The Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Wednesday announced that Afghanistan has fully honored its commitments it made to the international community and that it is proud to participate at the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM).  

The country has achieved major gains in various sectors, said the ministry in a statement. 

Programs and policies pursued by the Afghan government will satisfy the international community at the conference, said MoF spokesman Ajmal Hamid Abdul Rahimzai. 

Meanwhile, Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) has said that government failed to accomplish its commitments it made to the international community and that government’s failure will create mistrust among its foreign stakeholders. 

“Our commitments were about reforms and increase in revenue including financial reforms, we have made progress in these sectors, therefore we are proud to participate at the conference,” said MoF spokesman Ajmal Hamid Abdul Rahimzai.

SOM delegates will discuss mutual commitments made by the international community and Afghanistan at last year’s Brussels Summit. 

At the Brussels Summit held on Afghanistan on 5 October 2016,  the Afghan government pledged to the international community to make sure that it would carry out reforms including the registration of assets by government officials, the finalization of the procurement law, the undertaking of systematic reforms in the election law, fighting corruption, reforms within legal and judicial institutions and ensuring the security of investors and investments. 

The conference brought together  75 countries and 26 international organizations and agencies. At the summit, the international community endorsed the reform agenda presented by the Afghan government. They undertook to ensure continued international political and financial support for Afghanistan over the next four years. The total sum committed  by the international community is  US$15.2 billion . 

“Unfortunately, the Afghan government has failed to abide by its commitments regarding reforms and it has not made any gains at the conference, we are very distressed that such actions could led to distrust by the international community,” said IWA Chairman Sayed Ekram Afzali.

“Government has failed to gain something in the three sectors such as reforms, war on corruption and transparent expenditure of money,” said economic analyst Shabir Bashiri.

Delegates from 40 countries and donors groups are expected to attend the two day conference in Kabul.

According to the ministry of finance, at this week’s SOM conference the international community will likely call on government to take steps to implement economic reforms, strengthen the private sector, implement the national anti-corruption strategy and improve living standards of  women.