Polish Aid to Afghanistan and Iraq in the support of international attempts to develop and stabilise Central Asia and the Middle East

Abstract

The stabilisation-military missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, carried out under the aegis of the United States, were justified by global security efforts. Stabilisation in these places was also treated as one of the greatest development challenges of the 21st century. Although bilateral Polish Aid was largely concerned with supporting post-Soviet states, it was also delivered to Afghanistan and Iraq; additionally, aid was transferred through multilateral channels. The paper discusses the contribution of Polish Aid to the international attempt to develop these two countries, with stabilisation and military missions underway there at the same time. The thesis is that Polish Aid to Afghanistan and Iraq was intended to support the ongoing missions; its purpose was to implement aid activities while trying to strengthen global security. An analysis of both the content and discourses presented in government documents and publications indicated that this was an example of a rather unique practice of Poland’s foreign support for Central Asia and the Middle East development; both the continued instability of these areas and the level of poverty there demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the assumed goals, which should be borne in mind while formulating Polish development aid policy as a part of foreign policy strategy for the coming years. It should also be noted that although development aid was not a subject of public debate in Poland too often, it accompanied Polish activities in Afghanistan and Iraq quite extensively.