Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism – The Afghan economy and especially regions affected by the devastating earthquakes in October last year, “are still hurting”, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said, as restrictions on women and girls continue to thwart basic rights and economic progress.
Kanni Wignaraja, Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, who recently visited the country, told correspondents in New York that 69 per cent of Afghans are “subsistence insecure” – meaning they do not have enough basic resources.
“Something that really hit me … was the harsh impact of continuous natural disasters,” she said, adding that many parts of Afghanistan are facing “dramatic” scarcity of water further setting back development efforts.
Since the takeover by the Taliban in 2021, the Afghan economy has contracted by 27 per cent, leading to economic stagnation, according to UNDP. Unemployment has doubled and only 40 per cent of the population has access to electricity.
Sectors such as finance have “basically collapsed” and there are no major sources of economic activity such as exports or public expenditure, leaving small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and farmers as the lifeblood of the faltering economy.
