Afghanistan faced severe economic headwinds in 2018, with the economy growing by an estimated 1.8 percent. Slow growth was driven by two major factors.
... Exibir mais + Firstly, severe drought had a strong negative impact on agricultural production. Agricultural growth slowed to 0.8 percent as low snowfall during late 2017 and early 2018 led to the loss of grain crops and livestock productivity. Secondly, business and investor confidence deteriorated significantly in the context of elevated uncertainty around: i) the level and duration of international security assistance; ii) the outcome of upcoming presidential elections (now delayed until September); iii) prospects of continued or worsening election-related violence (civilian deaths reached their highest level since 2001); and iv) ongoing peace negotiations with the Taliban. Real GDP growth is expected to have accelerated during the first half of 2019, mainly driven by the easing of drought conditions and improved agricultural production. Intensifying political uncertainties, however, are expected to have continued to dampen private sector confidence and investment. Poverty is estimated to have increased and deepened. The rate of economic growth substantially lagged population growth, leading to declining per capita incomes. The drought negatively impacted livelihoods of many of the 82 percent of the poor living in rural areas, including those reliant on poppy cultivation (poppy production declined by 30 percent). Reflecting widespread hardship, drought-induced displacement reached record levels of 298,582 individuals, mainly to urban areas in adjacent provinces.
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The share of people living in extreme poverty fell from 36 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015 but has continued to increase in many fragile and conflict-affected areas where half of the extreme poor are expected to reside by 2030.
... Exibir mais + These areas are also where the least evidence exists on how to tackle poverty. This paper investigates whether the Targeting the Ultra Poor program can lift households out of poverty in a fragile context: Afghanistan. In 80 villages in Balkh province, 1,219 of the poorest households were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Women in treatment households received a one-off "big-push" package, including a transfer of livestock assets, cash consumption stipend, skills training, and coaching. One year after the program ended -- two years after assets were transferred -- significant and large impacts are found across all the primary pre-specified outcomes: consumption, assets, psychological well-being, total time spent working, financial inclusion, and women's empowerment. Per capita consumption increases by 30 percent (USD 24 purchasing power parity, USD 7 nominal per month) with respect to the control group, and the share of households below the national poverty line decreases from 82 percent in the control group to 62 percent in the treatment group. Using modest assumptions about consumption impacts, the intervention has an estimated internal rate of return of 26 percent, excluding non-monetized improvements in psychological well-being, women's empowerment, and children's health and education. These findings suggest that "big-push" interventions can dramatically reduce poverty in fragile and conflict-affected regions.
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8877 JUN 10, 2019
This report is the result of a collaboration between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank Group (WBG).
... Exibir mais + Repatriation or the return of refugees to their country of origin has been rarely studied, and data on their socio-economic outcomes is sparsely available. In such a context, the World Bank and UNHCR teams attempted to make good use of the existing data sources and complemented it with new data collection methods to better understand the patterns and characteristics of recent Afghan refugee returns. More specifically, the team attempted to analytically connect insights between different data sources to explore (albeit imperfectly) questions of selection among Afghans who remained in Pakistan and those documented returnees who returned to Afghanistan.
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Turquoise Mountain along with Label STEP developed a pilot project for women empowerment in the carpet value chain with the goal of providing income-generating opportunities for women by increasing the quantity of high-value, fair trade-certified, women-produced carpets being exported directly from Afghanistan to international markets.
... Exibir mais + This report presents: introduction; production and sales; women’s empowerment; close-out of activities supporting female weavers; summary of key results; key project activity results; and recommendations for export promotion.
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The overall macro-economic and security context in the country since 2007 can be broken into two distinct phases, pre- and post- the 2014 security transition, when security responsibilities were transferred from international troops to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
... Exibir mais + This note assesses the welfare and labor market implications of the security transition for the Afghan population. It finds that: (i) economic growth during the pre-transition phase, while high, translated into welfare gains only for the richest 20 percent of the population, who benefited from greater salaried employment opportunities; and (ii) as growth declined after the transition, poverty increased sharply to 54.5 percent, and there was a significant reduction in the quality and quantity of jobs. Since the transition, the only sector creating substantial numbers of salaried jobs in Afghanistan are jobs related to security services. While it is difficult to pin down the role of the deteriorating security situation on welfare, there is no doubt that increasing violence and insecurity have contributed to dampening economic growth, and directly affected livelihoods and income earning opportunities for many Afghans.
