On the first anniversary of the national unity government, the score-card shows gloom over its record on poverty alleviation, employment and security.
Despite their many differences, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah are now looking at a second year in power. They have to deliver on promises to create “millions of jobs that they made during the election campaign last year,” says Ahmad Sayidi, political commentator.
“This is your national responsibility. Youths are suffering because of unemployment,” he appeals to the two leaders.
The unemployment crisis has tested people’s patience. Scores of unemployed people have taken to the streets in Kabul and other cities, protesting for jobs. The bleak job situation at home and dreams of living a comfortable life have forced tens of thousands to risk their lives and take the perilous journey to the west or Australia. There are Afghans among the boat-loads of desperate people trying to land on European shores in recent weeks. On Sep 13, according to newspaper reports, 34 refugees – both Syrian and Afghan – drowned after their boat sank off a Greek island.
A loose network of unemployed – roughly estimated to be 1.3 million – have launched an “anti-unemployment” movement. Members had pitched a tent outside the National Assembly, urging lawmakers and the government to do something to stop the exodus of jobless youths. Many are joining the ranks of the government’s armed opponents. But the police used force to remove the demonstrators who were only holding placards saying ‘We Want Work’ and ‘Unemployment is Equal to Insecurity’.
Ahmad Jawad Tayeb, one of the demonstrators said he had graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences four years ago, but he was still jobless.
Meanwhile, Ali Eftekhari, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs & Displaced (MoLSAMD), accepts both the seriousness of the problem of unemployment and that jobs have become harder to find in the past one year.
He blames it primarily on the decrease in foreign aid and the worsening security situation. MoLSAMD is doing its best to strike bilateral agreements with countries in the Gulf for the recruitment of Afghan workers, says Eftekhari. While this was a short-term strategy, a national committee for work, headed by the president, has been set up to find long-term solutions to the crisis. The committee has representatives from civil society and youth organisations.
Figures provided by the National Union of Labour put the number of employable Afghans at 16 million. Only 3 million have work.
Wasel Noor Mohmand, the deputy minister of labour and social affairs says, “Three quarters of those employed are doing petty jobs like wage labour or as street sellers.” He puts unemployment in a global context: Some 85 million people worldwide are jobless and 200 million living below the poverty line.
Poverty
A UN report says 1.5 million Afghans face serious food shortage. The number grew by 317,000 last year. Every fourth Afghan suffers from hunger. Wahidullah Amani, the representative in Afghanistan of the World Food Programme (WFP), says the UN will need 30 million USD to tide Afghans over the coming winter. “We are facing a serious budgetary crisis. If we don’t get emergency aid soon, we will not be able to help people in areas that will be blocked by fresh snowfall,” he says.
Deputy Minister Mohmand says 36 percent of the Afghan population lives under the poverty line and “6 million hover close to poverty, raising the number of poor to 15 million.”
Economic migration
Bleak economic prospects in the past year have increased the numbers of young people leaving the country in search of a better future.
Nurullah Nawayee, a Kabul resident, believes the unpredictability of the present has jeopardised the future. It has put the “future of life into the pit of ambiguity,” he says. “Even as war, insecurity and violence menaces people’s physical well-being, the halt of development and political programmes have been a great disappointment for Afghans particularly the youth,” he adds.
Nawayee believes the impact of falling investment and development funds has not just increased unemployment levels but also corruption in the administrative system of the government. The anarchy in the government after elections last year that was a disappointment to so many people, also the youth, saw the emergence of the Islamic State or Daesh fighters.
Youth who had flocked to universities and institutions of higher learning after 2001 have been frustrated by the lack of jobs and opportunities. Afghan officials had left it to international donors and Afghanistan’s allies to pump up the economy.
Sayed Husain Alemi Balkhi, the minister of refugees and repatriations, told Killid the government would talk to donors at the one-day conference of donors on Sep 5, a follow-up of the last meeting in London in 2014. The meeting in Kabul was opened by President Ghani, and discussed the way forward.
Two days later, Kabul played host to a Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA), which was attended by officials from more than 30 countries and institutions. Ways to change Afghanistan into a point of intersection for trade and transit for the region was the focus. Hopefully, jobs and development will follow.
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