Kabul, 29 October, 2005; Afghan Counter Narcotics Trust Fund (CNTF) will be officially launched at the Ministry of Finance at 2:00 pm Saturday 29 October, 2005. The fund will allow the Afghan Government to have greater ownership on the implementation of its counter narcotics strategy.
The multi-donor trust fund will start functioning after Dr. Anwar-ul Haq Ahadi the Minister of Finance, Habibullah Qaderi the Minister of Counter Narcotics and Mr. Frederick Lyons United Nations Development Program's Country Director, sign the Document of the Program.
CNTF is designed to provide focused additional resources for the Afghan Government's Counter Narcotics Campaign, to ensure transparency and accountability in the allocation and use of funds, to enable the Government of Afghanistan to have greater ownership over implementation of its counter narcotics strategy; And lastly to promote greater coherence in the funding of counter narcotics-related activities.
"The CNTF will be an important and visible mechanism for the international community to focus its support for the Government of Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics campaign," says Mr. Qaderi the Minister of Counter Narcotics.
The Trustee of the CNTF will be UNDP, while the Afghan Ministry of Finance will be making sure the fund operates within the Afghan National Development Budget. The Ministry of Counter Narcotics, along with other Afghan ministries in the counter narcotics sub-committee will be recommending the allocation of funds to higher priority.
In addition, all this will be overseen by a management board, consisting of major international donors and organizations, which will approve the recommended projects.
"We are very pleased with the establishment of the CNTF. Now we want all our partners in our Counter Narcotics Campaign to channel their financial contributions through the trust fund" Mr. Qaderi stressed.
"Our appeal to donors is to trust the trust fund"
END.
Emma Sutcliffe
Communications Associate
United Nations Development Programme
Kabul, Afghanistan
+93(0) 70 152874
emma.sutcliffe@undp.org
www.undp.org.af