It happened after Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998. Nine billion dollars in reconstruction aid was promised by donor governments and corporations, yet less than 50% of it actually materialized. In 2003, a devastating earthquake his Bam, Iran, in which 26,000 people died. I still remember the images, and I still remember that over $1 billion in relief aid was pledged. Yet less than $120 million showed up.

And remember the tsunami that rattled the world in December 2004, when we saw unprecedented generosity on behalf of the people of the world? Our respective governments tried to match up and pledged $5.8 billion out of a total of $6.7 billion. Yet only $4 billion has shown up, and reconstruction is slow because much of the relief materials are being squandered.

It is the simple symptom of public grandstanding and then private backburner when the press finally rolls over. Once the issue is dead, it seems, so is the aid.

Not too sound too ominous and dramatic, but international donors are failing Afghanistan in its efforts to hold parliamentary elections in the fall, perhaps one of the most important events in the long process of establishing democracy in the country. The amount needed is only $31 million, yet somehow that money isn’t showing up. And it’s desperately needed.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ???????? Afghanistan’s upcoming parliamentary elections face a funding shortfall of $31 million because international donors have failed to deliver on pledges, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.

The lack of funding threatens to undermine plans for the polls scheduled for Sept. 18, which are expected to cost about $149 million, said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.

“If these funds do not become available very shortly, it will hurt essential preparatory work such as voter education and the establishment of thousands of polling stations and the hiring of over 140,000 polling staff,” he said at a news conference.

Recent violence has also threatened to destabilize Afghanistan ahead of the crucial legislative polls. Officials warned that the violence could imperil more than three years of progress toward elections and the establishment of democracy in Afghanistan.

“We urge donor governments to reaffirm their commitment to the September elections by acting to address this problem as rapidly as possible,” he said.

Edwards declined to identify the countries that have not paid.

Asked why the United Nations didn’t issue a warning earlier, Edwards said discussions with donors were continuing and possible funding difficulties had not been “forgotten or overlooked.”

“The fact is, we’re getting very, very close to these elections,” he said. “That’s why … we think it’s important to raise this issue now.”

Edwards may not be able to disclose the list of countries and corporations failing meet their obligations, but we can surely bet that they are the same ones who pledged and plummeted on previous occasions; those pseudo-socialist continental types who call Afghanistan “the right war” as they sip lattes and discuss their egos. Meanwhile, in a deep desire to see its rebuilding into a peaceful and prosperous nation, their troop commitments on the ground can practically be counted on my hands and feet. Hey, Canada, where are you running with that aid earmarked for Aceh and Afghanistan?

Of course, Kofi Annan is always on the scene when an impending crisis is coming to the forefront. Back in April he commented on the lack of follow on aid pledges, saying, “And perhaps we, also at the United Nations, should become a bit more aggressive in following up with governments, maybe sending people out to try and remind them to make good on their pledges, or periodically issuing reports as to who offered what and who has paid what.” It’s ironic, because he makes the inferred assumption that the United Nations can actually do anything about it. However, I must side with him in the end. The UN shouldn’t have to take upon itself the unnecessary task of following up with sovereign governments who should be responsible enough to pledge within their means. Not paying up when the time comes is a dangerous precedent to set, especially in the case of rebuilding a country and holding democratic elections.

In the case of Afghanistan, lack of donor money almost threw last year’s presidential elections into total disarray. From the Institute for Afghan Study is a comprehensive paper on the subject entitled Afghanistan: Toward Parliamentary Elections (.pdf), which discusses the problems faced during the presidential elections and what is expected this fall. Here is the relevant part about the run up in the electoral process with regards to international funding:

Resources for the registration exercise remained contentious throughout 2003. A proposal by the electoral unit to rely on Afghan staff trained and employed by the UN and budgeted at $130 million was scrapped before its intended launch in August 2003 as too expensive. 7 The failure of the electoral unit and donors to agree early on a budget caused the process to slip dangerously behind schedule. After a second abortive attempt to begin registration in October 2003, prevented as before by lack of funds, the process was finally launched on 1 December.

Not the best way to start working toward the country’s first free elections in decades. The process was put under the Joint Electoral Management Body, which, as the name suggests, managed everything. It budgeted quite a bit of money for the elections, over $100 million in fact. Too bad the international donors fell short of what was needed.

For the presidential and parliamentary elections themselves, JEMB budgeted $102.3 million. At the Berlin conference, 31 March-1 April 2004, donors pledged $69.8 million for the elections, most of which was eventually received. Between the $102.3 million budgeted for the elections and the donor commitments of $69.8 million was a gap of $32.54 million. According to the director of the Electoral Secretariat, Farook Wardak, the funding request was based on the premise that presidential and parliamentary elections would be simultaneous. This has meant that that the money pledged was, in the end, sufficient for the presidential elections.13 But it also means that a new funding appeal needs to be made urgently for the parliamentary elections.

The report goes on to note that, thankfully, the self-discipline of the voters and poll workers was critical in the orderly fashion in which the elections were conducted despite managerial mayhem. This problem in the upper chambers, however, seeps down below as broad miscommunication became apparent when staffers were unaware that ink used to mark a voter’s finger could be washed off. Other problems were the absence of voter rolls, too few ballots in heavily populated districts, and the inability to do background checks on multiple registrations. These problems could have been easily solved if management had been properly funded in time by foreign donors.

I don’t mean to sound like a loan shark, but it is completely irresponsible to pledge money that the mission depends on and not follow through. Adrian Edwards gives off the impression of ensuing desperation; the press conference would not have been called if time and money were not running short. Give it up, guys. Enduring Freedom really was a war worth fighting, but the time has come to put Afghanistan on the road to recovery. That can’t happen unless these elections can be made as smooth, transparent, and legitimate as possible