MARK COLVIN: Two parties key to the future of Afghanistan won't be at a major conference on the country's future in the German city of Bonn tonight.
Pakistan is boycotting the gathering in protest at the deaths of 24 of its troops during an exchange of fire on the Afghan border last weekend.
The Taliban aren't going to send a representative either despite the existence of back channel negotiations on ending the insurgency.
This report on the Bonn meeting from Peter Lloyd.
PETER LLOYD: It was 10 years ago that donors and powerbrokers from around the world assembled in Bonn to pledge money to help shape a post-Taliban government.
Now they're back with a meeting to finance and secure long term peace arrangements after the withdrawal of foreign forces begins in 2014.
The people with the most to gain are ordinary Afghans like Sardar Wali. He's a Kabul fruit seller who's spent the decade hoping for the best but living instead with the disappointment of undelivered promises of security and prosperity.
SARDAR WALI (translated): We have not benefited from the past 10 years. Aid comes into Afghanistan and the aid money goes out into the pockets of Afghan ministers, mayors and government officials. It has not brought any changes to the life of poor Afghans. We hope this conference will focus on poor Afghan society.
PETER LLOYD: That may be the hope but the Bonn conference is starting without two significant voices at the table.
Pakistan is an important missing ingredient because it hosts the bulk of the Taliban leadership and unless the Pakistan military and intelligence establishment cooperates a sustainable peace may be hard to maintain.
There's another key party that won't be there either and that's the Taliban.
Pakistan is a member of the so called contact group talking with the insurgency in the background. But the Afghan president Hamid Karzai doesn't think they're genuine. He believes Islamabad is still playing a wrecking role.
Despite that he has high hopes for what the meeting in Bonn may achieve.
HAMID KARZAI: As far as we in Afghanistan are concerned, ladies and gentlemen, we will remain committed to the reforms that we have promised, to the building of the state institutions that are so necessary for Afghanistan and to working for a peace process that is Afghan owned and Afghan led.
PETER LLOYD: The immediate legacy of Western involvement in Afghanistan will be mass unemployment.
Tens of thousands of young Afghans who work at Western military bases and embassies and indeed for foreign reporters will be left without work.
Roughly 90 per cent of the budget of the Afghan government is foreign funded. It will remain a donor-cum-global beggar state for years to come.
In a pre-conference address the United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon tried to focus the minds of those delegates who will be asked to ante up.
BAN KI-MOON: Afghanistan is reaching a turning point in its relationship with the international community and the international security assistance force. And in this also it is approaching the stage where it must take increasing charge of its own affairs and future. Then we need to look at this issue focused on more non military aspect.
PETER LLOYD: There may be plenty of loft sentiments expressed in Bonn but no one in Afghanistan can live off a diet of yet more undelivered promises.
In the city's grim eighth district, where the shabby tents are proof of the inability of the Afghan state to house let alone feed, a poor a frail woman named Waheeda had this plea.
WAHEEDA (translated): I am dying of hunger. I am dying of thirst. I hope the government will provide me with support because I have lots of problems in life.
PETER LLOYD: Waheeda's problems are those of Bonn too. Now the delegates have to come up with answers.
MARK COLVIN: Peter Lloyd.
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