Javed Iqbal
The recently held Elections in Afghanistan has witnessed a peak number of civilian casualties, which affected the proclaimed peaceful environment of polls. As Taliban had earlier threatened the Afghan government as well the population for attacks during the Elections. On the other hand, US and her allies are making efforts to talk to Afghan Taliban for the peaceful resolution of the Afghan conflict. In the backdrop of the current peace initiative by the Russian government, which is being participated by the Afghan Taliban as well as the representative of the US government. Besides the other regional ( CARs) and extra regional countries are also participating in the said gathering in Moscow. It would be quite interesting to witness the outcome of such a heavy weight gathering of the major stakeholders of the Afghan conflict. Despite differences, there are hopes for a unified and well coordinated efforts to address the repercussions and tackling of the Afghan conflict at regional and international level.
Pakistan is the key player and supporter of peace in Afghanistan as peace in Afghanistan would mean peace in Pakistan. Experts believe that the assassination of Maulana Samiul Haq will negatively affect Afghanistan peace process as Taliban regarded Maulana a spiritual leader who enjoyed great respect as a teacher. Hence his assassination favors those who do not want peace in Afghanistan. Afghan Govt is not happy over Afghan the current Peace Talks scheduled in Moscow on 9 Nov 2018, mainly due to disregard to US and Afghan Govt by Russia and participation of Pakistan in the talks. India is also fingers crossed over the failure of these talks. The prolong stay of the US troops is quite beneficial for the Afghan and Indian governments, hence, there is hardly any enthusiasm in achieving peace in Afghanistan by them. There is also a fear amongst US and Afghanistan that Moscow Peace Initiative could derail efforts by US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to persuade the Taliban to agree to negotiate according to US terms and conditions. Experts believe that to augment the rationale for the prolong stay in Afghanistan by the US government and her strategic allies, any real peace efforts by regional or extra regional would always be tried to derail. In this context, the assassination of Maulana Samiul Haq is pointing fingers towards NDS and RAW .
Experts broadly agree that the simultaneous political and security transitions in Afghanistan overshadowed the most important transition of economy, which could have helped and supported the Political and Security transition in Afghanistan. A lot of discussion among the local and international Think Tanks took place to figure out the implications of withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. Later, it was found that putting the overstretched burden of security on the incubating security apparatus of Afghanistan was not going to be a wise and sustainable option for ensuring the liberty of Afghans and retaining the held terrains. It was reasonably estimated by the economists that in future Afghanistan would continue to be increasingly dependent on foreign support for funding large parts of its budget, including all of its military expenditures. Afghanistan economic prospects significantly worsened compared to the previous three years and estimated to remain low for the foreseeable future, if appropriate steps were not taken to revive the Afghan economy by capitalizing the available mineral resources and its potential of becoming a Hub facility for the transfer of energy resources among the regional and extra regional countries.
Afghanistan’s fragile economy is directly and indirectly linked with the political deadlock, governance paralysis, and security uncertainties. The domestic economic performance of Afghanistan during 2013 and 2014 were also not even up to the expected mark, with massive economic shrinkage, large unemployment, capital flight, taxes & custom collections and a chronic as well as acute fiscal crisis exponentially deteriorated the economic outlook of the country. Afghanistan’s GDP growth was recorded as 9 percent in 2012 which shrunk to 3.7 percent in 2013 and remained only 2 percent in 2014. Afghanistan’s domestic revenues also declined from a peak of 11.6 percent in 2011/12 to 9.7 percent in 2013 and continued to drop in 2014-15.
Afghanistan being a land locked country is mostly reliant on Pakistan for transit and bilateral trade. As per recent survey both countries have potential of trade up to $5 billion annually. In earlier quarter of 2018, although, trade with Afghanistan decreased from $3 billion to $500 million; however recent figures and trends are very optimistic and futuristic. Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to maintain upward trajectory of trade in spite of all hurdles. Reportedly, Afghanistan exports to Pakistan increased by 29.53% from US$ 342 million during Pakistan’s FY 2016-17 to US$ 443 million 2017-18. Pakistan remained the largest export market for Afghanistan. On the other hand, Afghanistan continue to increase its imports from Pakistan, as Afghan imports increased from Pakistan by 18.33% for the period i.e. US $ 1,271 million in year 2016-17 to US $ 1,504 million in year 2017-18. Karachi Port also remained a major venue for Afghan transit trade as worth US $ 3.321 billion goods were imported by Afghanistan in the year 2017-18 through the port. There is a dire need of taking bilateral steps to improve the trade volume which could prove to be a preamble for having friendly relations between the two countries.
It is pertinent to mention that there is a major part of trade which constitutes a considerable number of unaccounted trade , mainly done through the illegal transportation of goods and contraband items. it needs to be checked for securing revenue and discourage the illegal trade between both the countries. There is also a pessimistic view prevailing among the economists that; whenever the postponed talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban would resume, it would likely to last for years, which could significantly fluctuate the progress of the economy in Afghanistan. However, governance in Afghanistan cannot persist in the condition of paralysis and continued surrenders of Security Forces in the face of Taliban successes. Delivery of governance and related improvements is crucial for the sustainability of the Afghan State and the basic political dispensation in the country. Better governance could augment economy and buy time, opens up political space for the negotiations, and strengthens the government’s hand in gaining the crucial public support. Even a negotiated deal could not address the issue of inadequate governance and Economy for augmenting the peace and prosperity in Afghanistan, hence; parallel to any efforts for stabilizing Afghanistan; the issue of governance and improving economy for its practical impact at the national grass root level, must be ensured by the Afghan government for bringing the sustainability to the adopted policies and overall stability in Afghanistan.
