Poverty and Unemployment in Afghanistan: The Two Main Challenges

 

The World Bank and the Afghan government have released a joint report about poverty and unemployment in 2013 and 2014. The report, released on 8 May 2017, shows that poverty and unemployment rates are increasing in Afghanistan. The report writes that in these years, 1.3 million new Afghans were added up to peoples living under poverty line and had less than $1.25 income a day.

In this report, the number of unemployed people in Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014 is shown to be 1.9m people and indicates that unemployment in rural areas is twice as much as in cities. The report has stated that with the withdrawal of the foreign forces, international aids with Afghanistan were decreased and it was one of the main factors behind the rise of poverty and unemployment in the country.

The situation of poverty and unemployment in Afghanistan, its factors, and ways to tackle it are the issues that are analyzed here.

Poverty in Afghanistan

Poverty is a global phenomenon, and millions of people all over the world suffer from it. Most of the world’s poor population lives in the African and South Asian countries. Afghanistan also suffers from poverty and is one of the countries where the income rate of their people is lower and, therefore, the poverty rate is higher in Afghanistan.

There is no exact statistics at hand about poverty in Afghanistan, but after the Soviet invasion, the poverty rate in the country has begun to rise. At that time many Afghans took refuge in neighboring countries and lost their business and assets.

After 2001, with the presence of international force in Afghanistan, millions of dollar were injected in the country, and as a result some sectors in the country began to develop. But according to the statistics of the World Bank, compared to the world poverty rate, the poverty rate in Afghanistan is remained stable and has not declined.

In 2007 and 2008, 36.3% of Afghanistan’s population was living beneath the poverty line. But in 2011 and 2012, based on the World Bank’s statistics, this percentage was dropped to 35.8% which is not a remarkable decrease. But the recent joint report of the World Bank and the Afghan government shows that the poverty rate was 35.8% and 39.1% in 2013 and 2014 which indicates an increase compared to the past. [1]

In the joint report of the World Bank and the Afghan government, decreased international aids to the country, unemployment crisis, internal crisis and the expansion of the war in the country are listed to be the factor behind the poverty in Afghanistan. It is at a time that after 2014, the war in various regions in the country is intensified; the number of internally displaced people is unprecedentedly increased, hundred thousands of Afghan refugees have returned from other countries especially from Pakistan and Iran and, due to high rates of unemployment, tens of thousands of Afghan youth are forced to leave their country. Therefore, it seems that since 2013 and 2014, poverty has increased in the country.

Unemployment in Afghanistan

Unemployed is he who can work and is qualified, but there is no working opportunity for him/her. Unemployment is also one of the main challenges in Afghanistan which is directly linked to the security situation in the country. In the past one and a half decades, despite billions of dollars of international community’s aid, no initiative for sustainable employment is undertaken in Afghanistan.

According to the Word Bank, in 2001, 4.5% of the Afghan labor force was unemployed. In 2002 and 2003, this percentage rose to respectively 4.6% and 4.9%. In 2004, the percentage of unemployed labor force dropped to 4.5%, but in 2005, once again, it rose to 8.5%, and after that, the unemployment rate has consistently increased. ^[2]

In 2014, the Afghan Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled announced that from 10 million labor force of Afghanistan, around 800 thousand were unemployed. ^[3] But the recent report of the World Bank shows that in 2013 and 2014, close to two million Afghans were unemployed, most of them were youth and women.

In the meanwhile, the Afghan Ministry of Economy has announced that poverty rate, which is directly related to unemployment, has decreased in the years after 2014 and with the economic growth of the country in 2015 and 2016, the poverty and unemployment rate has also decreased in the country. However, in its report, the World Bank has said that 400 thousand people are added to the Afghan labor force annually, and furthermore, since 2014 war is intensified and according to the recent report of SIGAR, the Taliban holds control over the 40% of the Afghanistan’s territory and country’s economic downturn has increased concerns about the rise of unemployment in the country.

 

Factors behind unemployment and poverty

Insecurity and the continuation of the war in the country and lack of investment in infrastructures, which can employ people, have faced Afghanistan with unemployment and poverty crisis. In addition, corruption, weak governance, the failure of the Afghan Ministries in spending their respective development budgets have resulted in the unemployment of hundreds of Afghan youth while tens of thousands of positions are empty in government administrations, or imaginary employees work there.

Moreover, after the withdrawal of the greater part of the foreign forces from Afghanistan, the international community’s aids to Afghanistan are also decreased. Since billions of dollars of international community’s aids were not properly used to create sustainable jobs in Afghanistan when these aids decreased the unemployment rate dramatically rose in the country. Tens of thousands of Afghans who were working with foreign forces and institutions also were added to the unemployed population of the country.

During these years, with the intensification of war and insecurity in the country, tens of thousands of families inside the country were obliged to leave their homes. The settlement of the internally displaced people in the cities is another factor behind the augmentation of unemployment in the country because most of them have lost their properties and their regular income sources.

 

Strategies to fight unemployment and poverty

The drop in the rates of unemployment and poverty requires sustainable employment opportunities which are directly linked with the industrial development in the country. While the industry is said to be the axes of the countries’ economy and plays a key role in the economic growth of the countries as well as in decreasing the rate of unemployment and poverty, the Afghan government has not paid required attention to this sector.

In the meanwhile, Afghanistan is an agricultural country and agriculture plays a vital role in its economy. In 1394 (2015-2016) 40% of the Afghan labor force were busy in the agriculture sector. If the Afghan government provide transit facilities for the agricultural productions, find appropriate markets for these productions, undertake measures to improve the quality, process and packing of these productions, distribute fertilizers and improved seeds to the Afghan farmers, and support the domestic productions, the agriculture sector can play significant role in the country’s economic growth and in the reduction of poverty and unemployment.

Overall, if a country has a good rate of economic growth, besides creating job opportunities and improving social welfare, it affects some other aspects such as security and peace, good governance, fight against corruption, and political stability. On other hand, as well as the other phenomenon in the country, the unemployment and poverty in the country are linked with the maintenance of peace in the country, and as long as the peace and security are not maintained in the country, efforts in fields of the economy would not have desiring outcomes.

The end

 

[1] The world bank, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2017/05/08/poverty-afghanistan-rose-amidst-troop-withdrawal-poverty-update-2017

 

[2] “Afghanistan in the past one and a half decade”, CSRS’s analytic and research report, page: 229, published in 1395.

[3] Read more in this report of BBC: http://www.bbc.com/persian/afghanistan/2014/05/140502_k05_afghan_worker_day_law