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Three decades of conflict have left Afghanistan’s power system battered. More than half of the population has no access to electricity and those connected to the grid suffer from frequent, lengthy power blackouts.
... Exibir mais + Expensive generation is prevalent, and the country has entrenched poverty and stifled economic growth. The Ghazanfar Group, a leading private conglomerate, will build and operate a 50-megawatt gas fired power plant, known as the Mazar Independent Power Project (IPP). The plant will be located near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan’s fourth largest city and a growing industrial hub. Once operational, it is expected to supply electricity to around one million people, boost the country’s domestic power supply and reduce dependence on imported power. The project will also result in the creation of almost 200 direct and many more indirect jobs. IFC played a key role in making the deal possible, bringing in complementary skills across the World Bank Group to ensure delivery on the project. IFC’s Transaction Advisory Services engaged early with a private sector partner, the Ghazanfar Group, and the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) on legal, financial, and technical issues leading to bankable project documentation. IFC’s Investment Infrastructure team acted as the lead arranger, working to provide debt financing for its own account and mobilize debt financing from other development finance institutions. Working closely with IFC, the World Bank provided advice to the GoA, including regulatory matters and ancillary infrastructure.
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In this policy brief we discuss whether and to what extent recent currency depreciation is a problem for Afghanistan. We show that: i) depreciation against the US dollar has been modest and driven mostly be external factors; and ii) depreciation against the US dollar is not significantly driving inflation.
... Exibir mais + Taking account of these realities, recent developments provide little justification for additional intervention aimed at stabilizing the afghani/US dollar exchange rate or any revisions to the overall monetary policy framework.
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Afghanistan ranks last of 168 countries in United Nations Development Program (UNDP’s) gender development index and has one of the world’s lowest female labor force participation rates at 28 percent.
... Exibir mais + Finding new income generation opportunities for women is essential for women’s empowerment in Afghanistan. Through the government’s national priority program on women’s economic empowerment (WEE-NPP), the World Bank is supporting the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) to identify sectors with: (1) strong growth potential and (2) opportunities for women to improve their employment options. Women play a crucial role in the carpets sector, comprising 90 percent of workers in the sector, mostly in weaving. In 2017, the World Bank partnered with the GoIRA and the non-government organization (NGO) Turquoise Mountain to explore how the carpet exports can be stimulated as a way to strengthen women’s empowerment. Direct-to-market sales of finished carpets command a much higher price than either domestic sales or the predominant route of exporting unfinished carpets to Pakistan for value addition and re-export to final buyers.
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Hydrological and meteorological (hydromet) data collection and analysis in Afghanistan started in the late 1940s and mid-1950s, respectively. The hydrometric network expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, reaching a peak of 150 in 1980, and the meteorological network had a similar trajectory.
... Exibir mais + Two decades of war, however, brought instability and insecurity that reduced public resources, capacities, collaboration, and coordination. The institutional framework governing weather, climate and hydrological (hydromet) services as well as early warning (EW) and disaster risk management (DRM) services did not escape these setbacks. In 1996, Taliban forces sacked the meteorology office, ruining equipment and destroying over 100 years of weather records. Hydroelectric production nearly ceased as turbines were destroyed, floodgates blown open, and transmission lines brought down. The civil war and its aftermath led to the degradation of traditional observation networks, prevalence of outdated and inefficient technologies, and lack of modern instruments and information and communication technology (ICT). The absence of forecasts and weather information reversed years of development gains in farming and civil aviation operations. In 1998, an Ariana Afghan Airlines flight in route from Kandahar to Kabul in bad weather crashed into a mountaintop, killing 45 people. From 1998 to 2004, a major drought forced nearly 1 million Afghans from their farms and herds into metropolitan areas, impacting half the agriculture land, killing 3 million livestock, and seriously depleting groundwater resources in Kabul and the Kabul Water Basin.
