Without the partnership of the Partnership Ambassador tony win the senior advisers csis and a friend and thank you very much tony for everything. I think we will have a very interesting and constructive conversation today and when i think about people who are qualified for their jobs and the right people at the right time i cant think of a better person than my friend from the afghanistanpakistan office at usaid. He summoned that have served in pakistan and afghanistan and served in some of the toughest places in the world. Craig is a friend, greg is a patriot and a qualified individual. Thank god he has raised his hand and agree to public service. Thank you very much. Come on up here. Give them a round of applause. [applause] its very nice to see many of my old friends here in the audience particularly i found from cairo was done a lot of the things that need to be done or might be done in afghanistan. Its great to see all of you and i look forward to meeting those of you that i have not met but id like to say just a few words about the south asia strategy and then a very few points, three each on how that applies to usaids role in afghanistan and i will mention pakistan because the two are related. And then talk about some of the decisions. In essence i felt fortunate to be returning to usaid at a time only actually do have a strategy for what to do in the region and the south asian strategy so i felt fortunate that i have marching orders and within it we have the component as a set for afghanistan and pakistan. The afghanistan role for usaid is to help the three things, first to sustain the gains made in the social or over the last 16 years health, education and womens empowerment. The second is to help build that bond between the government and citizens and that proves the three things that the Service Delivery through Credible Elections and through significantly reduced corruption corruption. The third is your lead economic development. Focused on Market Centers and importantly but not exclusively on exports. I will talk a little bit more in detail on that in a minute after i have a sip of water. This is the very president ial thing to do by the way. [laughter] now in pakistan where we have been engaged for a long time we have three things we are trying to help afghanistan do. Fortunately we are in the same page with the government of pakistan and the network of important stakeholders in pakistan. The first one is to help pakistan merge fought off or to mainstream the Federally Administered Tribal Area of fought off. Anyway they feel appropriate with the adjacent province. In doing that to help make that area a place where people who have lived there all along can live a normal life and to help, there were 1. 6 Million People displaced and to the rest of pakistan. 85 to 90 of them have returned so to make it possible for them to reintegrate. Thats the first piece. The second piece is to help communities and pakistan particularly the areas vulnerable to extremism to gain resilience against that and particularly in parts of karachi karachi, southern punjab and the fox as it merges so thats number two. And something very much working with Civil Society and the era are they doing it. And then the third is helping pakistan attract private investment to create jobs particularly for the younger people because of the large the pakistan house. Under all of that to make a maximum effort to be accountable to the taxpayers funds that go into supporting our programs in pakistan and afghanistan and also in the broader context is i will mention in a minute to make the relationship with india as constructive as possible. One of the things that afghanistan has done over the last year is to create a corridor between kabul conduct our this has been a real support to businesses private afghan businesses that are exporting the product of the countryside. The things for which afghanistan is wellknown particularly in markets in the region so fruits, fresh and dried, marble onyx gemstone cashmere wool, those kinds of things and so this corridor has been quite successful and now as i understand from my last trip to kabul they are contemplating extending that to the uae pakistan and some of the Central Asian countries and turkey. As that happens and as we collaborate with business colleagues in england and other places the processing or the ability to invest in equipment to process the products depends importantly on one policy regulatory and administrative environment and no one knows it better than the Business People themselves. Second security, electricity easy clear access to land and a transparent relationship between the business and the government so they pay their taxes, get their permits some of the things they need to do to do that kind of business. We think that is a real opportunity for afghanistan and so we are doing everything we can to support it and we would like to see five, seven, 10 years what one can see if one drives from cairo to alexandria producing highvalue profits for local and export markets. We are going to be focusing in our support strategy on the market areas in the larger cities in the areas adjacent to them where the workforce is available and where the government has greater control than it does in some of the other parts of the country. The idea being that given the right policy environment and conditions there are ready our existing afghans and there will be more who can set up facilities to process the product of the countryside and reach out as one of the businessman i businessmen i spoke with when i was over there a few weeks ago. He is mining for onyx and helmand and processing it here in kabul. Others growing fruit and