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.

Less Rain and Snowfall in Afghanistan: High level of food assistance needed until early 2019

Jelena Bjelica •

The Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) has reported that in 22 of Afghanistan’s provinces, cumulative rain and snowfall during the ‘wet season’ – October 2017 to May 2018 – was 30 to 60 per cent below average. The northwest of the country has been particularly hard hit. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica (with input from Obaid Ali […]

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The new counter-narcotics law stipulates that the confiscated drugs can either be converted to medicine or sold to one of the countries that has INCB licence. But, Afghanistan may face many obstacles in implementation of this provision, including a low seizure levels. Photo: Andrew Quilty; Helmand province, 2015.

How to Fight the Booming Opiate Economy? Harsher and progressive laws, but to no avail

Jelena Bjelica •

The opiate economy, as measured by the farm-gate value of opium, together with revenues from heroin production and trafficking of opiates to the Afghan borders, has become a crucial component of the Afghan economy, a recently released UNODC socio-economic survey found. This has evolved after years of increasing opium cultivation in the country. But, what […]

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The State of Aid and Poverty in 2018: A new look at aid effectiveness in Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig • Jelena Bjelica •

Two new reports have found that despite improvements in some sectors, aid delivery in Afghanistan is still largely ineffective and poverty has risen. A joint Oxfam and Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) report on aid effectiveness reveals that while development aid has decreased, donor support continues to be fragmented and aid dependency remains high. Meanwhile, […]

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Photo: Christine Roehrs 2015

2018 Afghan National Budget 2: Deals done with MPs to get budget through parliament

Kate Clark •

Figures for the 2018 Afghan budget are in the public realm and show that, despite government attempts to clean up its finances, Afghanistan’s Members of Parliament (MPs) were, once again, ‘given’ projects to persuade them to vote the budget through. The draft budget presented to parliament in November 2017 had been almost balanced; the one […]

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Ministry of Finance says next year’s budget is committed to focussing Afghanistan’s “declining resources” on priority areas such as education. Photo: schoolchildren in Nad Ali, Helmand 2010, ISAF)

The 2018 Afghan National Budget: Confronting hard realities by accelerating reforms

Bill Byrd • Kate Clark •

Afghanistan’s budget for the next financial year, 1397/2018, is markedly different from previous ones. This is a budget written to ‘international standards’, giving more information, both on 2018 and earlier years, as well as future projections, with detail at the level of ministry, project and province. The Ministry of Finance has tried to be realistic […]

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Poppy field in Helmand. Photo: AAN Staff

A Low-Risk Crop in a High-Risk Environment: Annual opium survey shows Afghan poppy cultivation at a record high

Jelena Bjelica •

More opium was grown and more opium paste produced in Afghanistan in 2017 than in any year since the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) began monitoring in 1994. The UNODC’s annual Afghanistan Opium Survey, released today, has shown that 328,000 hectares of land were used to grow poppy this year, an increase […]

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An improvised cave school on the outskirts of Bamyan city, for the IDP children from Maidan Wardak who in prolonged displacement in Bamyan. Photo: Jelena Bjelica, May 2016.

Education, an Ideal Corrupted: An assessment of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education

Jelena Bjelica •

The Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC), an independent anti-corruption body in Afghanistan, recently released its ‘vulnerability to corruption’ assessment of the Ministry of Education. The assessment points to 36 different types of corruption within the education sector, highlighting that corruption has become endemic in the last 10 to 15 years and that malpractice is systemic […]

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Afghan Government Revenue Continues to Grow: A bright spot in a weak economy

Bill Byrd • M Khalid Payenda •

In the first eight months of 2017, Afghan government revenues grew by nearly 13 per cent compared to the same period of 2016. This follows on from strong revenue performances in 2015 and 2016 and is one of the few positive trends in the Afghan economy, in contrast to its continuing weak overall showing in […]

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AAN Q&A: An established industry – Basic facts about Afghanistan’s opium-driven economy

Jelena Bjelica •

Afghanistan’s unflattering label – the world’s leading producer of opium and its derivatives, morphine and heroin – has proved hard to remove. Over the last ten years, opium cultivation has increased steadily reaching unprecedented highs, whilst eradication levels have been decreasing and the country has slowly slid into more severe poverty. To see where Afghanistan […]

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National Cricket Stadium, Kabul. Photo: US Embassy Kabul (2010). Licensed under CC BY 2.0

The Great Game: The rise of Afghan cricket from exodus and war

Kate Clark • Sudhansu Verma •

Afghanistan continues to make inroads into the world of cricket. The men’s team has progressed from being a disorganised band of reckless hitters of the ball in the early 2000s to a well-balanced team. Two Afghans recently got contracts to play in the biggest cricket league in the world, the Indian Premier League, with deals […]

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Confusion over what tax individuals, businesses and non-profits should be paying has, at times, overwhelmed Afghanistan’s tax offices and tax payers. (Photo: Tolo)

How much do I need to pay? Changes to Afghanistan’s Tax Law cause chaos and confusion

Chantal Grut •

What are the tax obligations of citizens, residents and investors in Afghanistan? This question is much harder to answer today than it was 18 months ago. Then, the 2009 Income Tax Law, a remarkably well-written and detailed piece of legislation, had gone a long way in establishing a path towards clarity, stability and integrity for […]

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Girls actually in the classroom. Getting Afghan children, especially girls, to school, has been considered a major success story for post-Taleban Afghanistan, but how many children appearing in the statistics are ‘ghosts'? (Photo: Christine-Felice Roehrs)

A Success Story Marred by Ghost Numbers: Afghanistan’s inconsistent education statistics

Ali Yawar Adili •

For years, the Afghan government and donors have cited the growing number of children going to school in Afghanistan as an important post-Taleban success, despite closer scrutiny showing that numbers may have been inflated. The issue came to a head when the newly appointed education minister in the National Unity Government, Asadullah Hanif Balkhi, said […]

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