The World Bank has warned in a recent report that without investment in water resource management and Afghanistan’s food supply chain, the country’s food security will face increasing threats. The institution identifies Afghanistan as one of the most vulnerable countries in the region to climate change, drought, and water shortages.<\/p>\n
The report, titled “Strengthening Food Security and Creating Jobs: Policy Pathways for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan,” states that with fundamental reforms, it is possible to create over five million jobs by 2050 in the agricultural and food industries of the region, including Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
According to the World Bank, extensive investment, business environment reforms, development of agricultural technologies, improvement of irrigation systems, and modernization of food value chains can pave the way for these job opportunities. Without such measures, fragile countries like Afghanistan will face a worsening food crisis.<\/p>\n
The report notes that Afghanistan is a net importer of food commodities and relies on imports to meet the essential needs of its people. However, these imports play a significant role in compensating for domestic water scarcity, as importing agricultural products indirectly reduces internal water consumption.<\/p>\n
The World Bank reports Afghanistan’s per capita GDP at about 400 dollars, the lowest among the countries reviewed. It identifies ongoing conflicts, insecurity, and violence as the main factors behind economic stagnation and deteriorating food security. These issues have been exacerbated in recent years by economic restrictions and weak governance under the Taliban, hindering sustainable stability.<\/p>\n
Alongside Afghanistan, countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen comprise a large portion of the region’s population facing food crises. The report highlights that over 24 million people in Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, and Yemen are at phase four or higher of food insecurity emergency levels, indicating extremely severe food shortages.<\/p>\n
Simultaneously, the United Nations has reported that 51 percent of Afghanistan’s population is food insecure and relies on humanitarian aid for daily survival. The UN attributes the spread of food insecurity in the country to climate change, consecutive droughts, floods, war and violence, forced return of migrants, and political and economic challenges.<\/p>\n
The World Bank recommends that in fragile countries like Afghanistan, policymaking should focus on immediate access to food for the population, preserving domestic agricultural production capacity, and gradually rebuilding the agricultural and food systems, alongside improving economic and security stability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The World Bank warns Afghanistan’s food security faces severe threats without investment in water and food supply systems amid climate and conflict challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,17,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16761","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\/16761","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=16761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}