Why is afghanistan so poor

Economists estimate that GDP growth needs to be eight percent to successfully employ the Afghan work force. Unfortunately, continuing conflict and insecurity within the country makes this growth unlikely. Rural Afghanistan is poor due to its dependence on agriculture and informal labor markets. Low investments and natural disasters have hurt the agriculture market that most Afghans depend on for employment.

Natural resources necessary for successful agriculture are lacking in Afghanistan. Compared to its population, there is little farmable land. Precipitation is scarce and there is insufficient irrigation infrastructure. In addition, the country has faced multiple debilitating droughts since In rural areas, small-scale farmers and herders, landless people and women who are heads of households bear the largest burden of poverty. Women in Afghanistan face increased inequalities because they have less access to education and health services.

In recent memory, people often think of Afghanistan as the nation of the Taliban, who provided sanctuary to terrorists like Osama bin Laden.

However, they do not tend to think about how a country falls into the grip of such extremism. Often, when poverty is widespread, terrorism and instability take hold. Poverty in Afghanistan has been a serious problem for nearly three decades, starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in This instability can make poverty alleviation an uphill battle. The World Bank Country Director for Afghanistan, Shubham Chaudhuri, explains that with poverty rising from 36 to 39 percent of the Afghan population, there need to be reinforcements to guarantee that economic growth reaches Afghan families.

For further information about the living conditions of the Afghan people, here are 10 facts about poverty in Afghanistan. To help bring some relief to these issues, Aryana Aid has been providing food packages to the people of Afghanistan since The World Bank projected economic growth for Afghanistan in , by 2. The progression is predicted to continue in with a 3.

Photo: Flickr. But for over a decade, the stigma of Islam and all Muslims has wrongfully grouped innocent people in with the terrorists that caused harm to the U.

However, Espiritu believes the media coverage of these events focuses on linking the terrorists to Afghanistan which places the country in a negative light. How the media misrepresents Afghanistan is in drawing broad connections to particular events done by groups of people, organizations, and even a single individual i. Osama bin Laden. When you limit Afghanistan to just these reductive terms and connotations, it creates a constant theme within the news medium of categorizing Muslims as belligerently harmful people.

Although there are good arguments and truth in fearing the Taliban in Afghanistan, how the media misrepresents Afghanistan places any progress against these threats as overlooked. Even though Afghanistan has had a history of human trafficking , the U. Department of State from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees addresses that the government of Afghanistan has made improvements to end this practice.

The efforts consist of passing a new law that prohibits any trafficking and smuggling in January Furthermore, the government has managed to indict and punish criminals of this injustice while also placing trafficking victims in temporary housing in Kabul. Pushing the socioeconomic progress forward also led the government to establish 15 child protection units CPUs , creations which stopped boys and three girls from becoming victims of police recruitment.

Unfortunately, the government did not meet the requirements, though, in several categories: collusion, victim protection and progression in strategic planning for services provided. The media is supposed to be a direct connection from the government to the general public and vice versa; however, Mirza Mesic, a professor of Islamic History at the Zagreb, states that this medium of communication uses alternatives to basic informative practices such as skewing and then defending such alternative information.

With all the attention and negative input the media has done about Afghanistan, it is easy to say that drama sells stories, but how often is that balanced with the progression the country is making? As coalition forces have withdrawn from the country, unemployment in Afghanistan has increased dramatically, hitting 40 percent in according to the United Nations Development Programme. Afghanistan has not seen unemployment rates this high since Afghans have been caught in a vise of lost employment from decreased U.

The withdrawal of security forces is also linked to increased violence in the country, leading to additional economic instability. Though President Obama gave the order to slow the withdrawal of non-combat troops from the country in July, the drawdown continues. The new plan involves keeping 8, troops in Afghanistan into , down from the current number of 10, This news comes at a time when many Afghans rely on employment in service industries surrounding the foreign military presence in Afghanistan which stems back nearly 15 years.

Political instability and security concerns amid rising violence have also negatively impacted economic growth in the country. According to a report by the World Bank, economic growth in Afghanistan made only a modest gain from 1.

The sluggish economic growth and pronounced unemployment in Afghanistan has led to a spike in poverty as the rate increased from Faced with unemployment, poverty and violence, many young people in Afghanistan have made the choice to flee the country.

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