Fifteen years after the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan began, it feels as if many of the same problems persist. Thousands of Afghans have been made jobless as military bases have closed across the country and development and foreign assistance programs have been reduced or have ended; the National Unity Government continues to be paralyzed by political infighting and rampant corruption; and a resurgent Taliban have threatened to overrun several provincial capitals and have orchestrated a number of terrorist attacks across the country, including in Kabul. Despite these worrying trends, the Afghan people have made significant progress since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. Basic services such as electricity and running water were unavailable even in Kabul during the years of Taliban rule, and have now spread throughout the country. Trips between cities that used to take days due to unpaved roads can now be completed in hours. Prior to October 2001, making an international call involved traveling across the border to Pakistan. Today, almost 85% of the population has mobile phone coverage, according to a 2012 USAID assessment.
In a recent article in the New York Times, veteran reporter Carlotta Gall states that there is a growing sense that Afghans are increasingly taking ownership from the Americans on major policy decisions, specifically on economic policy. There is a growing understanding among Afghan policymakers, according to Gall, is that much of the economic progress made between 2001 and 2014 was largely due to the large quantities of American and international assistance, and that the way forward in solving the country’s economic problems must come through incentivizing growth in an organic manner.
Since 2014, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) has been supporting the Afghan private sector, policymakers, and other stakeholders to come together and develop policy frameworks to improve the business climate at the provincial level and encourage private sector growth and development through its Provincial Business Agenda (PBA) program. Over the past two years, CIPE and its partners in the private sector convened summit meetings of Afghan businesspeople and entrepreneurs in the four provinces of Nangarhar, Herat, Balkh, and Kandahar to identify major obstacles to commercial growth, and produced PBA reports for each province, which contain concrete policy proposals to overcome these barriers. Each report was then formally presented to provincial government figures at a launch event.
The program has so far seen tremendous success. Each summit meeting was attended by over 400 businesspeople, and each launch event saw between 100-150 provincial government policymakers, elected officials, and other major stakeholders attend. The PBA reports have already galvanized provincial government policymakers into increasing access to power for industrial parks in Nangarhar and Balkh, simplifying business registration and taxation procedures, and cracking down on corruption in the public sector in all four provinces.
One of the crucial next steps of the program, in addition to continuously advocating for the implementation of the proposed policy recommendations in each PBA report, is raising awareness of these issues at the national level, and strengthening linkages between policymakers and private sector members at the provincial and national levels. In October, CIPE, in collaboration with the Afghan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ACCI) and Kabul University’s National Center for Policy Research (NCPR) convened a roundtable discussion in Kabul titled, “Promotion of Domestic Products in Light of the PBA Recommendations,” which brought together delegations of key business association leaders and entrepreneurs from Nangarhar, Herat, Balkh, and Kandahar with prominent national level policymakers, including Agha Lalai Dastagery, Economic Advisor to President Ashraf Ghani, Mohammad Qurban Haqjo, Deputy Minister for Commerce, and Jaweed Hashimi, Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance. Also in attendance were a number of members of parliament, heads of several major national business associations and civil society organizations, and representatives from major media outlets. The discussion centered on how promoting the use of domestic agricultural and industrial products can create job opportunities, reduce reliance on foreign imports, and incentivize growth in a number of economic sectors.
The roundtable featured several presentations by CIPE Afghanistan staff, including Country Director Mohammad Nasib, as well as by ACCI CEO Atiqullah Nusrat and NCPR Director Noor Ebad, on the importance of implementing concrete policy reforms that encourage the use of domestic products. In the ensuing discussions, a number of businesspeople and entrepreneurs voiced their support for the PBA program, and highlighted areas where policymakers and elected officials could support further private sector growth.
Moulizada, Vice Chairman of the Herat Industrialists’ Association pointed out that one of the key obstacles to promoting domestic products is the perception that Afghan agricultural and industrial products are lower quality. He further explained that the Afghan government can play a key role in supporting the private sector overcome this barrier by conducting awareness raising campaigns. Several other business association leaders, including Mohammad Hassan Sepahi, Chairman of the Federation of Afghan Craftsmen and Traders (FACT) raised the issue of how complicated registration and taxation procedures create difficulties for Afghan industrialists and farmers who are attempting to sell their products. On their part, the government policymakers and elected officials present pointed out the progress that has already been made since the release of the PBA reports, and pledged to continue to work to implement as many of the recommended policy reforms as possible.
What was evident to all of the participants, government policymakers, and private sector members alike, was that in order to incentivize commercial growth at the provincial level, it is imperative for both private and public sector stakeholders to work collaboratively to develop a policy framework that improves the business climate. Roundtable discussions such as these play a key role in initiating constructive dialog on policy issues between public and private sector members and encouraging the development and implementation of pro-business policies.
Moving forward, CIPE plans to organize two more national roundtable discussions which bring together business leaders from the provinces with policymakers in Kabul to continue to discuss key policy issues in the PBA reports. By encouraging public and private sector stakeholders to work collaboratively, CIPE hopes to support the Afghan private sector and policymakers lay the policy framework to kick-start economic growth from the ground up and increase the prospects for development and stability in Afghanistan.
Vivek Shivaram is Program Assistant for South Asia at CIPE.