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Development Challenges
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Afghanistan is a post-conflict country. It is landlocked and underdeveloped. It is the poorest country in the Asia and Pacific region, a fragile state, and a weak performer. It is also a country of nearly 24 million people who are weary of conflict and subject to grinding poverty in an often harsh environment, wary of foreign intentions, and skeptical about their own leaders, many of whom have “warlord” pasts.
All these phrases apply. And, although Afghanistan’s circumstances today are better than at any time over the past several decades, the country still faces huge development challenges.
Some of Afghanistan’s challenges and its often remarkable progress over the past 4 years are outlined here. They are in no particular order or priority, as the country’s development challenges are interlinked.
In December 2001, at the Bonn Conference on the future of Afghanistan, various Afghan factions, assisted by the United Nations (UN), agreed on a transitional process leading to elections for a “broad-based, gender-sensitive, multiethnic, and fully representative government.”
The “Bonn process” included establishing a 6-month interim authority and an emergency Loya Jirga (traditional consultative assembly) that elected Hamid Karzai as Chief of State and Chairman of the Afghan Transitional Authority. It also adopted a new Constitution (ratified by a constitutional Loya Jirga in January 2004); and established a joint election management body (comprising members appointed by the government and the UN), a presidential election in October 2004, and parliamentary and provincial council elections in September 2005. Seventy percent of registered voters (40% women) voted in the presidential election, while 50% of voters took part in the parliamentary and provincial council elections.
Afghanistan is now a member of various regional and subregional groupings, but it lacks the connectivity and capacity to exploit its strategic location
The challenge ahead will be to consolidate the principles and practices of this representative government and to move away from the ethnic, regional, and other tensions that divided Afghans in the past.
This will require an Afghanistan compact. Success hinges on providing basic security to the public under a functioning and wellstructured security sector. In the 4 years since it helped topple the Taliban regime, by some estimates, the United States government has spent well over $50 billion on military operations to secure that peace, apart from aid expenditures. Some 18,000 coalition troops and 10,000 troops from 35 countries continue efforts to vanquish remaining antigovernment elements. And with international support, the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police are being trained and upgraded.
A “post-Bonn process” (Afghanistan compact) needs to tackle five key issues:
By all economic and social indicators, Afghanistan is the poorest country in the Asia and Pacific region, and among the poorest in the world. Poverty, inadequate health care, and poor education prevent many Afghans from gaining the basic skills they need to improve their own lives. Afghanistan will not likely achieve any of its Millennium Development Goals given this dismal starting point.
A shortage of the skills and expertise needed for governance and reconstruction (national capacity) constrains Afghanistan’s development. Addressing the country’s capacity deficits may take a generation or more, and only if adequate investments are made now in the country’s education system. It also takes commitment and funding from the international community—with greater emphasis on building sustainable, homegrown capacity—rather than filling gaps with expensive international expertise or “technical assistance.”
In 2004, the illicit opium economy was as big as 60% of the country’s nondrug gross domestic product. Despite somewhat successful efforts to reduce opium poppy cultivation, optimum-growing conditions in 2005 resulted in only a minimal decrease in total production of raw opium (see story, p. 16). Afghanistan is the source of 87% of world opium production, with the bulk of heroin on western streets coming from Afghanistan’s poppy fields.
The opium economy ties poor farmers to continued production of opium poppy for economic reasons—it is far more lucrative than any other cash crop and many farmers go into debt with traffickers who provide them with essential agriculture inputs. It also contributes to organized crime and insecurity, feeds corruption, and spreads addiction and HIV/AIDS. The size of Afghanistan’s drug economy and its many illegal tentacles seriously undermine government efforts to prove it is a reliable partner worthy of sustained international support.
By all economic and social indicators, Afghanistan is the poorest country in the Asia and Pacific region, and among the poorest in the world
Afghanistan’s dismal human development indicators attest to the very difficult lives led by most Afghan women. Although the government is formally committed to improving the situation of its female citizens, Afghanistan is culturally very conservative. Notions of gender equality and gender empowerment get weak support at best. A bigger effort is required to firmly “mainstream” gender issues in ways that are culturally appropriate (see story, p. 8).
The government sees the private sector as the engine of the country’s future growth. While investment in some key sectors has been considerable, concerns about security and the extent of the rule of law constrain investment and, thus, employment and economic growth.
Afghanistan sees itself as the heart of Central and South Asia, and argues that investments in its infrastructure are investments in the region that will enable closer integration and stronger regional economic growth. Afghanistan is now a member of various regional and subregional groupings, but it lacks the connectivity and capacity to exploit its strategic location. Greater regional cooperation thus will require both vision and significant investment in regional energy, trade, transportation, water, and other links.
Since 2001, the international community has provided Afghanistan with financial and technical support, and security. As noted in the report Securing Afghanistan’s Future that was presented at the 2004 International Conference on Afghanistan, “cooperation at both the multilateral and bilateral levels, combined with the tenacity and spirit of ordinary Afghan men and women, makes possible the virtuous circle of growth out of poverty and aid dependence.” The report put forward a program of investments that will lay the foundation for economic growth needed to support a financially sustainable state that is capable of undertaking social development and poverty reduction. This program, based on frank but realistic economic growth and revenue-generating projections, called for $27.6 billion in international assistance over a 7-year period.
Although the international community has been generous thus far, sustained high levels of international support may prove difficult given shifting donor priorities and emerging needs elsewhere in the world, including major humanitarian disasters, conflict, or other countries in urgent need of state building.
The table on the right tracks pledged assistance to Afghanistan.
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