Rising unemployment is one of the main reasons behind the deteriorating economic situation.
  (Photo: Prensa Latina)

Kabul, January 1 (RHC)-- The international children's rights non-governmental organization Save the Children has warned in a recent report that more than 6.6 million people face hunger in Afghanistan.  

The number of people facing severe hunger increased in eight countries around the world by 57 percent between 2019 and 2022, it added.  The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification data points to Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen as having the highest number of people with catastrophic levels of hunger and malnutrition emergency between 2019 and 2022.

Several Kabul residents said that rising unemployment is one of the main reasons behind the deteriorating economic situation.  Analysts said there is a need to invest in infrastructure projects to alleviate poverty in the war-torn country.

To reduce poverty in Afghanistan, there must be a focus on agriculture, investment and management of problems affecting the poor, said Mir Shakib Mir, an economic affairs analyst.  The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the deteriorating economy causes sharp drops in income, increases debt and unemployment and due to the severe rise in commodity prices people spend 71 percent of their income on food.

More than 28 million people in Afghanistan, almost half of them children, will need humanitarian aid in 2023, according to the United Nations.  After years of conflict and instability, the economic and political situation brought more problems to the war-torn Central Asian country, which was also affected by recurrent natural disasters, including the Covid-19 pandemic.

Along with drought and climate change, the blockade of banking assets by the United States and other Western countries, and the closure of the financial and banking systems, are factors that increased the level of poverty in Afghanistan, said Abdul Rahman Habib, spokesman for the economy portfolio.

The U.S. analysis and advisory firm Gallup said 90 percent of Afghans can barely find income and resources from work, and 86 percent of them cannot get food.  The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) warned that 13.1 million Afghan children live under the shadow of war and hardship and are in need of humanitarian aid.

One in two infants under the age of five suffers from acute malnutrition, while more than one million suffer from severe acute malnutrition, and authorities believe that 112 children could die every day for lack of primary health care.

Afghanistan is in worse economic and social conditions after the military withdrawal of the United States, which invaded the country in 2001 under the pretext of fighting terrorism.