Afghanistan Five Years Later - The Return of the Taliban

Chapter II : Hunger Crisis: Extreme Poverty in Afghanistan

Summary:

After five years, extreme poverty persists in Afghanistan

Conclusions and Recommandations

Field Report: “Children are Dying Here”

Hunger Crisis: Extreme Poverty in Afghanistan

  A. After five years, Afghanistan’s poverty nightmare persists
  B. Afghanistan: A shipwreck in Asia’s rising tide of prosperity
  C. 2001: A golden opportunity for the international community and Afghanistan
  D. Failure to address Afghans’ realities
  E. The status of women: invisible and marginalised

Summary: After five years, extreme poverty persists in Afghanistan

After five years of intensive international involvement in Afghanistan, the country remains ravaged by severe poverty and the spreading starvation of the rural and urban poor. Despite promises from the US-led international community guaranteeing to provide the resources and assistance necessary for its reconstruction and development needs, Afghanistan’s people are starving to death. Afghanistan continues to rank at the bottom of most poverty indicators, and the situation of women and children is particularly grave. One in four children born in Afghanistan cannot expect to live beyond the age of five and certain provinces of the country lay claim to the worst maternal mortality rates ever recorded in the world.

Yet, the local and international development community’s abilities to respond to Afghanistan’s many poverty-related challenges have been undermined by the United States’ and United Kingdom’s misguided focus on counter-narcotics eradication policies. As such, these two self-appointed lead nations on terrorism and counter-narcotics are jointly responsible for southern Afghanistan’s current hunger crisis.

Five years of international presence in the country aimed at increasing the living standards of the Afghan population have failed to make any measured improvements in the accessibility and quality of health and educational services in most of Afghanistan, beyond the confines of Kabul. The dismal state of health in Afghanistan is reflected in the country having one of the lowest life expectancies in the world, and in the existence of numerous diseases in the country which are virtually eradicated in other places in the world. With the highest proportion of school age population in the world, the sustainability of the initial significant increase in enrolments rates is questionable in light of the limited post primary school opportunities and the limited government expenditure on non-salary related educational spending.

The failure to achieve any measured gains in poverty alleviation after five years of international involvement in Afghanistan is even more alarming when compared to the unprecedented strides many of its neighbours are making in combating poverty. Afghanistan is close to a generation behind most of its neighbours on most poverty indicators, and even threatens to reverse in a few key areas.

Five years ago, a unique window of opportunity was presented to the international community for effective and meaningful engagement with Afghanistan, to form a productive partnership to address the genuine concerns of Afghans. The US-led international community’s failure to capitalise on this opportunity stems from a lack of engagement with Afghans, and a one-dimensional approach prioritising Western security issues at the expense of the interconnecting political and economic aspects of security. The international community’s misguided military-focused approach is imperilling the success of its mission in Afghanistan, as Afghans are increasingly angry at the perceived indifference of the West to the real political and economic security concerns of the local population.

Poverty is a real and extreme threat to the country: there is evidence that poverty is driving support for the Taliban. If poverty is not addressed as a basic humanitarian imperative, then it needs to be addressed from the point of view of it being the doorway which leads to a secure and peaceful Afghanistan and international security.

“With these arms, I took my child to the graveyard, my child died of hunger. There are children dying here”

Villager in Kandahar Province
August 2006

Conclusion

Taliban exploiting the hunger crisis caused by the US-led international community’s failure to resolve Afghanistan’s poverty crises

In southern Afghanistan, Afghans are starving, yet international aid funds for poverty relief in Afghanistan are equal to just 1/10th of international military expenditure. The Taliban is exploiting Afghans’ deep resentment of this hunger crisis, and the US-led international community’s five year failure to improve Afghans’ on-the-ground conditions.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world

Despite international assistance and proclamations of improvements, Afghanistan remains one the poorest countries in the world. The country ranks at the bottom of all major development indicators. Not only have the international reconstruction efforts failed to meet the real needs of Afghan people, but in cases like aggressive poppy crop eradication, these efforts have further entrenched poverty among the rural population.

Nonsensical counter-narcotics policies are deepening Afghanistan’s extreme poverty

Aggressive militaristic interventions like forced eradication without immediately viable alternative livelihoods reinforce the extreme poverty of rural communities and destroy the livelihoods of Afghan farmers and their families. Public frustration with ongoing poverty is deteriorating relations between the Afghan people, the Afghan Government and the international community.

Recommendations

Recommendation I: Send food and water to Afghanistan now: Afghanistan’s hunger crisis must be immediately resolved

Children are starving in Afghanistan. The implementation of an emergency hunger-relief package is urgently needed, both out of humanitarian duty, and as a means of re-engaging with Afghans in a positive way to change their negative perceptions of the international community for the better.

Recommendation II: Refocus reconstruction agenda on the poor

The reconstruction agenda must be re-designed, with Afghan people at the centre. It is vital that the international community engages in a deep and meaningful dialogue with the people of Afghanistan. The implementation of sustainable poverty reduction policies, which incorporate the Afghan population in the reconstruction process, will send a clear signal to the Afghan people of the international community’s strong commitment in Afghanistan. In turn, misperceptions promoted by the Taliban as well as public disillusionment towards the international community would be offset, assuring the community’s own security.

