These are fine at the level of rebuilding homes, restoring local communications and perhaps most importantly for farmers, land mine clearance, but NGOs are not equipped to mount major infrastructural projects. There have been bilateral links between the Afghan administration and donor governments, but the aid on offer here, is perhaps unsurprisingly, all too often tied to the work being undertaken, almost on a turnkey basis, by contractors from that country. Kabul and Afghanistan’s other major urban centers ought to be massive construction sites, buzzing with rebuilding activity. That they are not is mute but damning evidence that most of the international community has yet to deliver on its promises.

Indeed, when the British handed over the command of the international peacekeeping force to the Turks this summer, it seemed to be the start of a general disengagement by all the Europeans. The United States’ presence in Afghanistan remains primarily focused on seeking out the elements of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda that remain in Afghanistan, and interdicting any attempt by these forces to return from their refuges in Pakistan.

In these depressing circumstances, it is therefore heartening that the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), made up of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, meeting this week in Istanbul, agreed to set up a specific fund to drive on the task of rebuilding Afghanistan.