The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with the European Union (EU), has announced the launch of a $16.9 million initiative aimed at supporting women entrepreneurs and women-led small businesses in Afghanistan. The program intends to strengthen women’s livelihoods and prevent the collapse of local economies.<\/p>\n
This initiative is part of a larger scheme called “Abadi,” designed to address Afghanistan’s economic crisis and expected to cover over 8 million people in the next two years. According to the United Nations, more than 23,400 women entrepreneurs will directly benefit from this program.<\/p>\n
Under this plan, women active in both formal and informal sectors will gain access to financial assistance, skills training, and technical support, enabling them to sustain their economic activities, increase production, and play a more active role in reinforcing local markets. The European Union has stated that beyond economic support, the program also encompasses essential sectors such as health, nutrition, drinking water, hygiene, education, and food security.<\/p>\n
Abdullah Aldardari, the UNDP representative in Afghanistan, emphasized that continuing the operation of women-led small businesses is vital for economic stability at the local level and expressed gratitude for the European Union\u2019s financial support. Jutta Urpilainen, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, also stressed that the EU has not forgotten the people of Afghanistan and remains committed to supporting their basic needs.<\/p>\n
This development comes amid extensive restrictions imposed by the Taliban administration on women’s education and employment, raising serious concerns about the future of the country’s economy. The United Nations Development Programme has warned that the continuation of these restrictions could have significant negative impacts on economic growth and could substantially reduce Afghanistan’s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n
According to UNDP statistics, approximately 80 percent of economic activities in Afghanistan occur in the informal sector, with women constituting over 71 percent of the informal non-agricultural workforce. This figure indicates that removing or limiting women’s roles exerts direct pressure on family livelihoods and economic stability at the community level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNDP and EU launch a $16.9 million program to support Afghan women entrepreneurs and protect local economies amid ongoing restrictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-important-news","category-secondary-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}