TOKYO, Japan -- Donor countries at the Afghan aid conference in Tokyo have pledged $1.8 billion dollars for 2002, and a total of $4.5 billion dollars over five years, to reconstruct the central Asian country with barely any infrastructure. 

But officials at an international donors' conference issued a sobering warning Tuesday that the challenge now lay in ensuring the money reached its intended recipients. 

The president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, warned those involved in the aid process that funding could dry up if the money pledged was misused or failed to reach the people who needed it most. 

"When we talk about 'will the money get to the right place?...How to avoid corruption?' The answer is: with difficulty," Wolfensohn told reporters. 

"We are dealing with a pretty primitive, basic situation. We need to understand that," he said. 

"We all know that it's going to be tough to make sure that the money gets to the place that it should go," he said. 

"Can I guarantee that there won't be some slippage at the margin? I think that would be a hard guarantee anywhere, including in some of the developed countries," he said. 

"But I think there is a very strong recognition that funding is going to stop unless it goes to the sorts of programmes where we are trying to reach," he added. 

Wolfensohn said he was pleased with the commitments made on Monday on the first day of a two-day conference in Tokyo on rebuilding post-war Afghanistan. 

Devil in the detail
The United States, Japan and the European Union opened the meeting Tuesday by offering about half of the more than $2.6 billion pledged in total on the first day. The aid will be distributed over varying timeframes. 

Few details were given about the rules for spending the aid money. Often, donor countries require their aid be used to buy goods from companies in those countries. Private aid groups have expressed concerns about such conditions. 

Ahead of Tuesday's closing statements, some delegates were expressing concerns that working out those and other details could pose a problem. 

Briefing reporters Tuesday, a senior U.S. delegation official stressed that pledges in Tokyo for the first year "exceeded expectations." 

He added, however, that managers of the global aid drive would have to lean on some countries to give more, and to fine-tune some of the pledges that have already been made. 

"We all realize we're going to have to redouble our efforts," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

Drug threat
While first-year pledges were strong, longer term donations fell short of the $10 billion, five-year goal that was floated by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan during his opening address Monday. 

But that was mainly because none of the big donors -- the United States, Japan, the European Union and Saudi Arabia -- made a pledge spanning more than three years. 

Congressional budgetary procedures prevent the United States from extending its $296 million pledge past this fiscal year, which ends in September. 

Immediately after the Tokyo conference, U.S. officials were to head to the Afghan capital of Kabul to set up a steering committee that will manage the funds collected. 

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed accountability presented a challenge. 

"There are many hurdles to overcome, such as the need to bring an end to banditry and to end the influence of warlords," said Annan. 

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said: "It's substantial, but the key is how to dispatch the money fast and how to create a mechanism whereby the bureaucracy will not be an obstacle and all the projects will be implemented right away." 

Donors also want proof the government has a plan for a viable economy and a democratic society, that farmers are not tempted back into growing poppies for the world drug trade. 

"The last thing international donors need is to commit, only to discover it has nurtured opium cultivation and drug trade," a U.S. official said. 

Back to basics
Afghanistan is beginning reconstruction nearly from scratch. 

Decades of war have all but leveled the country's infrastructure; the central bank was looted in the last days of the ousted Taliban regime; and government employees have not been paid for months. 

About two-thirds of the adults in Afghanistan are illiterate, and nearly 3,000 people are maimed by land mines there every year. 

Other priority areas include road construction, health, water systems and getting the farming sector back on its feet after years of drought and the destruction of irrigation systems. 

Afghanistan interim leader Hamid Karzai's chief economic adviser, Torek R. Farhadi, played down concerns that U.N. expectations had not been met, saying the world body's estimates were built largely on educated guesses without the benefit of census and statistical studies. 

Farhadi said any pledge is a plus for Karzai, who will likely seek election when the term on his interim government runs out later this year. 

"He's the guy bringing back the billions," Farhadi said.