Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Economy

Economy

Power to the People: How to extend Afghans’ access to electricity

Mohsin Amin •

More than four billion dollars have, to date, been spent on Afghanistan’s power infrastructure. And yet there are still considerable deficiencies, even in the country’s capital, which has seen most of the investment – and most of the progress. At the same time, the demand for electricity is rapidly growing and the supply-demand gap has […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Going in Circles: The never-ending story of Afghanistan’s unfinished Ring Road

Qayoom Suroush •

Since the presidential campaign and during trips abroad President Ashraf Ghani has been promising to turn Afghanistan into an “Asian roundabout” for regional trade and transit. However, for this, Afghanistan would need to improve its transport systems and build new and better roads. That is probably why, in his first cabinet meeting, on 2 October […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Handing Over Alive: Whither Afghanistan’s political transition?

Thomas Ruttig •

When President Hamed Karzai left office after the completion of his two constitutional terms and handed over to President Muhammad Ashraf Ghani, as he now officially prefers to be called, this was widely called the ‘first peaceful political transition’ – read: without violence or the head of state being immediately killed – in a very […]

Political Landscape Read more
Decades before Point Zero: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on a state visit to Afghanistan in 1955. Photo: archive

From Point Zero to ‘New Warmth’: Russian-Afghan relations since 1989

Thomas Ruttig •

After the Soviet occupation years, Afghan-Russian relations were on absolute zero. But post-Soviet Russia has worked carefully on improving the situation step by step. This strategy is based on an about-face under Yeltsin: dropping Najibullah and building a relationship with the mujahedin, beginning in 1992. In recent years, mounting Afghan-US and Russian-US tensions have made […]

Regional Relations Read more

Little Bridges: AAN’s new report on the slowly growing links between Afghanistan and the Central Asia republics

Christian Bleuer • S Reza Kazemi •

Reports about Afghanistan and its neighbours to the north usually lump the five former Soviet Central Asia republics together as an undifferentiated block  – ‘the Stans’. Such an approach does not reflect the reality of five countries with very different, mainly bilateral and very local relationships with Afghanistan. The distortion has only been worsened by […]

Regional Relations Read more

May Day on Workers Street: Trade unions and the status of labour in Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig •

More than 1,000 Afghan men and women took to the street on International Labour Day on 1 May. With the country’s latest mining disaster, killing at least 24 workers only one day earlier, the participants had one acute problem to address: workers’ safety in the mining sector. However, the new leadership of Afghanistan’s largest trade […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Afghan economy at a crossroads

AAN •

Deutsche Welle, 26 March 2014 In another (English-language) election primer, the German radio station looks at the state of the Afghan economy and the "economic challenges ahead". It quotes AAN's Sari Kouvo: According to Sari Kouvo, an expert on human rights and co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), the living standards have considerably improved […]

AAN in the Media Read more
Photo: Pajhwok Afghan News, 2013

Cure or Curse? Implications of the Kilij mine closure for Bamyan’s security situation

Jalil Benish •

As Afghanistan prepares to take full responsibility for security and state functions by the end of 2014, the country’s natural resources are often touted as a major source of future state revenue to substitute for dwindling international aid. There are, however, concerns regarding the ability and willingness of the Afghan government to ensure that extraction is […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

External Publication: Einiges besser, nichts wirklich gut (Some things better, nothing really good)

Thomas Ruttig •

WeltTrends, January/February 2014 In this German-language article, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig attempts to draw a balance of the twelve years of the US/NATO-led intervention in Afghanistan. Looking at the security situation, the state of the insurgency, achievements and shortcomings in reconstruction, the economy and institution building and at the often-overlooked social situation of the population. He concludes that […]

Special Reports Read more

Some Things Got Better – How Much Got Good? A review of 12 years of international intervention in Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig •

2013 marked the year in which the international community started to wrap up many of the initiatives to re-build Afghanistan – arguably the biggest international effort since the post-Word-War-II Marshal Plan. But where did this effort leave the country? For AAN’s year-end piece, co-director Thomas Ruttig has summarised what has happened, what has been achieved – […]

International Engagement Read more

Afghanistan, After the War Boom

AAN Team •

The New Yorker (blog), 13 November 2013 “This year, Afghanistan’s GDP is expected to grow 3.7 per cent, down from growth of twelve per cent in 2012, according to a projection by the World Bank”, writes May Jeong and visits Kabul to find out about Afghanistan’s post-2014 economic future, in the light of the current foreign […]

AAN in the Media Read more

The Other Side of the Amu Darya: Tajik and Afghans, neighbours apart

Thomas Ruttig •

Despite pushes from the West and economic needs, Afghan-Central Asian economic cooperation has not taken off, yet. The people of Tajikistan, for example, are not very interested in or even prejudiced towards their southern neighbours, as they concentrate on their troubles with their former Uzbek brothers. The Tajik government and the other more or less authoritarian […]

Regional Relations Read more

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