Background and History of Afghanistan:
Economy

The economy of Afghanistan suffers from total destruction of the nation's industrial infrastructure, contamination of the agricultural land with landmines, the soaring inflation, lack of banking and communication systems and Taliban’s exclusion of women from the work force. Currently, more than 80% of Kabul population is unemployed. Reportedly, male workers in government ministries were fired by the Taliban because they received part of their education abroad, because of contacts with the previous regimes, or because of insufficient beard length. The vast majority of the people throughout the country live below poverty level and an alarming number of children, men, women, including war widows, former schoolteachers, former government workers have turned to begging for survival. The health care and education infrastructure has been virtually destroyed by the war and the “brain drain” of more than 100,000 of the country’s educated and technically trained elite who have restteled abraod. (More than 90% of educated and trained professionals have fled the country in several waves of refugee since 1992). In the late 1990s, drug smuggling and illicit cultivation of opium was the basis of economy for the war-torn Afghanistan.

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