Short: upbeat

Britain is to commit £200 million over five years to the programme to rebuild Afghanistan, Clare Short announced on Monday.

As international aid ministers met in Tokyo, Short said the West was set to deliver the cash required to begin rebuilding the war-torn nation.

She said that the cash, which totals nearly £2.5 billion, would be closely monitored to ensure that it got through to those most in need.

The majority of the cash will come from the US, Japan and the EU - who have pledged a combined sum of over £1.3 billion.

The US administration has pledged £203 million over the coming year - a sum which US secretary of state Colin Powell says is evidence that America will not turn its back on the people of Afghanistan. "President Bush has made it clear that the United States will not abandon the people of Afghanistan," he said.

Short dismissed suggestions that the total amount would fall short of the amount required by Afghanistan's interim administration. "The pledges are coming in very strongly," she said.

James Wolfensohn, the governor of the World Bank, rejected claims that the money could be seized by corrupt Afghan warlords.

"If we watch it carefully and it is properly monitored there is no reason that by paying it through a government account it will immediately be syphoned off and be subject to corruption," he told the BBC's Today Programme.

The money, which will be delivered through several channels, is to be used to support the interim government and begin the clean-up operation required before Afghanistan can move towards self-sufficiency.

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim prime minister, said the scale of the task could not be underestimated.

"I stand before you today as a citizen of a country that has had nothing but disaster, war, brutality and deprivation against its people for many years," he told the summit.