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In this note we provide an assessment of the technical aspects of budget and discuss the implications of the medium-term fiscal framework. The budget document is technically sound and includes some significant improvements in compliance with international best practices.
... Exibir mais + The medium-term fiscal implications of the budget are concerning, however, with declining aid leaving little fiscal space for development and O&M spending over the medium term as security expenditures rapidly increase.
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Afghanistan has been in protracted conflict for almost four decades, with direct implications on progress towards development objectives. This context of recurring episodes of violence and insecurity, economic and political instability, and the consequent displacement of populations within and outside the nation’s borders has important implications on the landscape of data and evidence available for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of interventions and programs, and their timeliness and relevance.
... Exibir mais + Afghans represent the world’s largest and most protracted refugee population, with an estimated 3.5 million people currently living abroad as refugees for more than four decades. Given the large disparities in poverty incidence and high levels of inequality within Afghanistan, the knowledge of living standards at more disaggregated geographical levels of districts and nahias could help inform policy design and improve decision making at a sub-province level. Therefore, poverty mapping, which aims at estimating poverty incidence at levels lower than the household survey, was applied in Kabul and Herat provinces. This technical report describes the methodology and data used to produce the Kabul and Herat poverty maps and presents the resulting collection of poverty maps, the first of its kind for Afghanistan. The structure of the report is as follows. Section 2 outlines the poverty mapping methodology, specifically the small area estimation approach, applied in Afghanistan. Section 3 discusses the data sources and the various technical challenges faced with the datasets. Section 4 discusses the modeling phase, including model selection, model parameters, and assumptions. Section 5 presents the poverty maps at a district and nahia level, and section 6 concludes. The Annexes contains supporting data and analysis.
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This paper presents options for tobacco taxation to reduce tobacco consumption and increase financing for health programs in Afghanistan. Tobacco consumption is compromising the health of the Afghan population, particularly the poor.
... Exibir mais + Lowering tobacco consumption would help progress towards Universal Health Coverage by reducing the tobacco-related burden of disease (mortality and morbidity). This paper presents policy options for the Government of Afghanistan to reduce tobacco consumption and improve health outcomes. Tobacco taxation could serve the dual purpose of reducing consumption and generating additional tax revenue to spend on healthcare for the poor. Increasing total taxes to 46 percent of the import price is estimated to generate USD 19.7 million of additional tax revenue per year while reducing domestic consumption of cigarettes by at least 5 percent. This paper has five sections. The first section analyzes tobacco consumption in Afghanistan by socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The second section describes the burden of disease associated with tobacco and its effect on health at the provincial level. The third section discusses current policies of tobacco control and current practices of tobacco pricing and taxation, including a brief overview of the complex relationship between government and private stakeholders. The fourth section discusses options for tobacco taxation in Afghanistan. The final section applies a simulation model to estimate health and revenue outcomes of additional tobacco taxation.
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This paper presents options for tobacco taxation to reduce tobacco consumption and increase financing for health programs in Afghanistan. Tobacco consumption is compromising the health of the Afghan population, particularly the poor.
... Exibir mais + Lowering tobacco consumption would help progress towards Universal Health Coverage by reducing the tobacco-related burden of disease (mortality and morbidity). This paper presents policy options for the Government of Afghanistan to reduce tobacco consumption and improve health outcomes. Tobacco taxation could serve the dual purpose of reducing consumption and generating additional tax revenue to spend on healthcare for the poor. Increasing total taxes to 46 percent of the import price is estimated to generate USD 19.7 million of additional tax revenue per year while reducing domestic consumption of cigarettes by at least 5 percent. This paper has five sections. The first section analyzes tobacco consumption in Afghanistan by socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The second section describes the burden of disease associated with tobacco and its effect on health at the provincial level. The third section discusses current policies of tobacco control and current practices of tobacco pricing and taxation, including a brief overview of the complex relationship between government and private stakeholders. The fourth section discusses options for tobacco taxation in Afghanistan. The final section applies a simulation model to estimate health and revenue outcomes of additional tobacco taxation.
