Afghanistan Billions of dollars have no bearing on poor's fate: Report

By Farhad Naibkhel

Ministry of Economy (ME) on Sunday published its 4th Millennium Development Goals report (MDGs) which revealed that despite inflow of billions of dollars in donation lifestyle of poor had not been changed during past 10 years due to lack of investment in the sustainable economic projects, designed to end poverty in the country.

Minister of Economy, Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, said that in order to follow MDGs, Afghanistan must decrease poverty from 36 percent to 24 percent by 2015 and to 21 percent by 2020. “But considering economic progress and investment in the regard, still a long way is ahead to achieve the objectives,” said the minister during a press conference here.

He said that investment in agriculture is a great aspect to fight poverty, but unfortunately only five percent of donated amount have be invested in agriculture sector during last decade. Afghanistan is an agricultural country, where due to lack of proper irrigation system only 25 percent of agrarian lands out of 100 percent came under cultivation in last ten years. Agriculture is one of the most vital sectors for creating employment opportunities as well as to ensure food security. Thus, all concerned national and international organizations shall concentrate over the agrarian projects to deal with the challenges. According to the MDGs report, Afghanistan had great made tremendous progress in education and health sectors in the past decades. Improvement of women and gender equality was also observed, significantly.

Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL), Mohammad Asif Rahimi, said that despite achievements in agriculture sector, still there was laying ahead a long road to cross and achieve the goals by 2020.

While highlighting the achievement, he said that wheat production has been increased to 5.3 million tons and all corps to 6.5 million tons in 2012, which demonstrate 100 percent increase when compared to 2002. Production of almonds jumped from 19,000 to 59,000 tons and grapes from 350,000 tons to 650,000 tons.

Regarding the challenges in the agriculture sector, the minister said that due to lack of sufficient budget around 2.2 million hectares agrarian land out of eight million came under cultivation in the last decade. “In order to cope with poverty the government shall focus over development and mechanization of agriculture. Moreover, providing transport facilities to farmers and access to markets is also important for development of the agriculture sector. In order to achieve the goal around one billion dollar is required to invest over the agriculture and agrarian related projects in the country,” the minister added.

Minister of Rural and Rehabilitation Development, Wais Ahmad Barmak, said that according to international MDGs report, Afghanistan was at 138 in 2007 in the list, and came down to 129 in 2011, which shows progress.

He said that in order to provide life and social facilities to locals nearly $1.8 billion has been spent over rural development programs across the country in the past decade. Around, 80,000 projects had been launched in different provinces, where till date over 70,000 of the projects have been completed.