated" and 
instead called for "all-encompassing", "comprehensive", 
"multi-faceted" and "holistic" strategies.  Despite the semantics, 
the meeting yielded no obvious next steps on this issue.  Except for 
the U.S. intervention, there was a noticeable absence of dialogue 
during the more than twenty interventions about the appointment of a 
new, high-level U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan (though 
this point was added to the final version of the PD Communique). 
¶3. (SBU) Afghan officials sounded familiar themes during their 
presentations.  Foreign Minister Spanta cited Afghanistan's numerous 
achievements since 2001 but also outlined ongoing challenges, 
particularly terrorism and drugs.  Co-chair Nadiri called the JCMB 
the central forum for coordinating the Afghan National Development 
Strategy (ANDS), and promised the ANDS would be ready "in a few 
months."  Nadiri made no mention of the Paddy Ashdown withdrawal or 
the need to quickly nominate another candidate as U.N. Special 
Representative.  National Security Advisor Rassoul thanked the U.S. 
and NATO countries for their contributions, and said the security 
environment in Afghanistan, while challenging, was overall much 
improved compared to 2006.  Rassoul called on JCMB delegations to 
support the proposal to increase the size of the Afghan National 
Army by 10,000 (COMMENT - this action was subsequently endorsed the 
following day at the JCMB Ambassadorial-level meeting.  END 
COMMENT).  Finance Minister Ahady urged donors not to exaggerate 
problems or overlook successes despite the negative press that 
Afghanistan was increasingly attracting.  Ahady said that 
Afghanistan's effort to engage in nation-building, state-building, 
and democratization simultaneously was unprecedented, but that 
progress was being achieved.  Ahady welcomed the call for a major 
donor conference in June 2008, but restated his usual appeal for 
donors to channel bilateral assistance through Afghan budgetary 
channels.  Director of the Independent Local Governance program, 
Jelani Popal, laid out a framework for drilling down to the 
provincial and district level to establish more government presence 
and efficiency of services at the local level.  Popal's comments 
were well received by delegates. 
¶4. (SBU) During the U.S. intervention, head of delegation AmEmbassy 
Kabul DCM Amb. Chris Dell applauded the establishment of the 
Independent Directorate for Local Governance as an effective focal 
point for coordinated efforts to strengthen local governance and 
improves services and security.  He also called for the appointment 
of a strong figure as the U.N. Special Representative to Afghanistan 
to improve coordination between civilian and security efforts.  Dell 
urged donors to muster the political will to provide more security 
and development resources, including an immediate need to finance 
voter registration efforts -- that must get underway this summer -- 
as a first step toward successful elections in 2009.  He also 
expressed full U.S. support for the proposal to raise the ceiling of 
the Afghan National Army by ten thousand. 
¶5. (SBU) The retinue of speeches by JCMB member delegations were a 
combination of donors monotonously touting their own development 
achievements, outlining challenges ahead, and offering generic 
suggestions for improving aid coordination.  The discussion was 
flavored from time to time with subtle regional posturing, but the 
dialogue remained positive and constructive overall.  Donors were in 
agreement that annual high-level gatherings of the JCMB, held in a 
foreign capital outside Kabul, were a useful opportunity to keep 
Afghanistan's security and development needs in the spotlight. 
¶6. (SBU) Country-by-country interventions revealed some new details 
but were, for the most part, rhetorically generic.  France publicly 
acknowledged it would host an international conference to be held in 
Paris during the month of June 2008.  China extolled the benefits 
Afghanistan would reap as a result of its winning bid on the Aynak 
copper deposit mine, including: up to $400 million in annual 
domestic revenue, railroad construction and other new infrastructure 
links to Central Asian neighbors.  Iran and Pakistan avoided 
controversial statements and emphasized Afghan stability as a vital 
component to regional cooperation.  Between complements to the 
Afghan Government and international community, Russia took verbal 
swipes at the poor quality of training for the Afghan National Army, 
as well as what it viewed as the unbalanced ethnic composition of 
the armed forces.  No new financial pledges were made during the 
course of the Political Directors session, though Norway did 
indicate it had raised its annual commitment to Afghan 
reconstruction by 50 percent per year.  Japan also announced $110 
million in "new" assistance, but in subsequent bilateral meetings 
this was confirmed to be just an unspent portion of its 2006 London 
pledge. 
¶7. (SBU) COMMENT.  As mentioned above, the JCMB PD-level meeting did 
not produce any insightful new solutions on the issue of donor 
coordination, and aside from a few nuggets (i.e. the June 2008 Paris 
donor conference) did not yield any surprising developments.  The 
meeting plodded along in a formulaic and sometimes confused fashion, 
compounded by the fact that the Afghan delegation did not issue 
finalized conference papers until right before the meeting.  The 
Afghans' disorganization led to some grumbling and calls for a 
strengthening of the overburdened JCMB Secretariat.  This made the 
clear lack of urgency in finding a successor candidate to Paddy 
Ashdown ironic.  And yet the act of another high-level meeting on 
Afghanistan in a G8 capital, with full participation from an 
ideologically and geographically disparate cast of donors, succeeded 
in keeping the international spotlight on Afghanistan.  For all its 
faults, the primacy of the JCMB as the international community's 
preferred donor coordination mechanism for Afghanistan does not seem 
in jeopardy.  END COMMENT. 
 
WOOD