Amin Agha worked as a manual laborer for eight years at Bagram Airfield, the U.S. military\u2019s largest base in Afghanistan.
\nBut as the United States begins its final troop withdrawal from the country, Agha is among hundreds of Afghans who have recently lost their jobs at the facility, the Radio Free Afghanistan reported. The American military has employed tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and contributed significantly to the local economy since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
\nThe sharp reduction of foreign forces since the peak of the war in 2011 has inflicted an economic shock on Afghanistan, severely affecting businesses, people\u2019s jobs, and their incomes.
\nThousands more Afghans will be affected when the last foreign troops depart by September 11.
\nObservers warn that a fall in international aid following the pullout will compound the already ominous economic conditions in Afghanistan, where poverty and unemployment are soaring.
\n\u201cPeople are in trouble,\u201d says Agha, a 33-year-old construction worker who lives with his family of eight in a village near Bagram Airfield. \u201cSome people who have lost their jobs can\u2019t even afford to feed their families anymore.\u201d
\nEven as Afghans confront a bleak economic future, many are also bracing for an intensification of the decades-long war after the withdrawal. Many expect the pullout to further undercut the weak Kabul government and encourage the Taliban to seek war instead of peace.
\nThe international military presence has been a key source of employment for Afghans for nearly 20 years, attracting cooks, cleaners, manual laborers, mechanics, translators, and security guards. Afghan businesses were contracted to supply equipment, fuel, fruits, vegetables, and bottled water. Transport companies ferried supplies to and from bases. Construction companies were employed to build bases, including constructing watchtowers and other facilities.
\nIn 2011, when NATO had 130,000 soldiers and around 800 military bases in Afghanistan, the U.S. government and various agencies dispersed some $5 billion directly to Afghan companies as prime contractors, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a U.S. government watchdog.
\nThe foreign military presence even altered the country\u2019s demographics, with an unpublished United Nations report in 2014 estimating that 11.5 million Afghans \u2014 around 40 percent of the population \u2014 lived within a five-kilometer radius of at least one military base or facility.
\nIn the capital, the livelihoods of nearly 90 percent of Kabul\u2019s population of some 5 million were directly tied to the foreign military presence, according to the UN report. But business has dramatically fallen off since 2014, when tens of thousands of foreign combat troops departed, and the number of bases fell to just 80. Only a dozen such military facilities remain open and they will be closed or transferred to Afghan control by September.
\nThe shrinking foreign military presence has devastated the lucrative logistics and construction sectors. Many Afghan businesses catering to foreigners have closed. Owners have often left the country and taken much-needed cash with them.
\nThe housing bubble, fueled largely by the war economy, has burst, with prices in the capital tumbling. Car dealerships in Kabul also recently reported a significant decrease in business.
\nThe fallout from dwindling international military spending has been exacerbated by worsening security, political uncertainty and, most recently, the coronavirus pandemic.
\nEconomic growth, which stood at more than 14 percent in 2012, fell to just under 4 percent in 2019, according to the World Bank. It is expected to shrink by 5 percent this year.
\nAfghanistan\u2019s poverty rate has worsened noticeably, rising to 72 percent in 2020, up from 55 percent a year before. Meanwhile, unemployment has surged to nearly 40 percent in 2020, up from around 24 percent in 2019. Observers warn that the dire economic conditions in Afghanistan could be aggravated by reductions in foreign aid.
\nInternational development aid to Afghanistan dropped from a high of $6.7 billion in 2011 to $4.2 billion in 2019, according to the World Bank. In November, donors further cut aid, pledging some $3.3 billion in civilian assistance for 2021.
\nAs Afghanistan\u2019s largest foreign donor, the United States has pledged to continue funding the government and the country\u2019s 300,000-strong national army and police force. But foreign assistance to vital aid programs has been shrinking, rights groups say.
\n\u201cWe have already seen that as troops have drawn down in Afghanistan there has been declining engagement by troop-contributing nations and that has often \u2014 not always but often \u2013translated into, or at least correlated with, reductions in aid as well,\u201d says Heather Barr, the interim co-director of the Women\u2019s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
\nAs an example, Barr cites women\u2019s access to health care, a sector that has seen significant progress since 2001. But she says declining funds have directly affected women\u2019s access to and quality of care. Rights groups say Afghanistan needs more aid, not less, following the international military withdrawal. Many Afghans fear the pullout will escalate military hostilities, undermining human rights gains and exacerbating the country\u2019s humanitarian crisis.
\nSome 14 million Afghans face food insecurity and malnutrition, according to the UN. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the past year. Meanwhile, a record number of undocumented Afghan migrants \u2014 nearly 870,000 \u2014 returned mainly from Iran in 2020. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amin Agha worked as a manual laborer for eight years at Bagram Airfield, the U.S. military\u2019s largest base in Afghanistan. But as the United States begins its final troop withdrawal from the country, Agha is among hundreds of Afghans who have recently lost their jobs at the facility, the Radio Free Afghanistan reported. The American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n