The socio economic effects of American withdrawal

[Digital Soldier]

Visit any government office in Kabul and you will see young employees in their twenties or early thirties, flashing expensive cloths, smart phones and the latest computer gadgets. They are the so called National Technical Assistants; receiving their salaries in dollar values averaging thirty thousands in annual salary, forty times more than the per capita income in the country. Contrary to that, the regular government employees receive much lower wages, who on average receive $ 4,000 in annual salary. The same is true with the private sector the large number of NGOs operating in Afghanistan, who are willing to pay high salary mainly because someone is good with English and able to use basic computer applications.

Though forming only a small percentage of the total population of the cities, this group has developed their unique subculture. Fancy restaurants, shopping malls, luxury fitness gyms, indoor swimming pools and Kabul’s only bowling club have all sprouted to serves the needs of this unique class of citizens. Though the sudden flood of aid money and investments in Afghanistan has created many millionaires but such millionaires are usually less educated thus having a rather different lifestyle.

Things like family planning, dieting, and having hobbies, the hall marks of modern societies, are mainly limited to this unique sub-middle class. At the same time volunteering and doing social work are slowly making its way into Afghan society through the same group of people.

But more importantly, since such people have benefited immensely from their education, they place great value on it. They spend a good amount of their income on their own and the education of their family members. This has created a market for private schools and universities, something that never existed before the arrival of western troops into the country. Ten years ago knowing English would guarantee high paid job, whereas nowadays master degree is a minimum requirement for most jobs. The demand for good education is such that the American University of Afghanistan accepts only 25 percents of its applicants to its masters program which costs $17,500 in tuition fees for the two years program.

In the last 10 years billions of dollars are spent to stabilize Afghanistan and transform and modernize the Afghan society. Part of the aid was channeled to transform local communities, improve woman rights, establish democracy, improve living standards and health, etc. But the amount of money spent in this regard never brought about the expected results. There might be many reasons for this failure, but three of the main causes can the lack of capacity on behalf the local staff implementing these projects, lack of education of the masses, and lack of role models. And I believe that this special class of people can both be good roles models and the backbone of Afghanistan’s working capacity.

Serving as the early adopters for any new idea, it is very important for the international community to maintain this special group in order to channel new ideas into the highly traditional Afghan society. Whether it is democracy, woman rights, environmental protection, modernized business, quality education, etc, they all should make way into Afghan society through this specific group of people.

But as with the planned exit of Foreign forces in 2014, and hence the lack of interest in Afghanistan, it is expected that the foreign aid to Afghanistan will substantially be reduced. The Afghan government is working hard towards preparing itself for post 2014 Afghanistan. Part of the preparation is to cut down on its developmental budget and hence the salaries of these high paid employees, resulting in a ten percent cut for the coming year alone. The plan is to gradually reduce such salaries to half the current amounts in short term and eliminate them altogether in long term.

This may save some funds for the donor community in the short term and enable the Afghan government to pay for its employees. But in the long run such a decision may result in the collapse of this class by many of these employees migrating to foreign countries. Even if that does not happen, the urge to get quality education among such people in order to compete for high paid jobs will definitely cease to continue. Thus instead of channeling money directly towards security, social changes, and education, it is better to allocate part of the money to encourage those who have sit good examples and attract our best talent towards education and have a reason for them to stay in the country. Such people should be supported to continue in the same manner so we can get highly educated class in future who may come up with Afghan solutions for the Afghan problems.
By: Mohammad Khan, Program Manager at Ministry of Education, Afghanistan