“The only drawback is money,” deployed Emir Abdur Rahman Khan Rahman Khan, while he fought his efforts against his efforts to build a modern Afghanistan from 1880 to 1901, which I have trouble accumulating day and night. “” The treasure was empty, “he explained”, and a lot of money were needed for internal spending, as well as for the building and conservation of fortifications. “I had issued orders to collect the Income from the country, which was arrears and that people did not like to pay. “
For generations, the emir wrote in his autobiography, the Afghan State had held peace by paying grants to clerks and tribal leaders; This practice had to end. “He has induced people to live a lazy life and get government money to do nothing, rewarding them to be powerless creatures of non-use for their country or for themselves.”
In the middle of the sunset sunset of the American Nation building efforts in Afghanistan, he is concerned about what the next night could bring. Since September 11, Afghanistan has recorded impressive gains, particularly in education, reduced infant mortality and maternal health. The bad news is that these gains will not support – and there is a good reason to worry that the state itself implies.
For many, it may appear efforts to prevent this result from fail. The simple version of what happened at $ 2.26 billion, and thousands of lives lost since 2001 to build a home house that collapsed inside the weeks of the United States Army Who leaves Afghanistan – is well known. There are more things in history, however, that the upper line.
During the first two years after September 11, US policymakers had no intention of getting involved in the construction of a nation-state. To some, the task seemed impossible. Eviscured by decades of war, the country was ruined. The country’s GDP per capita was fourth of the global fund. Life expectancy for children under five was within 15% of the lowest countries. Girls and women have been banned with schools and labor; Just 21% of school-aged children received formal education.
In a 2002 report, the World Bank noted: “Its economy is in a state of collapse, destroyed infrastructure, gravely mined or non-existent state institutions, and its social indicators the worst in the world”.
Starting in 2003, however, strategic planners have come to understand that the reconstruction of Afghanistan civil society and civil society was essential to the prevention of its future use as a haven of peace for terrorists and traffickers. Nurcatical. Funding has begun to overcome in 2004, as well as US troop figures to ensure security across the country and rebuild its institutions.
Early, the results seemed pink: GDP growth averaged about 10% per year in 2003-12. Inside Afghanistan, the proof of what appeared to be an economic miracle was evident everywhere: the mobile phones and the Internet proliferated in a country that had few functional telephone lines on the eve of 11/11; There were new colleges; new roads; New businesses.
The massive expenses of the United States on the security sector, as well as its development assistance, seemed to have aroused a development cycle that would transform Afghanistan.
For those who were looking for, however, the shadows of the fall of this month were obvious even in this lunch of optimism. The reasons are not too far to find. For one, little effort has been made to build institutions or develop status capacity. Forced political leaders to accelerate the speed of developments, the bureaucrats responded by attributing the vast majority of funds to private sector entrepreneurs. Starting in 2002-21, the United States lived only 12% of all reconstruction aid through the Afghanistan budget.
The scholar Nematullah Bezhan, in a book of 2018, noted that this actually created a parallel public sector, responsible for citizens but to foreign donors. The state emphasized that few incentives pursued “a balanced strategy to develop institutions and invest effectively in long-term development”.
Worst worst, Afghanistan has become overwhelmed in a wave of tide box. In 2010, US reconstruction expenditures exceeded all Afghanistan’s GDP, far exceeding what its economy could absorb. In the absence of credible regulatory institutions, corruption has reached epidemic proportions. In 2010, the United States officials sent at home a cable that recorded a National National Security Advisor Afghane Rangin Spanta as: “Corruption is not a problem for the governance system in Afghanistan; C ‘ is the governance system “.
Filted on who got the money – and how it was used – created new grievances between the segments of the elite, communities and regions. The political system has become very criminalized, the government’s office being used for a personal gain.
In 2012, the administration of US President Barack Obama closed a brief thrust of the troop figures, after concluding that he had no significant impact on the degradation of insurgency and small appetite for exposure to Pakistan Compared to Pakistan compared to Taliban’s paradise on its territory. As troop numbers decreased, military and development spending was therefore devoted to Afghanistan. The economy started spitting, then slow down; GDP growth has only decreased only 1.4% by 2016. The economists of the International Monetary Fund have felt that all jobs created during the 2009 troops were lost by 2016 .
Long before the US troops have put an end to their military involvement in Afghanistan, aid levels had fallen to their lowest levels since 2006 – sutting the country’s economic life. Increasing levels of violence and border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, also delivered hammer blows to the economy. As the funding is dried, the abdance of Afghan State of Afghan to buy loyalty, resulting in the collapse of President Ashraf Ghani’s regime.
United States officials, a recent report of the Country Special Inspector for Afghan Reconstruction observed, “often underestimated the time and resources needed to rebuild Afghanistan, leading to short-term solutions. such as the overvoltage of troops, money and resources “. They also hierarchized their own political preferences for what they wanted to reconstruct to look like, rather than what they could achieve realistically, given the constraints and conditions on the soil. “
There is little doubt – with the profit of the decline – that things could have been better done. A more accountable agile government could have pumped more resources in the underdeveloped agrarian sector of Afghanistan.
Even before the Taliban take Kabul, the Afghan government’s revenues have barely covered the salaries of its employees, leaving little for development expenses. Afghanistan foreign exchange reserves have now been frozen and the future of development assistance is unclear. The impact of the withdrawal of troops has also been brutal: the closure of the Bagram military base is estimated at the loss of more than 15,000 jobs, which will never come back.
The prospects of the new income generation regime are dark. Missing roads and railways, and with high levels of violence, there is little chance of investors stretched with estimated mineral reserves of $ 1,000 billion in Afghanistan. Even China, which has demonstrated the desire to invest in high-risk environments, has shown no interest in developing copper extraction rental agreements. A decade ago a decade ago.
In the towns and villages of Afghanistan, in the meantime, millions of people suffer from growing inflation, eroded revenues and fuel and food shortages. Although banks have taken over, a large-scale exodus of workers and qualified capital is underway.
In a masterful essay, the Economist TriThankar Roy emphasized that the fundamental problem would have been familiar with Emir Abdur Rahman and his successors. Missing resources and coupled Maritime itineraries that propelled the industrial revolution “, governments that manage Kabul’s country could never impose their writing throughout the country.” “With their mineral resources, arid states as Iran could create a strong central government at the beginning of the mid-twentieth century. This option was not available for the Afghan state. “
The imperial military despotism, Roy argued that the centralization of the authority elsewhere in other regions of Poor Asia in resources, such as India, finally allowing economic transformation. On the other hand, “resource poverty and a weak center, has made economic development a troubled process in Afghan’s history”.
For the world, the choices to come are sincere. The economic commitment with the Taliban regime could empower a ruthless regime, legitimize its violation of the human rights of its citizens and finance its use of terrorism. An Afghanistan collapsed, however, could degenerate into Narco-State which exports terrorism; An epicenter for cyclonic destabilization of the entire region.