Daily Times

Perhaps nothing might be more relevant than the well-quoted verses by Dr Allama Iqbal regarding the strategic importance of Afghanistan located between the South and Central Asia. Besides having an easy and less expensive land route access to Central Asia, Afghanistan has easy access to Europe through Turkey, West Asia through Iran, land access to South Asia through Pakistan and direct access to China. This seems to be the reason that Iqbal considered Afghanistan as the ‘heart of Asia’. If the heart is in trouble, rest of the human body is understood to be in trouble.

Two factors seem to have put Afghanistan in a perpetual state of instability over the past four decades. A continuous war has been thrust on Afghanistan mostly due to the strategic rivalries of the states of the region and the rest of the world because of the importance of its strategic location. Some two million Afghans have lost their lives in wars. The lives lost were mostly the young generation of Afghans. Millions of Afghans were displaced and forced to live in neighbouring and other countries of the world. Various phases of this four-decade long war also caused disruptions in the natural evolution of Afghan society. The second factor that keeps Afghanistan destabilisedis the economy of war that was a natural corollary of the perpetual war. This economy has been manifest in the shape of narcotics, illicit trade, and private militias.

Due to the factors mentioned above, Afghanistan remained a dissolved state for almost fifteen years. The internal and external stakeholders agreed to reconstruct the Republic of Afghanistan in the wake of the Bonn agreement in December 2001. It is an interesting study to see what Afghanistan as a Republic has achieved in economic, social and political spheres in the past 15 years.

60 to 65 percent of the population in Afghanistan consists of the youth who are mostly educated in the neighbouring countries, Europe or the United States of America because of displacement. This large educated population has been able to help build a reasonable macro and microeconomic infrastructure of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been able to achieve two percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. It has also been able to maintain an annual growth of 14.5 percent in its foreign exchange reserves. Afghanistan has also been able to decrease 14 percent of its dependence on transit trade from Karachi.

Rivers and other sources of flowing water are the major natural resources of Afghanistan besides minerals packed mountain ranges. The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has planned 12 big dams and some 40 small dams on various rivers in Afghanistan. Construction of one of the larger dams in Kunar province is financially supported by China. Afghanistan has taken significant strides in agricultural development in the past fifteen years. The insurgency-stricken Helmand province of Afghanistan has become one of the major wheat producing areas in the past few years.

One can observe the emergence of a strong civil society in Afghanistan. There are more than two dozen TV channels which have hundreds of permanent technical and non-technical staffers. More than three dozen dailies and weeklies in Pashto, Dari and English are published from various cities of Afghanistan. Almost all provinces of Afghanistan have hundreds of non-governmental development, literary and research organisations. Some 11 million primary and secondary level students are studying under the supervision of 0.2 million teachers. Literacy rate has in Afghanistan has reached 37 percent. A full-fledged ministry for women development has been working in Afghanistan which has gone a long way to support women role in social, economic and political spheres. Afghanistan has made rapid progress in higher education. Besides the students who go on scholarships to other countries, thousands of students are studying at a dozen governmental and more than three dozen private seats of higher learning in Afghanistan.

Despite a sprawling war economy, insurgency and narcotics, Afghanistan has been able to build a reasonable political infrastructure. Three presidential elections have so far been heldsince 2001. A peaceful and electoral transition of power took place some two years back which seems to be a rare example in the history of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a bicameral parliament consisting of a lower house (Ulasi Jirga) and upper house (Da Masharano Jirga). Though a culture of democratic political parties has yet to emerge in Afghanistan, various political groups are active which might lead to the formation of various democratic political parties.

Various ethnicities like the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras have agreed on a social contract that has provided an equitable distribution of power. Though a political competition is observed among the ethnicities for governmental jobs and share in economic resources, all the ethnicities firmly stick to the paradigm of ‘Afghaniat’.

The government and people of Afghanistan have to deal with two significant challenges in the coming years. Fist, Afghanistan has to deal with the internal insurgency of Taliban and the terrorism perpetrated by the newly emerged so-called Islamic State (IS). Second, Afghanistan has to replace the economy of war and narcotics with an economy of peace.

The emerging scenarios in the Eurasia, South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia indicate that Afghanistan will play a crucial and critical role in the success of various regional pacts, agreements and organisations. It goes without saying that the success of TAPI, CPEC, KASA 1000 and various agreements by ECO member states will ultimately depend on the internal stability of Afghanistan. It is, therefore, essential for the countries of the regions to explore common goals for progress in the sphere of geo-economics. The countries of the region have to abandon the policy of using private militias against one another. They also have to forsake the policy of supporting one or other militant group in Afghanistan. This might go a long way to help bring political stability in Afghanistan which might provide the necessary environment for the development of geo-economics of the region.

The writer is a political analyst based in Peshawar. Email: khadimhussain565@gmail.com Twitter: khadimhussain4