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Sixteenth in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2019 covers 11 areas of business regulation.
... Exibir mais + Ten of these areas - starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency - are included in the ease of doing business score and ease of doing business ranking. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation, which is not included in these two measures. Doing Business provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level. This economy profile presents indicators for Afghanistan; for 2019 Afghanistan ranks 167.
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The Afghanistan Development Update is a twice-annual publication providing analysis of recent developments and presenting the World Bank team’s most-recent macroeconomic projections.
... Exibir mais + The August 2018 edition focuses on the state of the economy in the context of upcoming elections, and the potential for a loss of recent momentum as confidence declines. Special topics address: i) the potential for trade to underpin development in Afghanistan; ii) recent trends in poverty and welfare; and iii) priorities for improving education quality and coverage. Afghanistan has experienced slow growth since 2014, with the draw-down of international security forces, accompanying reductions in international grants, and a worsening security situation (growth has averaged 2.3 percent between 2014-2017). Following a period of political instability after the 2014 elections, the economy has slowly regained momentum as reforms have been implemented and confidence restored. From a low of 1.5 percent in 2015, real GDP growth accelerated to 2.3 percent in 2016, and is estimated at 2.7 percent for 2017. Building momentum now appears to be at some risk, with increasing election-related violence, declining business confidence, worsening drought conditions, and some apparent slowing of economic activity. Growth is projected at 2.4 percent in 2018, with substantial downside risks arising from the prospects of political instability around upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. Risks can be partly mitigated and recent momentum maintained through: i) continued reform progress, demonstrating to investors that the deterioration in governance seen in 2014 will not be repeated; and ii) continued donor commitment to sustained grant support.
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Schooling is not the same as learning. Although access to schooling in Afghanistan has improved significantly in the last decade, 4th grade Afghan students are not learning.
... Exibir mais + Using the 2017 Afghanistan SABER Service Delivery survey, we find that after spending 4 years in primary school, two-thirds of Afghan students (65 percent) have only fully mastered the Language curriculum for Grade 1. In particular, one-third could identify a picture from a given word, and less than 15 percent could comprehend a simple paragraph. Their performance in Mathematics is even more worrisome as less than half of them (46 percent) have mastered the Mathematics curriculum for Grade 1. Most 4th grade Afghan students lack both multiplication and division skills, and almost none could solve word problems, compute fractions, identify shapes, or calculate an area. We also find that students in Community Based Education (CBE) schools tend to significantly outperform those in public schools. However, even though these 4th grade students have been in the system for 4 years, they only display the knowledge of a 1st grade student. Following the World Development Report (2018) framework, we find that the learning crisis in Afghanistan is driven by a combination of the following four key determinants: unskilled teachers, weak school management practices, lack of school inputs and infrastructure, and unprepared learners. In particular, while 4th grade teachers in Afghanistan have low absence rates (15 percent) and high time on task (80 percent), they struggle to help students learn as most have very low content and pedagogical knowledge, as well as poor teaching skills. Based on these findings, the report also provides a series of technical policy suggestions.
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The high cost of nutritious foods can worsen poor diets and nutrition outcomes especially among low-income households. Yet little is known about the spatial and temporal patterns of the cost of nutritious diets in South Asia, where malnutrition in multiple forms remains high.
... Exibir mais + Using existing food price data from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India, two methods are applied to assess the affordability of nutritious foods: Cost of a Recommended Diet (CoRD) and Nutritious Food Price Index (NPI). The analysis finds that the cost of a nutritious diet is 38 percent higher in Sri Lanka using CoRD compared to the cost of a (calorie-based) diet that meets basic food needs, and 15 percent higher in Afghanistan. In addition, CoRD varies across cities due to variability in the price of dairy and vegetables. Comparison of the NPI and the food Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicates that, for some countries, the price of a nutritious food basket varies more by season and has been increasing at a faster rate than the price of a typical food basket. This phenomenon is largely due to the variable cost of vegetables.
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Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS8557 AUG 16, 2018
Dizon,Felipe Jr Fadullon; Herforth,Anna WhitsonDisclosed
