(Adds expected U.S. pledge, paragraphs 6-7, 18) By Francois Murphy PARIS, June 10 (Reuters) - Donor states, military powers and regional players will be seeking a more effective strategy for Afghanistan's development and security -- as well as pledging funds -- at a conference in Paris on Thursday. Afghanistan will ask the ministers and other delegates from around 65 countries to fund a $50-billion, five-year development plan, for which donors will demand that Kabul do more to fight corruption in one of the world's poorest states. Two years after a similar meeting in London outlined an international effort to promote security, good governance and development, envoys will assess "remaining challenges" in Afghanistan, which still suffers daily violence more than six years after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government. Last year alone, an insurgency by a rejuvenated Taliban accounted for some 6,000 deaths. "No one anticipated the levels of violence that we see today," said one official who briefed reporters. "That's probably one of the best reasons for reviewing the London compact -- the basic assumptions in the compact did not hold true when they were written." The United States is expected to pledge roughly $10 billion and total pledges, including the U.S. contribution, are likely to be more than $15 billion, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters. While the figures may seem large, the U.S. contribution will reflect money that the Bush administration has already requested from Congress, the State Department said. Pledges from other nations may include money they have already contributed or promised since the 2006 London meeting. Around 15 international organizations will also take part in the conference, to be opened by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. States leading the more than 50,000-strong foreign military presence in Afghanistan are expected to attend, as are neighboring countries including Iran, Pakistan and China. COORDINATION Diplomats said envoys would seek to improve coordination between more than 60 major donor countries and international organizations, dozens of aid agencies and foreign forces who are also engaged in reconstruction and development work. The conference would strengthen the role of the U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, in harmonizing projects that include building roads, schools and clinics in the mountainous country, scarred by 30 years of war. "Coordination is a real problem, all the more so because in complex situations like Afghanistan security and reconstruction have to go hand in hand, and so they need to be coordinated," said Etienne de Durand, head of the center for security studies at the French Institute of International Relations. "That is at the heart of the problem." Eide has said the international community does not spend its resources efficiently enough and diplomats said donors were looking at giving local contractors more autonomy. Afghanistan depends on aid for 90 percent of its spending. But international donors have fallen behind in paying what they have already pledged and much of the money goes straight back to donor countries in salaries and profits. The lag in aid is partly due to concerns about corruption. Of the $25 billion pledged for Afghanistan from 2001 until now, only around $15 billion has been spent, aid agencies say. The Paris conference is unlikely to raise the full $50 billion over five years that Afghanistan is looking for. "It's not a conference ... to fill the $50 billion tank," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington, saying some of the $50 billion would come from the Afghans themselves and previously pledged money. One diplomat involved in preparations said: "It would be surprising if there were not another conference on Afghanistan in the next five years, so we are instead going to focus on what will happen in the first two or three years." The biggest item in the Afghan development plan is infrastructure, with a price tag of $17 billion, followed by security, with a budget of $14 billion. Some other parts of the $50 billion package requested by the Afghans have not been justified in detail, the diplomat said. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
A house is seen beside a landslide-blocked river at the foot of a landslide at a mountain in Pingtong town of earthquake-hit Pingwu county, Sichuan Province June 4, 2008. The largest ...
