Worldaffairs21c at Substack, 13 August 2025
It is time to move beyond the repetitive distribution of sewing machines and toward a more strategic restoration of livelihoods. (…) Some aid organizations have already demonstrated what’s possible. They have responsibly helped women acquire vocational skills and launch small enterprises in culturally accepted sectors such as tailoring, embroidery, livestock rearing, and food processing. These affordable, grassroots initiatives have opened doors to income generation—but scaling remains a challenge. Many still face barriers for technical training, market access, and structured support networks. (…)
Today, the crisis demands more than emergency relief. It requires a bold, integrated approach that combines smart government interventions, private sector ventures, and donors’ technical support with practical development strategies focused on primary consumer needs, structural reforms, public-private partnerships, regulatory and tax incentives, land/water/power facilitation, technical training, import/export facilitation and standardization/quality control.
The questions now are whether international donors are willing to assist…
An intervention by Ehsan Zia, former Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development; Homa Nader, Manager of Humanitarian Diplomacy and Strategic Partnerships for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Afghanistan; Omar Samad, former Afghan Ambassador.
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This article was last updated on 14 Aug 2025
