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BRUSSELS, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- International donors on Wednesday pledged to provide 15.2 billion U.S. dollars in support of Afghanistan's development priorities for the period 2017 to 2020 at a two-day conference on Afghanistan here that ends Wednesday.
The overall aim of the conference is to generate international support for Afghan reform and ensure continued international political and financial support to bolster Afghanistan's economic stability, development and state-building processes over the next four years.
The conference brings together leaders from more than 70 countries worldwide, 20 international organizations and agencies, and a vast range of stakeholders.
Afghanistan has seen its economy rapidly deteriorate in recent years.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the war-torn country's GDP growth has declined from an average of 10 percent over the period 2002 to 2012 to 1.3 percent in 2014.
In 2015, it grew slightly to 1.5 percent. Poverty rates and unemployment have also risen recently, with more than 39 percent of the population now living in poverty, and unemployment standing at 39 percent.
This drastic economic decline is mainly the result of the post-2014 international military draw-down and the year of intensified political instability that followed the 2014 election.
Foreign troops once brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the Afghan economy, and their departure deprives the country of what was, after 2002, the country's largest single source of revenue.
However, as a least developed country, Afghanistan is hugely dependent on aid.
According to the statement released by the European Union, the Afghanistan government's own revenues stand at around two billion dollars a year (10 percent of its GDP), while international funding for the security sector remains at five billion U.S. dollars per year and development aid at around four billion dollars. Enditem
