Summary: We prepared this thought piece with the goal of charting out an implementable pathway for the U.S. Government (and other donor states) in Afghanistan going forward while not forgetting our principled and moral obligations to the Afghan people -- especially to women and young girls.
Our immediate U.S. priority from a national security standpoint is to establish a more viable market-based economy and a robust social services sector with independence from direct Taliban control. Importantly, we also warn in this publication, that the U.S. (and all donors) should be sure to prevent a UN parallel economy from taking over the nation during the response to the current humanitarian crisis. Afghan business leaders and NGOs are tremendously frustrated that UN agencies are not using their capable and established Afghan supply chain networks, functionality and services--at least thus far. We recommend two pathways forward for American assistance to Afghanistan: including:
a) providing expansive humanitarian relief activities channeled through Afghan nongovernmental and market-based (private sector) supply chain mechanisms, and
b) relieving all restrictions on the transfer of banking capital (i.e., liquidity) into Afghanistan in order to free the private sector to create jobs, increasing economic resiliency through trade and dramatically improving livelihoods within key employment sectors of agriculture, export-import trade, banking, mining, energy and more.
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