Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for $50bn (£25bn) in aid to help rebuild his country, at a foreign donors conference in Paris.

The US has committed $10bn, but pledges are expected to fall well short of Mr Karzai's target.

Critics say Afghanistan has not got the capacity to spend the money it already has, let alone bid for more.

The conference comes as Mr Karzai faces growing international scrutiny ahead of elections next year.

Mr Karzai said his country needed "large amounts of aid", but stressed that how it was spent was "just as important", the Associated Press news agency reported.

Donors from about 80 countries are attending the one-day event, the fourth major conference on Afghanistan's future since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is jointly chairing the meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said France would "more than double" French aid, focusing on health and agriculture.

His aides said France would commit 107 euros ($165m) over the next two years.

US First Lady Laura Bush announced the $10.2bn US pledge, saying Afghanistan had "reached a decisive moment" and "we must not turn our backs on this opportunity".

Speaking on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US planned to spend the money over two years, roughly in line with current US aid levels, although some of it was funds already approved by Congress.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain was committing an extra $1.2bn over the next five years.

'Chicken-and-egg'

BBC International Development Correspondent David Loyn says that little progress has been made on the benchmarks set in the last major meeting in London, two years ago, where $10.5bn was pledged.

Thursday's meeting is not just about raising more money but trying to find a better way of improving the flow of aid, and building the capacity of the Afghan government to manage affairs for itself, our correspondent says.

A recent report by the World Bank was critical of the failure of donors to build the capacity of the Afghan government to manage its own affairs.

It found there was little to show for the estimated $1.6bn that has been spent on technical assistance in Afghanistan since 2002.

Almost 70% of development spending goes outside the government, it said, much of it straight back to donor countries in the pockets of consultants, which the report described as "a second civil service".

Mr Ban urged world donors to coordinate and intensify their aid efforts for Afghanistan, and called for better governance by the Afghans.

Ahead of the meeting, the UN's special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, told the BBC it was necessary to reduce reliance on foreign contractors:

"That is difficult, but we have to start somewhere. It's a chicken-and-egg situation in a way: we do not dare to trust the Afghans because they do not have the capacity, but yet we need to develop that capacity."

Pressure on Karzai

In 2006-2007, Afghanistan received more than $4bn of aid, which equates to seven times Afghanistan's domestic revenues.

Nationwide, the country faces rising levels of criminal violence and government corruption fuelled by the largest opium harvests in the world, as well as the Taleban insurgency.

The country has also been hit hard in recent months by rising global food prices, with major wheat shortages as Pakistan has stopped exports.

The donor conference comes amid growing international pressure on Mr Karzai, who is expected to stand for re-election in 2009, over the lack of progress in bringing stability and improved living standards to the country since he came to power in December 2004.

Labels: World News