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STORY: UN / AFGHANISTAN SOCIO-ECONOMIC REVIEW
TRT: 04:46
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 30 APRIL 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
30 APRIL 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific:
“So, it's the first time since 2019 that we actually see a positive GDP growth rate, and it's at 2.7 per cent and this is because there are stronger revenues coming in from cross border trade, tax collection, mining sector, etc. Now, usually if you see a positive upswing in GDP, which had been negative growth rates for the last five years, you would think that that actually translates to improved living standards at the household level. But our UNDP report actually looks at the household economy. It looks at what does a household look like in Afghanistan today, and you see this diverging and in fact, showing a decrease in basic indicators, looking at the Subsistence Insecurity data that we have compiled.”
4. Wide shot, journalists in the press room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific:
“The data shows that about 75 per cent of Afghans are now what we would call Subsistence Insecure. And that is up since 2023. It means that basically, living on a shoestring.”
6. Wide shot, journalists in the press room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific:
“Now the two immediate basic needs issues that are very stark is we see a drop in the quality of housing and in the quality of health and healthcare.”
8. Wide shot, journalists in the press room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific:
“Then the big hit is a further hit on women. So, in this household survey, that was nationwide, it shows now that only about seven per cent of Afghan women say they are part of the formal labor force, i.e. they work outside the home in formal work.”
10. Wide shot, journalists in the press room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific:
“The math is very clear. This country by not allowing 50 per cent of its workforce, i.e. women, to actually contribute fully to the economy, probably loses approximately close to a billion dollars in 2023 and 2024, that's about six percentage points of GDP.”
12. Wide shot, journalists in the press room
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen Rodriques, UNDP Resident Representative in Afghanistan:
“We now have a mixture of chronic structural problems combined with new emerging challenges. And what the data in this new report is telling us is that we should see this as a bellwether of very difficult times that lie ahead for the people of Afghanistan. Already we are seeing a ballooning trade deficit, and the data is in the report. We are seeing a paralyzed international payment system, which is what is crippling trade and commerce in the country. International banks won’t do business with local banks and so on. preferably international banks. The World Bank and others are protecting stagnant economic growth and over the last three months the government has struggled to pay salaries for public sector workers. And it’s very visible on the streets of Kabul and major cities – more and more hungry and unemployed people.”
14. Wide shot, journalists in the press room
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Stephen Rodriques, UNDP Resident Representative in Afghanistan:
“And on top of this we should remember that Afghanistan is the number six country in the world in terms of countries impacted by climate change. So, every year we go to different provinces, districts and villages to see thousands of households where people have lost everything. Their homes, their livelihoods, their crops destroyed by flash floods, destroyed by droughts. And we still have close to 600,000 former poppy farmers and workers who still have no alternative livelihoods three years after the poppy ban was introduced.”
16. Wide shot, end of press briefing
A "bellwether of very difficult times" lie ahead for the people of Afghanistan, UNDP officials briefed reporters on the release of a new socio-economic report on conditions in the country.
They warned of deepening household-level hardship across Afghanistan despite signs of economic recovery at the national level. “About 75 per cent of Afghans are now what we would call subsistence insecure,” said Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific.
Briefing reporters at UN Headquarters in New York today (Apr 30), Wignaraja said this marked a worsening trend. “That is up since 2023,” she added. “It means that basically, living on a shoestring.”
According to the UNDP’s Afghanistan Socio-Economic Review: Fragile Gains, Deepening Subsistence Insecurity, the country recorded a 2.7 percent GDP growth for the first time since 2019, fueled by cross-border trade, tax revenues, and the mining sector. But Wignaraja stressed that these gains are not translating into improved household conditions. “Our UNDP report actually looks at the household economy,” she said. “And you see this diverging and in fact, showing a decrease in basic indicators.”
Among the clearest declines, she pointed to worsening housing and health conditions. “Now the two immediate basic needs issues that are very stark is we see a drop in the quality of housing and in the quality of health and healthcare,” Wignaraja said.
Women continue to face steep economic exclusion. “Only about seven per cent of Afghan women say they are part of the formal labor force,” she said. “The math is very clear. This country by not allowing 50 per cent of its workforce, women, to actually contribute fully to the economy, probably loses approximately close to a billion dollars in 2023 and 2024.”
Stephen Rodriques, UNDP’s Resident Representative in Afghanistan, said the country is confronting a combination of issues. “We now have a mixture of chronic structural problems combined with new emerging challenges,” he said. “And what the data in this new report is telling us is that we should see this as a bellwether of very difficult times that lie ahead.”
Rodriques described a ballooning trade deficit and a crippled international banking system. “International banks won’t do business with local banks,” he said, adding that the government has struggled to pay public salaries in recent months. “It’s very visible on the streets of Kabul and major cities – more and more hungry and unemployed people.”
He also warned that Afghanistan ranks among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. “Every year we go to different provinces, districts and villages to see thousands of households where people have lost everything,” he said. “Their homes, their livelihoods, their crops destroyed by flash floods, destroyed by droughts.” Nearly 600,000 former poppy farmers still lack alternative income sources, he added, three years after the crop was banned.
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