The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, in the third world is one of the poor country of about 29,928,987 Population. It consist of Sunni Muslim 80%, Shi'a Muslim 19%, other 1%. There ar different tribes and ethinicity in Afghanistan in which major are Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, minor ethnic groups (Chahar Aimaks, Turkmen, Baloch, and others).
Darri and Pashto is the official languages of afghanistan and after US troops English is the major language in Afghanistan. The capital of Afghanistan is Kabol and the president is Hamid Karzai.
In this topic the discussion is on the Economic development and the urbanization of the country and the impact of war on Afghanistan. The topic will start from the introduction of afghanistan and discussing the impact of different facotors faced by afghanistan, the main issue relatedt o afghanistan, the poverty allivaiation and the opium is also one of the major issue of the country.
The current basic economy of afghanistan is currently on US and allied country aids, the opium prodcution, gas and patrolium, gems stone and other resources. The people of afghanistan are experts in carpets crafting and other hanicrafting and major people of afghnistan depends on caprpets industry and its export.
The Country Afghanistan:
The name Afghanistan is derived from the word afghan, which is the main population ethinicity of the country. This credit goes to Ahmad Shah Durrani who unified the major tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747.
Afghanistan is about a bit smaller then the Texas. Its bordered on the north with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, on the extreme northeast by China, on the east and south with Pakistan, and by Iran on the west.
The country is split east to west by the Hindu Kush mountain ranges, rising in the east to heights of 24,000 ft (7,315 m). With the exception of the southwest, most of the country is covered by high snow-capped mountains and is traversed by deep valleys.
Independce:
Afghanistan came into its independence from Britain in 1919, has been a chaotic one. From the effects of the Soviet invasion in 1979, and the 10 year war between Soviet troops and the Mujahideens, to the struggles during the 1990's following the retreat of the Soviets to the recent invasion by American and Coalition troops.
Afghanistan is a country torn apart by war. Its capital Kabul, which has been admired throughout its long history, stands in rubble. Not even the most basic infrastructure is left standing in much of the country.
As a result of the 2001 invasion the Taliban, which had controlled Afghanistan since 1996, was deposed and in 2004 the country elected President Hamid Karzai as its leader. Its parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in September 2005.
Afghanistan is slowly emerging from 23 years of conflict. There continue to be regular attacks on Coalition forces in Afghanistan. Warlords and resistance groups such as the Mujahideen and al-Qaeda maintain strongholds throughout the country and do not accept the current government as legitimate.
The result of this is often the death of innocent people caught in the crossfire. At this point thousands of Afghan refugees remain in areas of Pakistan and Iran, and up to 200,000 internally displaced Afghans continue to live in camps within Afghanistan, dependant on aid.
Economy Overview:
Afghanistan's economy is recovering from decades of conflicts. The economy has improved significantly since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 largely because of the infusion of international assistance, the recovery of the agricultural sector in minor, and service sector growth.
Real GDP growth exceeded 8% in 2006 that is basically depends on the assistance of the donors. Despite the progress of the past few years, Afghanistan is extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid, agriculture, and trade with neighboring countries.
Much of the population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care, and jobs. Criminality, insecurity, and the Afghan Government's inability to extend rule of law to all parts of the country pose challenges to future economic growth.
It will probably take the remainder of the decade and continuing donor aid and attention to significantly raise Afghanistan's living standards from its current level, among the lowest in the world.
The international community remains committed to Afghanistan's development, pledging over $24 billion at three donors' conferences since 2002, Kabul will need to overcome a number of challenges.
Expanding poppy cultivation and a growing opium trade generate roughly $3 billion in illicit economic activity and looms as one of Kabul's most serious policy concerns. Other long-term challenges include: budget sustainability, job creation, corruption, government capacity, and rebuilding war torn infrastructure.
