KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - Too much money meant for Afghanistan aid is wasted, with a vast amount spent on foreign workers' high salaries, security and living arrangements, according to a report from humanitarian groups published Tuesday.

The prospects for peace in Afghanistan are being undermined because Western countries are failing to deliver on aid promises -- and because much of the aid money they do send is going to expatriate workers, according to the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an alliance of 94 international aid agencies.

Since 2001, the international community has pledged $25 billion in help but has delivered only $15 billion, the alliance said. Of that $15 billion, about 40 percent of it -- or $6 billion -- goes back to donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries, the report found.

The cost of a full-time expatriate consultant working in Afghanistan is about $250,000, according to the group. This is more than 200 times the average annual salary of an Afghan civil servant, who is paid less than $1,000 per year, the report said.

Amy Frumin, an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations who spent a year in Afghanistan as an officer on a U.S. Agency for International Development reconstruction team, said blaming high expat salaries is unfair.

"You have to pay them good money to do that," she said. "They're still having trouble finding people to fill these positions."