TheKabulTimes

Kabul, Afghanistan
Monday, March 18, 2015
3 pages
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Afghan Economy, and the

Struggles That it Faces
To understand the issue of the
Afghanistan economy you must first know
the background of where it stands today.
The population of Afghanistan is around
30.6 million people with a GDP (Gross
Domestic Product) of 35.1 billion. The
GDP per capita is $1,150 as reported by
1
Heritage.
The growth of their GDP is
1
around
3.6%
annually.
_____________________________________________________

The unemployment rate is at 8.5%

with most sources of income for the
common people coming from agricultural
products such as grains for cereal.
In the past six years, there have
been major changes in the economic
structure of the Afghanistan economy.
The belief that socialism was most
efficient, that so many believed in the
2
country, has been changed.
There have been many numbers
stated of how much money is needed to
rebuild our economy, but Anwar-ul-Haq
Ahadi has set the minimum amount of
money that Afghanistan needs at least an
approximate $30 billion in additional
investments. Donors have since pledged
to that same amount, and 13 billion has
been spent on reconstruction projects
2
taking place in Afghanistan.

According to the world bank,

Afghanistan will need about seven billion
dollars annually to sustain a functioning
3
government.
Foreign donors might not
be able to invest that much money into
their economy so it can keep the army,
police, and infrastructure running. The
Obama Administration has tried to get
congress to allow them to put 2.1 billion
dollars in support of the Afghan
government, but the have been able to
4
only acquire about half that amount.

The Afghan customs revenue has fell

short of the 560 million dollar projection
4
by roughly 120 million dollars.
The
government has also seen a budget shortfall
of twenty percent of all Afghan
4
expenditures.
Another major issue is students
going to school, and them getting fitting
jobs once they have finished their
education. The numbers of students have
raised from one million under the Taliban
to six million students. Thirty-five percent
are female. With this influx of students,
the government doesnt have enough
money to pay MBA(Master of Buisness
Administration) fitting salaries for
2
students coming out of college.
The country has eliminated the
capital controls that had previously
stopped investors from investing into
Afghanistan. This elimination has started
an incline of investments.
Even though a lot of money is
leaving Afghanistan, Minister of Finance
says, a lot of Money is coming into
2
Afghanistan.
Work Cited
1."Afghanistan."
WHO
. World Health Organization, n.d. Web.
12 Mar. 2015.
<
http://www.who.int/hac/donorinfo/afg/en/index1.
2."Afghanistan."
WHO
. World Health Organization, n.d. Web.
13 Mar. 2015.
<
http://www.who.int/countries/afg/en/
>.

The current health state in

Afghanistan is in dire need of
improvement for it to actually help the
citizens of Afghanistan. Without the repair
of their health care system, more and
more people will die due to it. As it stands,
health indicators, used to describe public
health problems, are three to five times
higher than in neighboring countries:
maternal mortality rate is at 1,600/100,00
1,2
live births per year.
This means for
every 100,000 live births around 1,600 of
them will die at birth. This shows how
much more help the current health care
system needs.
They
need
things
like
better-equipped clinics. People spoke of
clinics lacking medicines, qualified staff
and electricity, and of facing mounting
debt to pay for treatment, As reported by
3
Medecins Sans Frontieres.
_____________________________________

The current healthcare system is also

very expensive to the point where most
people cant afford it. The total
expenditures per capita are about one
1,2
dollar.
Now that may not seem like a lot,
but when the GDP (Gross Domestic
4
Product) is only 150 dollars,
and they are
still trying to recover from when the
Taliban ruled over most of the land, soone
dollar can be a lot of money for them.
The access to health facilities has
improved drastically. In 2002, only about
nine percent of Afghans lived within an
hour walk to a health facility, and now
5
nearly 57% of the population does.
This
increase will help how many people can
get access to health services, but there is
still 43% of people that are out of that
hour walking distance.
Medecins Sans Frontieres did a
report about people in Afghanistan that
dealt firsthand with hardships that are in
the current medical system. The studied
more than 800 people, and 40% of these
people had significant troubles trying to
get to the facilities after they were injured.
They had encountered things like fighting,
checkpoints, harassment, and even land
3,6
mines.

Works Cited
1."Afghanistan."
Economy: Population, GDP,
Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption
. Web. 03 Mar.
2015. <
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/afghanistan
>.
2."The Challenges of Economic Growth in
Afghanistan."
United States Institute of Peace
. Web. 05 Mar.
2015.
<
http://www.usip.org/events/the-challenges-econo
mic-growth-in-afghanistan
>.
3."Afghan Economy Faces Serious Revenue Shortfall
as State Undertakes Transition."
The Guardian
. The Guardian,
n.d. Web. 4 Mar. 2015.
<
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/22/
afghanistan-economy-revenue-budget-shortfall
>.
4."Afghanistan Still Struggling to Generate
Revenue."
Washington Post
. The Washington Post.
Web. 05 Mar. 2015.
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacifi
c/afghan-economy-facing-serious-revenue-shortage/
2014/04/15/6ddce38a-5be9-46ad-8f3b-1eb2ef4ed9b
d_story.html
>.
5."The State of the Afghan Economy."
Afghanistan
Online:
. Web. 06 Mar. 2015.
<
http://www.afghan-web.com/economy/econstate.html
>.
3."Between Rhetoric and Reality: The Ongoing
Struggle to Access Healthcare in Afghanistan."
Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) International
.
Mdecins Sans Frontire, 25 Feb. 2014. Web. 15 Mar.
2015.
<
http://www.msf.org/article/between-rhetoric-and-r
eality-ongoing-struggle-access-healthcare-afghanista
n
>.
4."Afghanistan."
Economy: Population, GDP,
Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption
. Web. 03 Mar.
2015. <
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/afghanistan
>.
5."Health."
Afghanistan
. USAID, n.d. Web. 13 Mar.
2015. <
http://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/health
>.