In 2030, Afghanistan is a country with a population of about 46 million, compared to the 30 million at present. It is a nation at peace with itself and its neighbours. The country retains its republican Islamic nature but with tolerance, and peaceful, democratic resolution of differences. Cultural developments are actively taking place with cultural tourism centred on Balkh, the birthplace of the 12th century poet and Sufi, Jalaluddin Rumi, and adherents coming from Pakistan, Iran, India, Turkey, Central Asia and other countries. The country’s growing film industry, established mainly with support from Iranian film producers and Bollywood, is successfully showing Dari films in Iran and Tajikistan, and Pashto films in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces as well as in the UAE.
With an average annual growth rate of about eight percent during 2014 to 2030, Afghanistan’s GDP (in constant dollar terms) has reached about $ 60 billion, compared to about $ 17 billion in 2014. There is a growing and vibrant middle-income class with rising purchasing power and aspirations. Fuelled by the high growth rate and targeted social safety nets, the incidence of poverty has been reduced from about 40 percent in 2014 to 17 percent by 2030. Despite efforts to check excessive urbanisation, about 45 percent of the population lives in the five largest cities of Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat, compared to about 25 percent in 2014. Poverty is primarily an urban phenomenon, reflecting the robust growth in irrigated agriculture and agro-industry.
In 2030, Afghanistan is self-sufficient in power with the completion of small hydropower projects in the country but also the completion of power transmission from Central Asia via the CASA-1,000 project. Another large, completed project is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. Neighbouring Pakistan has also become energy sufficient, after devastating shortages during 2000 to 2020, thanks to TAPI and the completion of several hydro, coal and renewable energy projects.
The agricultural sector continues to grow, led by export-oriented, high value products such as pomegranates, pistachios and almonds, reflecting the strengthening of value chains (cold storage and other facilities). The fully implemented Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) has greatly facilitated Afghan trade through Pakistani ports at Gwadar and Karachi and through the Wagah border to India. The mining sector has increasingly become a larger earner of exports and revenues, starting with mining projects at Aynak and Hajigak. Partly in response to this as well as the growth of oil and gold extraction, annual foreign direct investment has increased from only about $ 250 million in 2014 to three billion dollars in 2030. In the rapidly growing service sectors, telecom and transportation are the prime recipients of foreign direct investment and loans.
With help from private universities in Pakistan, India, Iran and western countries, private universities have sprung up in Kabul, Mazar, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Ghazni. Afghan women legislators have formed a coalition of women parliamentarians, together with their counterparts in Central and South Asia, to press for women’s rights. In short, by 2030, Afghanistan has been transformed from a landlocked poor country devastated by war and poverty into a progressive, bustling crossroads for commerce and ideas from the region. It also has an active civil society that holds the government accountable for its performance.
The above vision is not automatically attainable. Things can go wrong, with dramatic downside risks. One major risk, of course, is the failure to improve the security situation and to curtail illegal opium cultivation and trading. If security is essential for economic and social development, corruption and deteriorating governance are its major enemies. A third risk factor is abrupt curtailment of foreign assistance by western countries concomitant with the drawdown of military forces from the country. It will be tragic for Afghanistan if its international partners abandon the country as they did during the late 1980s and 1990s, once their strategic objective (defeat of the Soviet Union) was achieved. The country will continue to need financial and technical assistance for at least another two decades to fully recover from the ravages and dislocations of previous decades. It is estimated that the impact of the drawdown of NATO forces at the end of this year, through decreased demand for services and consumption, will amount to about five billion dollars annually, more than one-fourth of current GDP.
There are three items for the medium to long-term development agenda of Afghanistan. The first item will be to examine and come to an agreement on a set of critically important investment projects, together with their financing packages, to better connect Afghanistan to regional and global markets, in what is termed as the New Silk Route Initiative. China will be a critical player here both bilaterally as well as through the new development bank it is creating for Asia’s infrastructure development. Apart from the completion of the Afghan Ring Road, including the missing link in the northwest of the country between the towns of Qaiser and Laman, the other land transport priority will be the two railway links with Pakistan, namely the Jalalabad-Torkham-Peshawar and the Kandahar-Spinboldak-Quetta links.
In the power sector, the CASA-1,000 project is a high priority, once riparian issues among the Central Asian countries are fully resolved. The project will bring electricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Apart from fostering better regional cooperation among the four countries, it would provide Afghanistan and Pakistan less expensive, badly needed energy. The fourth high priority investment is the TAPI pipeline, which will deliver gas to Pakistan and India via a 1,730-kilometre pipeline. The project will ensure greater energy security for Pakistan and India. Given the low probability of movement on the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, the TAPI project becomes critically important.
An important driver of Afghanistan’s growth will be creating an environment in which domestic and foreign investors can easily participate in fully exploiting natural resources and in which trade can flourish. In 2010, Afghan exports amounted to about $ 500 million compared to its imports of about seven billion dollars. Such a trade deficit is clearly unsustainable and is being maintained only through large amounts of aid. International development partners should provide support to Afghanistan in simplifying procedures for doing business, facilitating trade through improved customs procedures and speeding up the critically important projects in the mining sector. They should also ensure that the investments take into account environmental and social factors.
The starting point would be to develop the Aynak (copper) and Hajigak (iron ore) projects. According to reports, Afghanistan has one trillion dollars in untapped mineral deposits. Previously unknown deposits, including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium, are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could become “the Saudi Arabia of lithium”, a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and cell phones. International financial institutions can play their role by helping develop a comprehensive mining code that would attract foreign investment. Another challenge would be to ensure that developments take place in an environmentally responsible and socially inclusive manner.
With commitment from the Afghan people and government, more support and less meddling by neighbours, and generous development assistance by donors, this vision for Afghanistan is feasible. The Silk Road was a reality, not fiction. The New Silk Route Initiative is definitely a possibility. In the memorable words of India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, “I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That is the way my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.”
The author is former director of operations and strategy of the World Bank for Africa, and the head of the UN in Turkey