Recommendation III: Anti-poor policies, like poppy crop eradication operations, must stop immediately

The international community must immediately refrain from forceful crop eradication operations. Not only do such operations destroy the livelihoods of poor rural communities and further exacerbate poverty; they, crucially, lead to public distrust of government institutions and international efforts, thus providing a tactical advantage to the insurgency and compromising the stabilisation efforts of international forces.

Field Report: “Children are Dying Here”

The menace of poverty in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is officially one of the world’s most impoverished countries, alongside Chad, Sudan and Somalia. One in four Afghan children does not live to the age of five. More than 70% of the population is chronically malnourished, while less than a quarter of the population has access to safe drinking water. The extremely limited electricity supply is accessible by only 10% of the people.

“We have nothing, please help us”

Villagers, Kandahar province

This state of absolute poverty has been witnessed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force troops who expressed shock by what they had seen on arrival in the country. Doctors brought to rural villages and refugee camps have been overwhelmed by the masses of starving children in desperate need of food-- any food-- and water. The majority of these unregistered refugee camp inhabitants are chronically ill from hunger and dehydration related diseases.

Appalling conditions in refugee camps

At least ten informal, very basic, refugee camps exist in the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, each housing more than 1,000 people. Shockingly, none have access to medical assistance. Medical doctors visiting the camps regarded the situation as critical and warned that extended care is necessary for the camps’ children if death within the next few weeks is to be avoided. The medical team discovered numerous cases of malaria, dysentery, arrhythmia, diarrhoea, various sorts of skin diseases, as well as, chronic malnutrition and dehydration. In the few hospitals found near such areas, two or three people per bed was commonplace. Wards in such hospitals have bare minimum supplies, while the extremely basic blood bank holds blood only from the families of admitted patients.

Critical shortage of vital resources The extreme poverty, coupled with drought and war, has caused mass displacement. A majority of the people – including numerous Koochi nomads in the poorest villages – have mere rags to wear. At the Panjwai Distict refugee camp, the majority of the children walk barefoot across the scorching desert ground. Most people in the villages live on as little as US$80 per annum, with families under constant pressure to pay rents they can ill-afford.

“From one side, we have bombs dropping, from the other side, we cannot find work. Where do we go?”

Worker, Kandahar province

Troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force operating in the poorest areas are helpless to act on the mass pleas from the villagers in desperate need of help. The troops are well aware that people are dying of hunger each day, but, because their orders are to assist the Afghan government and not to aid in food distribution, they can do nothing to save them.

Instead, the responsibility of food distribution falls solely on the shoulders of aid organisations. However, such groups are unable to reach the most impoverished areas due to the increasingly volatile security situation in the country.

Critical shortage of vital resources

These impoverished areas lack sufficient drinking water after being hit hard by severe droughts. As many of the refugee camps have no independent water source, camp dwellers must carry water jugs from far away villages. These villages, while providing small amounts of water, have very little comfort to provide their inhabitants. Education is rarely provided to children and almost never provided to girls, who are expected to stay at home with their mothers. Five years of these conditions has led to dissipated goodwill towards the international community, who spend the equivalent to only a tenth of the money put into any military efforts, towards poverty relief.

“There are children dying here”

Villagers, Kandahar province

Hunger turning into anger

Hunger and dehydration have turned into anger and desperation, as demoralised Afghans are forced to leave their villages in search of better living conditions. Those who cannot afford to leave – most of whom are farmers – believe that the war in Afghanistan is due to poppy eradication, particularly in the south. There, the majority of farmers have no income after seeing their livelihoods destroyed, and are forced to turn to the Taliban for protection. Without poppy cultivation – the majority of farmers’ survival strategy – they are unable to send their children to school, pay for medicines or afford fuel and electricity.

“It is like a hell for us here now. We just want to leave, but we are too poor to leave”

Villagers, Kandahar province

Five years of continued and, in many cases, worsening poverty has damaged perceptions of the international community and “foreigners”. With no irrigation projects, no alternative livelihood projects, no clinics and no schools, Afghans are asking themselves why international security forces are in Afghanistan in the first place. In fact, in many cases, the only time Afghans have seen anyone from the government or the international community has been when crop eradication has taken place.

Field report conclusions

Afghans’ anger at seeing no representatives from international organisations has only served in endearing the Taliban to the local people. The Taliban are often seen as doing their bit to help the Afghans, despite having much less money than the international community, while international troops are perceived as being in the country for their own purposes. Even those who do not want to turn to the Taliban are forced to do so in order to survive and support their families.

After five years of no positive change, the overriding opinion is that this a war – originally supposed to “help” the poor people of Afghanistan – which only serves in making the rich richer, including all “foreigners”. With children dying, people starving and family livelihoods being destroyed, there is an urgent need for a complete rethink on the part of the international community if Afghans are no longer to live in extreme poverty.