The government of Afghanistan is gearing up to sign three strategic agreements each with the governments of the U.K., France and Italy in an upcoming tour of these European countries by President Hamid Karzai. Another strategic agreement is being worked out by the European Union and will soon be submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The tenure of the strategic agreement with the France will be for twenty years while the agreements with U.K. and Italy will have tenures of each ten years.

In the tour of these European countries by President Karzai next week, these agreements will be signed. It would usher in a new era in the bilateral relations of Afghanistan with these important European countries, a fact that is borne out by the massive investments in Afghanistan by these countries over the past decade and the need of Afghanistan to continued Western assistance in the period after 2014 when the majority of foreign troops will leave Afghanistan.

The strategic agreements with France, U.K. and Italy will have two broad tracks both crucial for Afghanistan and its post-2014 future. The first track of these agreements will focus on the individual European country's assistance to Afghanistan in the period after 2014.

France, Italy and the U.K. all will continue their assistance to Afghanistan although the volume of the financial and non-financial assistance will be significantly lower in the post-2014 period compared to the present. In any likelihood, these three European countries will channel more of their assistance through the European Union in the post-2014 period.

This will be in tune with the broader policies of the European countries and the European Union to give a more pronounced and prominent role to this supra-national organization. As the European Union's Special Representative to Afghanistan has said, the volume of the annual assistance to Afghanistan by the European Union will remain unchanged at 1 billion Euros a year.

This signals that the bulk of the assistance of these European countries to Afghanistan will be indeed channeled through the European Union and not through the individual country's embassies in Afghanistan. The assistance of these countries to Afghanistan will encompass areas of governance and education.

The assistance of these countries has so far been focused on these areas and in the post-2014 period too, the same areas will likely receive most of the funding. The bulk of the assistance by these countries will be directly channeled into the government of Afghanistan. The second track in these strategic agreements with these European countries is the goal of expansion of bilateral relationships.

These countries are eager to deepen and further strengthen their relations with Afghanistan not merely as an aid-receiving country but also as a country that is invaluable in terms of trade and commerce as well as political proximity of Afghanistan to the international policies of these countries.

For these European countries it is important to further build upon and deepen bilateral relations with Afghanistan as an ally at the heart of Asia that can be an effective partner of these countries in promoting their interests and values in the broader region of which Afghanistan is a part. From this angle, it is apparent that these countries are extremely interested in forging closer ties with an Afghanistan that is slowly getting back on its feet.

The government of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai must place it as an overarching goal to secure the best possible terms for Afghanistan and defend the national interests of the country in these agreements. Attention to the economy of Afghanistan and building the country's infrastructure sector should be part and parcel of these agreements.

The government and the president must make active contribution of these countries to Afghanistan's infrastructure sector a part of these agreements. These European countries must be persuaded to finance and execute large-scale infrastructure projects in Afghanistan such as the many unfunded hydro-power projects that are currently lying dormant for want of funds and companies with the needed expertise and technologies.

Another sector of Afghanistan's economy that requires acute attention of these countries is private investment in Afghanistan by private sector companies from these countries. In these strategic agreements, the governments of the U.K., France and Italy must take it upon themselves to set a target for private investment by their companies in Afghanistan.

This will be in line with the larger goal of expansion of economic relations between Afghanistan and these countries. For sure, private investment by European countries in Afghanistan would do a lot towards the goals of accelerating Afghanistan's economic development and helping the government in Afghanistan reach the goals in Afghanistan's National Development Strategy.

It is hoped that these strategic agreements will provide for coherent frameworks within which Afghanistan and these European countries can deepen relations and free Afghanistan from the status of a client state that is fatally dependent on their assistance. The bilateral relations should move towards more equality.

Up until now, there have been significant impediments in the way of reaping maximum benefits out of foreign financial assistance. Many factors have limited the extent of the benefits reaching to common people here in Afghanistan and as a result real and tangible impact on the lives of people has been limited. The bulk of foreign assistance has so far been channeled through NGOs and UN agencies with the government of Afghanistan having little say in how and where the funds are spent.

Lack of coordination among the NGOs and UN agencies and the government have resulted in spending of funds on projects that actually have little impact on the lives of the people or projects whose costs far surpass the benefits. To a large extent, the true priorities of the society and economy of Afghanistan were neglected by the NGOs and other non-governmental organizations involved in spending foreign assistance.

The government has not been placed in the larger picture and its corruption and ineptitude prevented it from taking active part in rebuilding the country. However, as the deadline of 2014 approaches, the government of Afghanistan should start to mend its ways.