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Capacity Remains One of Afghanistan’s Biggest Obstacles

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The Pulse

Capacity Remains One of Afghanistan’s Biggest Obstacles

RECCA VI might result in a list of big projects, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be completed.

Capacity Remains One of Afghanistan’s Biggest Obstacles
Credit: Flickr/SIGAR

The 6th Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA VI) began Thursday in Kabul. The two-day conference is part of a series launched in 2005 in Kabul, with subsequent conferences in New Delhi (2006), Islamabad (2009), Istanbul (2010), and Dushanbe (2012). This is the first that President Ashraf Ghani will preside over.

The conference–which has been subtitled “The Silk Road Through Afghanistan”–predictably will cover issues of trade and transport, energy, resource extraction, investment, training, and disaster preparedness. The AP reported that “delegates were to discuss policy priorities, inter-regional trade, harmonization of customs and border routines, and market expansion” Ghani, who has been in office for just under a year, promised during the December 2014 London Conference on Afghanistan to make the country self-reliant–boosting the economy and tackling corruption.

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