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additional costs. Both the fiduciary responsibility to the U.S. taxpayer and the policygoals of the U.S. government would often be accomplished better by direct budgetarysupport to the Afghan government, combined with programs for capacity building.Recommendation:• International donors, and the United States in particular, should give aid in accordwith the priorities of the ANDS. They should overcome legal and politicalobstacles to funding through the government budget by setting specific criteria fordoing so. Congress should not undermine these efforts by insisting on U.S.contracting or earmarking. The best mechanisms for such direct budgetarysupport are the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund managed by the WorldBank and the two funds managed by UNDP, the Law and Order Trust Fund forAfghanistan, and the Counternarcotics Trust Fund. These trust funds providestrong incentives, benchmarking, and monitoring for the Afghan government tobuild its capacity and improve its accountability and performance.REGIONAL DIMENSIONS OF RECONSTRUCTIONAfghanistan’s development requires cooperation of this landlocked country with itsneighbors, especially Pakistan and Iran, which provide outlets to the sea. 32 Withoutconfidence in regional security arrangements, neighboring countries may resist theeconomic and infrastructural integration that is indispensable for Afghanistan’s future.Recommendations:• The United States and other donors should support regional economiccooperation, including in infrastructure, trade and transit, water use, energy,migration and manpower, and development of border regions, by establishingdedicated funding frameworks for regional economic cooperation in this region.32 See Barnett R. Rubin with Andrea Armstrong, “Regional Issues in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan,”World Policy Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 37–48, and S. Frederick Starr, “A Partnership forCentral Asia,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2005).38