It costs approximately $1 million a year to
support the deployment of one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. In contrast, an average of just $93 in development aid has been spent per Afghan per year over the past seven years.

In the countryside, where the vast majority of Afghans have endured grinding poverty after decades of conflict, too little of the billions pumped into the country by international donors have made real change in the lives of families who need help the most.

Despite the billions spent in aid and improvements in some areas of the country:

• 14 children die from preventable diseases every 30 minutes
• One Afghan woman dies in childbirth every 30 minutes
• Only half of all children attend school. The figure is even lower for girls, only one out of five make it to primary school.

Furthermore, many aid projects have been concentrated in areas where there is a heavy presence of international troops. These military-led projects are often "quick fix" strategies aimed at supporting short term political goals. Not only are they often wasteful, but they end up harming the people they were meant to help when places like schools and clinics become targets for armed insurgents. Read more.

Act today. Ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European foreign ministers to focus on poverty reduction when world leaders meet to chart the way forward in Afghanistan this year.