By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- As the new Afghan Interim Authority gets ready to take control of the country December 22, desks, chairs, fax machines, telephones, stationary, and money to pay salaries is being rushed to Kabul from a new $20 million fund being established by the United Nations.

In an effort to support the re-emergence of government institutions in Afghanistan, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has set up and will manage a special fund to pay for start-up operations for the Afghan Interim Authority. UN Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi asked the UNDP to establish the fund to help cover administrative costs for the operations outlined by the Bonn Agreement.

In the Bonn Agreement, the Interim Authority was given a number of responsibilities including establishing the justice commission, the central bank, the commission on human rights, and the civil service commission, in addition to managing the affairs of Afghanistan through the first six months.

Julia Taft, UNDP assistant administrator and director of the bureau for crisis prevention and recovery, said, "this is a fund basically to provide support to the authorities for initial activities and some salaries for police and teachers and health workers.... But this is just a bridging approach. This is not the longer term requirements that they will need."

"It is an effort to say on behalf of the international community: we want to help as much as we can to get this process launched," Taft said at a press conference December 18.

The fund will officially be launched at a meeting hosted by the European Union in Brussels on December 21 with an appeal to donor nations to start making contributions. In the meantime, the more than $200,000 to cover the first days of the authority is being financed by UNDP. Establishment of the fund was agreed upon by the Afghanistan Support Group, which met in Berlin earlier this month. The group, established in 1996, includes the main donor countries and international agencies active in the country. It includes Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.

Taft said that UNDP has received many expressions of interest in contributing to the fund. "I think at the Brussels meeting many donors will announce their level of initial support," she added.

One of the great problems facing the Interim Authority is how to finance government operations, Taft explained.

"Unfortunately the Taliban have taken away all the money," she said. "There is virtually no money to manage the government structure of Afghanistan.... There are no operating funds to manage the government structure, in fact, many of the civil servants have not been paid for a while."

The fund plans to help with the core administrative costs for the offices of each of the 29 administrators and the new head of government, police salaries, and teachers' salaries when the school year begins on March 21, 2002, Taft said.

"One of the things we have learned in this issue of how the UN can help a state in transition or coming out of conflict is that there is always a lot of support for training programs and technical assistance but very seldom is there money for core expenses of key salaries," she said. "We wanted to include that this time around so the interim authority will have the basic wherewithal to do the task it needs to do."

The UNDP official stressed that the fund will only last six months and will be managed by UNDP with the guidance of Brahimi who will be consulting with the interim government.

"This is an interim authority measure. Obviously later on the government will assume responsibility when it gets donor funding," Taft said.

"The whole philosophy is the Afghans themselves must be in charge of their future and so to the extent we can help under-gird their ability to do that we want to do that with their guidance and their involvement. Those kinds of decisions -- including the nature of the police -- these are going to be Afghan decisions, not UN decisions," she said.

UNDP has budgeted enough funds initially so that each of the ministers can hire up to ten people. The office supplies and UNDP advisors are set to arrive in Afghanistan December 20, she said.

UNDP plans to make a lump sum small payment to the ministers, their staff, and career civil servants for the first month of the interim authority and then will work with the government to determine the salary ranges for the civil servants for the remaining five months.

"We also think this will help the local economy right away," Taft said. "We are recommending no more than $159 a month for the most senior people."

What the future salaries will be will have to be determined by the new government, she said, but in the meantime the international community wants "to help the Afghan authorities ensure that their employee can lead a reasonable life."

The UN Afghan Interim Authority Fund (AIAF) will also provide technical assistance on some immediate reconstruction needs and has budgeted money for some repairs, however, it will not provide physical space for offices, Taft said.

"The United Nations is not running the ministries and the government of Afghanistan. We are there to help them and so to the extent that they need information about structural integrity or site safety...technical assistance will be provided. We have resources that we have budgeted to do repairs, but this is not a reconstruction fund," she said.