Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Economy, Development, Environment

This priority area covers Afghanistan’s political economy, economic development and poverty, with a focus on sectors with important political and/or rule of law implications, such as mining, banking and transport and, in the past, the private security sector.

Can Afghanistan Feed Itself? Agriculture, trade and food security under pressure

Mhd Assem Mayar •

Afghanistan’s food system is under growing strain. Domestic harvests remain insufficient and uneven and trade routes have shifted repeatedly in recent years. This spring’s rainfall has been good enough for a forecast of a bumper wheat crop, but that belies the ruinous longer-term reality of the climate crisis and the more frequent droughts it is […]

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Holding the Line in Afghanistan: Women’s health in crisis and one NGO’s response 

Kate Clark • Fabrizio Foschini •

AAN has considered women’s health in Afghanistan from several angles in recent years, with bleak conclusions. We found provision for women living in rural areas under particular threat, with clinics closing, shortages of female health professionals and economic pressure making it difficult for families to afford transport to a clinic. In 2024, the Islamic Emirate […]

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No Flamingos, but Ducks, Geese and Grebes: Afghanistan joins an international bird census 

Kate Clark •

The first survey of birds to be carried out by an Afghan organisation since the fall of the Islamic Republic has taken place. It was also the first time that Afghanistan has taken part in the annual International Waterbird Census, a global effort involving 189 countries. A volunteer team, including expert ornithologists, visited six wetland […]

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Arrested Development in Kabul: Housebuilding between legal hurdles and rising demand 

Nur Khan Himmat •

Shortly after its return to power in August 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) imposed new curbs on building in the capital. This, together with follow-up regulations issued by the Kabul Municipality and the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, has entirely changed how the building sector operates in the capital and made it […]

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The Turbaned Traders: The Taliban take over the urban economy

Sharif Akram •

After the Taliban seized power in 2021, many of the movement’s fighters and supporters migrated from their rural strongholds into Afghanistan’s urban centres to assume control of the government and the cities. This marked a major shift following two decades of insurgency, when the Taliban and many of their supporters were unable to access urban […]

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The Fourth Year of the Opium Ban: An update from two of Afghanistan’s major poppy-growing areas

Fabrizio Foschini • Jelena Bjelica •

The Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation has entered its fourth year and apart from the first harvest of opium poppies in spring 2022, when farmers were allowed to harvest their standing crop, the authorities have enforced it, with one notable exception – Badakhshan. Farmers there have been better able to avoid the ban, both […]

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The End of US Aid to Afghanistan: What will it mean for families, services and the economy?

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

The full weight of the United States’ cuts to aid to Afghanistan has finally become clear. Almost all the aid that was promised – at least USD 1.8 billion – will now not be given, according to the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The United Nations has announced a reprioritisation of the humanitarian […]

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Migrating Poppy Cultivation: Afghan poppy farmers in Balochistan

Jelena Bjelica • Nur Khan Himmat •

After the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) banned opium poppy cultivation in April 2022, there was a movement of some farmers from southern Afghanistan into neighbouring regions of Pakistan to grow poppy there. The same migration to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces followed the first Taliban ban on opium in 2000-01. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, together […]

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Men wait to receive cash being distributed as an aid by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Pul-e Alam, the provincial capital of Logar province, Afghanistan, on 7 January 2024. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP

‘Stop Work!’ Aid and the Afghan economy after the halt to US aid

Kate Clark •

United States President Donald Trump’s executive order halting all US aid is reverberating through Afghanistan. Dozens of NGOs that depend on US funding are reported to have already closed. United Nations agencies are scrutinising their funding to see what it means for programmes and partners and whether they can apply for a waiver for lifesaving […]

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Polio Cases on the Increase in Afghanistan: How is the Emirate handling immunisation? 

Jelena Bjelica • Nur Khan Himmat •

After pausing the roll-out of the vaccination programme twice last year, the Islamic Emirate finally restarted polio vaccination for under-fives in late October 2024. However, it has restricted delivery of the vaccines to mosques and village centres only. No longer will vaccinators be able to go door-to-door. It seems that the pauses and change in […]

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A Place to Call Home: What is driving up house prices in Kabul and pushing the poorest residents into homelessness? 

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Kate Clark •

House prices and rents in the Afghan capital are on the rise again, according to estate agents and tenants. There was a sharp decline in both prices and rents when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) took power in August 2021. Now, people who need to move are discovering just how difficult it is to […]

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Opium Cultivation in Badakhshan: The new national leader, according to UNODC

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

Although the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) ban on opium cultivation continues largely to hold, the area under poppy did increase in 2024, by almost a fifth, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) annual survey. Even with that increase, however, this year’s cultivation was negligible compared to pre-ban levels. What is […]

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