Seldom has a country been the recipient of more good will than Afghanistan, manifested in the $4.5 billion in assistance pledged over five years at this week’s donor conference in Tokyo.

But for Afghans to cash in on this largesse, which includes a $296 million first-year pledge by the United States, a lot will have to go right. They have to create a democracy, protect human rights and tame both corruption and the country’s penchant for politically motivated banditry.

An example of what can go wrong was demonstrated last Thursday as Secretary of State Colin Powell showed up in Kabul to lead the cheers for the month-old interim government and to promise long-term US assistance.

During his visit, armed bandits looted 40 tons of UN World Food Programme commodities at an Afghan warehouse and beat up several staff members.

Afghanistan may be in short supply on many things, but not weapons. The chairman of the interim government, Hamid Karzai, estimates the number at up to 700,000.

But Powell says the international community is becoming more savvy about how to disarm violence-prone countries, citing Sierra Leone and Macedonia as examples. Afghanistan will test Powell’s theory.

Optimists also point to other assets Afghanistan has two months deep into the post-Taliban era. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan notes that non-governmental organisations have deployed nearly 5,000 people to rid the country of land mines.

Another asset is Karzai, an affable, urbane leader who fought the Taliban and moves easily among the blue-suited diplomats dispatched to Kabul by the West. Karzai was educated abroad and speaks fluent English.

In diplomatic jargon, Karzai is an indispensable Afghan “partner” with whom the business of reconstruction can be done.

Also on the plus side is the presence of more than 1,000 British-led international peacekeepers with an additional 3,500 expected over time.

They will try to ensure calm while the billions of dollars in outside aid is disbursed for the daunting reconstruction project.

Afghanistan has become a kind of international poster boy for assistance. Needy countries abound but the events since September 11 have conspired to enable Afghanistan to have a claim on a goodly percentage of global aid funds.

Other countries have been positioned similarly but failed to take advantage. The world applauded and offered help to Haiti in 1994 when the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was returned to power with US help.

But today, tens of millions of international assistance dollars are being withheld because of persistent violations of democratic norms. Haiti remains an international welfare case.

Officials say donor countries have learned a lot about rescuing failed states. More is known, for example, about ways to make efficient use of foreign aid — lessons the donors hope to able to apply to Afghanistan. — AP