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Mr. President,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

Three months ago we opened a new chapter of Afghanistan’s rebuilding and partnership with the International Community by agreeing upon the Afghanistan Compact and its implementation over the next five years, at the London Conference.

The Afghanistan Compact at the same time acknowledges the significant challenges Afghanistan is still facing on its path to peace and development and presents an ambitious but results-oriented action plan, defining this path to peace, stability and growth by setting forth more than 70 measurable and time-bound benchmarks in the areas of security, governance, sustainable development and counter-narcotics.

Today’ s first meeting of the Afghanistan Compact’ s Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board marks a very important step towards the achievement of this ambitious action-plan.

If the Bonn Process was about putting in place new institutions, the Afghanistan Compact is about making sure they work.

If the London Conference was about a vision for Afghanistan’s future, today is about bringing that vision into life.

The time since the London Conference has been a period of progress. The national assembly, formed in December as a final act of the Bonn Process, has begun to find its role and its voice. We have watched the unfolding of new democratic processes, such as the hearings for a new Cabinet, broadcast live on TV and carefully observed by many Afghans. We have seen some recent positive news on the economy, which grew last year at a healthy 13.8 percent; in the cities in particular the evidence of an improving prosperity and vitality is becoming unmistakable. Efforts to substantiate the Interim-Afghanistan National Development Strategy (I-ANDS), and to start its implementation, have been initiated. And at the international level we have seen new initiatives to improve border management, joint military initiatives as well as continuous efforts to foster reconstruction and development.

It is always pleasant to speak of Afghanistan’s achievements as I have done just now. Yet while the progress is real, we must not blind ourselves to the difficult realities that many Afghans still face, nor to the challenges we are all up against, including those of this Spring.

It is understandable that some people feel frustrated when they see that in some parts of the country the security situation is not improving; they have a right to ask for better rule of law, good governance, improved accountability, and better prospects for themselves and their families in a secure environment.

We want these things too. That is what the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board is about. But there are no short cuts to development. Nor does the Afghanistan Compact guarantee automatically that the benchmarks therein will be achieved.

The Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board is a political body in the sense that it will resolve strategic issues, provide strategic advice and sustain high-level political support to the Afghanistan Compact. We want the Afghanistan Compact to succeed. We want its ambitious goals to be achieved.

To this end we will have to push and to pull, give advice and support, coordinate efforts and monitor progress as well as shortcomings to achieve each and every of the many benchmarks in time.

Three months ago, we met in London in a spirit of determined optimism that the problems in Afghanistan can be overcome. We are no less determined today. The Afghanistan Government, new as it is still, will increasingly show that it is in the lead. It will be the driving force that ensures that the support for Afghanistan expressed in London is used in the most efficient and effective way.

Through our work in the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board we will do our utmost to ensure that Afghanistan and its international partners achieve their shared goals. This requires unified efforts, this requires a collaborative approach to implementation, and this requires an alignment of the various activities with the Compact’s goals and with the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS).

Much hard work lies ahead if progress is to be assured, if peace is to prevail, if human rights are to be strengthened, if friendly relations with neighbours are to flourish, and if economic growth is to start benefiting all Afghanistan’s citizens.

All of these aims are benchmarks of the Afghanistan Compact, and with today’s first Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board meeting, we set out to reach them.

Thank you.

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