vegetables fresh and dried in conduct art and selling it in india. Recently we sponsored a trade event for three days at the end of september where we had between the indian and afghan business government officials media people Civil Society representatives. There were 1700 people that participated in that event for three days. Out of that came 27 million in sales contracts, afghan products for the indian customers and another approximately 240 million in various types of agreements that have yet to come to fruition. But some of them well. That shows though that their existing businesses and afghanistan that no other deal with the region and they have products that are acceptable to make that grow and we will be doing a number of things to support those businesses including as we have done with many of our programs that many of them are run and owned by women. Another piece of that we are now looking at is a quarter of the electric Power Requirements in the earth in afghanistan and so we have had for years our support to electric power set the amway are still working on that but this is to succeed there would be significant privatesector led Economic Growth that would relate to exports in the region and other places. What are the electric Power Requirements of that . So we are trying to get a handle on that in the government and the private sector by the end of january and then to see what we can do to hone in on that unsupported as we move forward. An important part of it and i was in talking with the leadership of the chamber of commerce and they said 70 of the jobs depend on trade with afghanistan. Its also true when you talk to people in afghanistan who are in business that a lot of the opportunity relates to exporting and it would be nice if there were Free Movement of goods across the afghanpakistan border. And so from both sides, from pakistan and from afghanistan bear going to be doing everything we can to help get a yes on that. Another important piece and the one last thing im going to mention is the extracted sector. We worked for several years with afghanistan to help develop that and the efforts really werent very successful. Now we are open to doing that again and we are looking to support it in ways that afghanistan wants to do. We are not going to get ahead of the Afghan Government or ahead of afghanistan on supporting extraction. It would be huge burden than waste of money and time however we have engaged in u. S. Geological service, Geological Service to take the huge amount of raw data that was developed years ago on the Mineral Resources of afghanistan and to put that into some form that is useful to potential investors and extractive industries. We have contracted that and that is going to happen. That way the Mining Companies will no if there is a particular resource, what it is and where it is. The independent Anticorruption Agency called the monitoring and evaluation has done corruption vulnerability assessments. They started with the industry of health and then they went to the ministry of education. The next target is ministry of mining petroleum. We are supporting them to do that and also supporting their quarterly followup on action taken against the recommendations made. The ministry of mines has a very good roadmap we think for development of the extractive industry of petroleum. So as the effort with the anticorruption push the president donnie emphasized at the senior officials meeting in kabul following up one year after brussels as they push forward without theres a roadmap that they have developed to develop the extractive sect are. We will do what we can to support them including a new project that we have coming on to help the Government Industries address the sources of corruption within them and to help Civil Society to monitor the extent to which that is being done. The final point that i would make and forgive me for going on longer than i was allowed, the final point is that there is a u. S. Afghanistan compact which is an afghan initiative that includes over 200 Performance Measures related to the whole gambit of issues that face the country including privatesector Development Issues and so that is an afghan initiative that president ghani has emphasized that they are moving forward at that. They are available in helping them to move on those things and that was the reason it was requested we have capability to do it. In parallel to that we have its not brandnew but has called for new Development Partnership which is taking key reform measures, Performance Measures and relating the u. S. Financial support to them. So its a fouryear, 800 milliondollar program of 200 million a year related to specific Performance Measures between the u. S. , usaid and afghanistan. Those are elements that can support the more specific private Sector Development initiative that we know is absolutely essential to afghanistan achieving the goals set president donnie has laid out at the senior officials meeting in kabul which is to move from talking about how to get more donor assistance to private assistance so afghanistan can stand on this own. Still to move ahead. That again relates to the overall objective of the strategy which is to help afghanistan be stable enough to manage extremism within its borders and help pakistan be secure enough to play a constructive role in the region. I look forward to having the chance to say hello to my old friends. