UN Mission Urges Livelihood Support After Poppy Ban in Badakhshan
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the economic consequences of the ban on poppy cultivation in Badakhshan province have highlighted the need for greater investment in creating alternative and sustainable livelihoods. UNAMA’s head, Georgette Gagnon, stressed the creation of jobs and income opportunities during her visit to the province in areas whose economies have been hit by the ban.
UNAMA said Gagnon met local Taliban authorities, tribal elders, civil society representatives and a number of Badakhshan residents during the trip. According to the mission, the meetings discussed people’s living conditions, especially those of women, as well as the consequences of drugs.
The UNAMA chief also met a number of women entrepreneurs in the city of Faizabad. She also visited a drug rehabilitation centre operating with UN support.
Earlier, Abdul Salam Hanafi, the deputy administrative prime minister of the Taliban administration, criticised the lack of significant international cooperation to support farmers after the ban on narcotics cultivation. He said there had so far been no meaningful cooperation to expand alternative crops and secure the livelihoods of Afghanistan’s farmers.
Scott Smith, head of the political section at the UN mission office in Kabul, had also stressed in a meeting with the Taliban administration’s deputy director of counter-narcotics the need for international cooperation with Afghanistan in the fight against drugs.
According to a UN report, farmers in northern Afghanistan have faced serious difficulties replacing their sources of income after the poppy ban. Badakhshan is one of Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces, where a number of villages depend on agriculture, and falling incomes in these areas could increase economic pressure on rural families.
