Achim Steiner warned that without substantial financial and logistical support, the Afghan people will face a future of poverty and humanitarian crisis.
Achim Steiner is the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
With negative news, violence, and political uncertainty, it is difficult to see where Afghanistan’s future is headed. As its governance system was broken, fear and uncertainty became the common currency.
According to the development of the situation, by the middle of 2022, the country may add up to 13% of the economic loss to the ongoing tragedy. Given the scale of the country’s crisis, this percentage may not seem large, but when it is translated into reality, it will not be a part of people’s daily lives.
According to a recent analysis by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a 10-13% decline in GDP may bring Afghanistan close to the brink of widespread poverty-a poverty rate of up to 97%-despite the hard but real progress that has been made in the past 20 years. .
In the past 20 years, Afghanistan has made great strides. Since the early 2000s, per capita income has more than doubled. Life expectancy at birth has been extended by nine years. The number of years of education increased from 6 years to 10 years. As the number of students increased from 800,000 to over 8 million, more than 3 million girls entered the education system.
Now, with soaring food prices and economic disruption, food insecurity is rising sharply, and health and well-being are expected to plummet, thereby exacerbating the problems caused by COVID-19. The social impact of the latest development may be attributed to one major factor: the space and status given to women and girls.
Afghanistan has achieved a similar shift in women’s employment. Although women are often restricted from opium poppy cultivation and opium harvesting, women now make up more than one-fifth of the civil service and more than one-fourth of members of parliament.
We must use the best seed, protect it and make it grow. Now is the time to show great courage, wise choices, and a firm determination to pursue what and how to protect livelihoods, basic services, human security and human rights.
This situation can and must be prevented. We need to support the local economic, social and environmental assets that have been strengthened over the past two decades.
In order to help the most vulnerable families to maintain their livelihoods and basic services, we can use the local network, that is, the local “muscle memory” needed to keep the country running. We know from experience what this means—it means supporting community efforts by exchanging work for cash and social protection through basic income; providing farmers with seeds, fertilizers, and flood control and drought prevention measures; and ensuring continued health and Educational services, and provide salary support for teachers and health professionals.
Many Afghan families prefer to stay in their own country and community, provided that they can support their families in a safe and dignified manner, rather than leaving their hometowns for a dangerous trek to another city, camp or country.
Financial stability alone is not enough. Local communities need help to improve their community infrastructure: repair the bridge to the village market, repair the irrigation system of the local orchard or build more schools for girls. We can support this by providing young Afghans with temporary work in public works so that they can make positive contributions and deepen their interests in their communities.
At the same time, technology and innovation can also play a role. There are direct ways, whether it is to use solar panels and power grids to alleviate dependence on imported electricity, promote mobile cash transfers, provide telemedicine that can be used by more women, or use new drought- and flood-resistant infrastructure to cultivate new land.
Although national economic collapse must be avoided at all costs, through national monetary and fiscal policies and responsibilities, we can and must prevent the most vulnerable households from sliding into near-general poverty. Short-term humanitarian relief is vital right now, but emergency response to protect a generation’s benefits in terms of people’s capabilities, livelihoods, and local development assets is also vital. This will avoid further escalation of humanitarian needs in the coming months and years. Afghanistan is in a state of development emergency, not tomorrow, but today.