Afghanistan is world's largest producer of opium; cultivation dropped 48% to 107,400 hectares in 2005; better weather and lack of widespread disease returned opium yields to normal levels, meaning potential opium production declined by only 10% to 4,475 metric tons; if the entire poppy crop were processed, it is estimated that 526 metric tons of heroin could be processed; many narcotics-processing labs throughout the country;
drug trade is a source of instability and some antigovernment groups profit from the trade; significant domestic use of opiates; 80-90% of the heroin consumed in Europe comes from Afghan opium; vulnerable to narcotics money laundering through informal financial networks; source of hashish
Population Issues:
As Afghanistan is war affected and most of its population is migrated from Afghanistan to Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan, with UN and other international assistance, repatriated 2.3 million Afghan refugees with less than a million still remaining, many at their own choosing.
Agriculture Reforms and Rural Changes:
Afghanistan is a country of rugged mountains and arid plains, which become deserts in the southwest. Agricultural production is constrained by an almost total dependence on erratic winter snows and spring rains for water; irrigation is primitive.
The main agriculture products are wheat, corn, barley, rice, cotton, fruit, nuts, karakul pelts, wool and mutton. The economy has traditionally been dominated by agriculture, which accounted for 52 percent of the GDP and employed around 66 percent of the workforce in 2002. Relatively little use is made of machines, chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
Years of fighting left former cultivated lands uncultivated and yields have almost dropped by 35 percent leading to persistent food shortages and an increase of food imports. Four consecutive recent years of drought brought a food crisis to Afghanistan.
Official statistics have been nonexistent since the fall of the government in 1992. One of the largest sectors of the economy is opium poppy cultivation and processing. According to UNDCP, in 2002 crop year Afghanistan accounted for three-quarters of the world’s heroine production.
At present, only six percent of the whole fifteen percent of usable agricultural land in Afghanistan is under cultivation. In the past twenty years, the area of agricultural land has drastically decreased. If we relate the net loss of agricultural products to the loss of agricultural land, we reach to an average annual loss of 3.5% of net agricultural products since 1978.
If we consider some of this decrease to be resulted from temporary degradation of land or loss of harvest due to war, in the past two decades we lost thirty to thirty five percent of our agricultural land and pastures.
Basic Agriculture and Political Economy:
Forests in Afghanistan occupy a very fragile mountain ecosystem and once lost, may not be restored ever. Over the course of these twenty years, the central governments of Afghanistan lost control over them and local commanders hold control of the forests.
The bad news is that economic benefit of clear cutting overwhelmed most of these commanders and in this way wide areas of the forests were either clear-cut or partially cut to the extent that restoration of them may take more than a century, if possible at all.
Afghanistan in 2000 was the world's largest producer of opium, used to produce the drug heroin. The total opium production for 1998 was estimated at 2,102 metric tons against a total of 2,804 metric tons in 1997.
This reduction in the level of poppy production was due to heavy and continuous rains and hailstorms in some of the major poppy producing provinces. However, in 1999, the country produced a staggering 4,600 metric tons.
The rotting economy forced farmers to grow the opium poppies as a cash crop, and this practice was supported by the Taliban until 2001, because it provided farmers with money that they would otherwise not be able to earn.
However, in 2001, the Taliban ordered the country's farmers to stop growing poppies following an edict by Mullah Omar, the supreme religious leader, that opium cultivation is not permitted under Islam.
While analysts contend that the reason had more to do with convincing the United Nations and the international community to lift sanctions, officials from various countries argued that this was done in order to boost the market price for heroin. Heroin still flowed from Afghanistan, only at a much higher price after the Taliban's ban on opium growing, the price shot from $44 to $700 per kilo.
This caused speculation that the Taliban had stockpiled a large supply of the drug, and the higher proceeds allowed them further funding for military and government operations. With the September 2001 attacks on the United States, opium production was believed to be resumed.
Alternative to Puppy Crop: Afghanistan could become an exporter of organically produced nuts and raisins. The conditions for farmers to produce need to be created and the niche-markets for their products have to be explored, meeting required international product standards. Many tree nurseries need to be restored to respond to a growing demand for planting materials. The construction of small irrigation dams is important where farmers are facing restricted water availability, for example, in Kandahar, where the main water supply reservoir is silted up after many years of drought. This has degraded once-thriving orchards in the area. The rehabilitation of irrigation systems should be accompanied by providing agricultural inputs, improved seeds, creating storage facilities and marketing opportunities. FAO also proposes to intensify horticultural production by training orchard farmers in post-harvest technologies and in managing vegetable storage facilities.