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much mr. Huger. Hello everybody. My name is Romina Bandura and im a senior fellow here and i will be moderating this excellent panel today. Im going to introduce briefly our distinguished panelists and then i have a dozen questions to ask you. First a member of the afghanistan womens Chamber Commerce and industry. Ambassador Anthony Wayne a former deputy ambassador in kabul and coordinating director for development and Economic Affairs of the u. S. Embassy in kabul. Jeffrey grieco is president and ceo of the Afghan American Chamber of commerce and former usaid assistant administrator and mr. Hussein a romney entrepreneur and member of the federation of afghanistan craftsmen and traders. I would like to divide the panel into the u. S. Perspective and jump into one of the local voices. We will start with a feelgood story. I would like to ask some questions about the achievement of afghanistan and the private sector and in particular in the last 16 years. Jeffrey grieco and Anthony Wayne but in your opinion are the three main achievements that the third and afghanistan have accomplished . I will start with the private sector. Afghanistan, i think you have to historically look at it in context and im very aware that cspan is here today so we have a larger audience than just our audience here today watching and its really important the American Public know that the success in afghanistan has had with a lot of support from the United States and other donors of the latter on bilateral have not just been in health and education and womens empowerment. There is a lot of success going on in afghanistan to enforcement a lot of that success cannot be talked about publicly because of the insecurity level and the possibility that you could bring others into it who would like to take down that investment or take down that successful project. Im going to try to whip through a few private sector successes in a broad categorical way that i think identify how far we have come. Going to start with a sector that is close to my heart. In 2001 there was virtually no cellular or mobile telephone they and afghanistan let it go let alone women having access to anything telephony related. 18 million mobile subscribers now exist with the penetration rate or women between 86 and 92 having access. Thats an incredible achievement. How does the Afghan Government and the afghan private sector got there . He was with a lot of support from the Donor Community and there is no arguing with that. Early donor vestments for starters early as 2002 came from the department of defense come the state department usaid helping to implement over 2. 6 billion worth of infrastructure within the i. T. Sector inside of afghanistan and the cognitive structural base with an additional 200 billion of afghan other direct investment coming from outside donors to help build up some of the ip infrastructure inside afghanistan to bring it to where it was a few years ago. Unfortunately we are going to talk in a few minutes about what needs to be done now this is one of the sectors where they have fallen rapidly behind the investments to keep it a big Success Story for themselves. Secondly as agriculture. Everybody knows afghanistan is primarily an agrarian economy. 22 of the economy and im not talking poppies in afghanistan this ad driven as a percentage of the 2016 gdp numbers. Thats a pretty sizable percentage that afghanistan agriculture still the main driver for employment. The main driver for subsistent living. Wheat is the main component of that and afghanistan is now the largest percapita wheat consumer of the world outstripping every developed country as well and the developed countries as well. The main products and agriculture include not just wheat and opium unfortunately a big part of afghanistan still. Mutton sheepskin and lambskin are counted as key potential export items. There is a lot of exporting going on with pomegranates and dates in fruits and. The third area is infrastructure development. Its been a major amount of infrastructure involvement done by the United States by the Asian Development bank the world bank and others as well as the Afghan Government. In a series of private Sector Investments that will hopefully longer term be privatized and fully skilled as utilities and other operations in afghanistan. This includes the dam. They were released phase two and the contract was awarded for general electric. There is a turkman gold line that has been constructed an almost finished. A 500 fault line is almost finished. The kabul main public utility turned into a private semiprivate hopefully soon to be privatized fully and available to a foreign dust or if they afghanistan Power Systems longterm. They have spent a lot of time on the regionalization notches of their electricity and their power supply grid. They have done a power supply agreement successfully with the uzbekistan turkmenistan and tajik span print all of those will come into what is in the future we hope going to be a very diversified electrical system that will have major components owned by private Sector Companies and operating utilities under the new independent Power Production. The last issue is the attempted and i think president ghani deserves credit for this. They have attempted to regionalize a lot of the economic infrastructure that will support the longerterm private sector. That includes the kandahar port deal which gives afghanistan an agreement with india and iran and a port that they can ship products due to go to the indian ocean. They started Freight Train connections with china working through the kazakhstan and the uzbeks. The salmon dam was in the air corridor notably the great talk about is an Exciting Development because its long overdue in the afghans need ways to get their private products out to private markets abroad and thats a way to do that. That was a great introduction pana covers the highlights of where we ha