A country of crises

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Asia Democracy Chronicles, 20 October 2025

This article, looking at the multiple crises Afghanistan is facing under the Taleban, quotes AAN’s Kate Clark:

Kate Clark, co-director of the research organization Afghan [sic] Analyst Network (AAN), explains that under the Republic, Afghanistan’s economy had relied heavily on foreign money — not just aid, but also military funding and the large sums spent by foreign troops in the country. All of that disappeared nearly overnight when the Taliban retook power in August 2021.

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AAN’s Clark, though, echoes other analysts in saying that the Taliban has actually been managing public finances better than Afghanistan’s former leaders, mainly because it collects more revenue and is less corrupt than the previous government. For example, she says, a large share of customs revenue that once went into officials’ or insurgents’ pockets now reaches the treasury.

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“If you look at what the Taliban have prioritized with their spending, they have prioritized the security forces,” Clark tells Asia Democracy Chronicles (ADC).  “If you look at the World Bank 2022–23 report, they had a figure of 60 percent going on security forces. Now if you’re spending that much on security, you can’t spend it on public health. Public health that year was one percent of the budget.

“So,” Clark says, “I think those sectors are squeezed from both sides: by falling humanitarian aid and the decision by donors to focus on humanitarian aid and not really do development aid, that’s one problem. And then from the other side, you’ve got the Emirate’s spending priorities, which have been on security forces.”