Daily life in Afghanistan is still a struggle. Decades of insecurity, destruction and terrorist activities have all taken their toll.

Poverty is deeply entrenched and Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. The average income is about $350 per year. 15 million people, about half of the population of 31 million people earn less than $1 a day. 1 in 4 children never reach their fifth birthday.

 

Reconstruction is painfully slow; large parts of Afghanistan’s infrastructure are still in tatters and the vast majority don’t have access to electricity or safe water, a decent home or health or education facilities.

 

Poor education facilities over the last two decades have contributed to poor literacy rates; 71% of Afghans over 15 cannot read or write (rising to 92% for women from rural areas). And still, 3 out of 5 girls never get the opportunity to go to school

 

The economy

 

Economic growth has been strong in recent years but the economy is still dominated by the opium industry, corruption, and indebtedness. A lack of education and training for Afghans means that opportunity to develop the economy and provide alternative employment has been limited.

 

Afghanistan has export potential in several sectors including agriculture, mining, gas and traditional goods such as carpets.

 

Organisations such as Afghan Action are working with local communities helping with the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The goal is to help tackle poverty through providing young people with an education and training. If Afghanistan is to get back on its feet and develop a sustainable economy, it is vital that its population, especially young people, should receive the education, training and employment opportunities that they deserve and which provide a real alternative to the poppy trade.

 

Fair Trade vs Poppy Trade

 

Cultivating the poppy is Afghanistan’s biggest industry and trading heroin accounts for 30% of its economy. Afghanistan now supplies 92% of the world’s opium, much of which ends up on the streets in the West, including in the UK, as heroin.

 

According to the UN, 3 million Afghans are involved in growing opium – 12.6% of the country’s population. The majority of the $3 billion revenue goes to the war lords and the Taliban who control the trade, while the farmers who grow it scrape only a bare subsistence (UN Office on Drugs and Crime).

 

The situation in Afghanistan is desperately serious, not only for the people there, but for people in the UK and the West who are exposed to increasingly accessible and cheap drugs.

 

Developing a viable, sustainable alternative to growing poppies is of paramount importance. Afghan Action believes that the best way to overcome the poverty, violence and heroin drug trade is to create jobs and businesses under fair and ethical employment conditions. Afghan Action’s mission is “helping people help themselves through training and jobs”, particularly in an area that offers few opportunities for young women to receive an education or a job.

 

Carpet Trade

 

The Pazyryk Carpet from the Altai Mountains in Siberia is the earliest known hand knotted carpet, dating from 500 BC, although weaving has been found depicted in an Egyptian fresco from 2000 BC.

 

Afghanistan is one of six great carpet producing areas in the Middle East/Asia. Afghan carpets are renowned for their weave finesse, material quality and richness of dyes. They are often referred to as Turkoman carpets, traditionally made in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkistan. Carpets made in Afghanistan usually have the distinguishing design of a reddish brown background covered with rows of small octagons. A usual pattern is a field with a zig-zag border matching the outlines of a row of linked diamond medallions in the middle. The main colour is dark red, with designs in blues, yellows and reds. A design consisting of a deep rich coloured background showing several rows of two different coloured quartered octagons is common from Afghanistan.

 

Afghan Action’s beautiful traditional handmade carpets are styled on Kazak geometric and other traditional Afghan designs such as Aqhchai, Andkhui, Chakoshi, Mazari, Uzbaki Kazak.

 

The export of Afghan carpets has declined massively from over 3.5 million square metres in 1999 to 37,000 square metres in 2002. A poor trading infrastructure and difficulty in regaining access to markets, which have been infiltrated by cheaper Turkish and Iranian (mainly machine made) carpets, means that Afghanistan has struggled to compete.

 

And even where they do find a market, “producers get only a small share of the price paid by the final consumers - 8 to 15% of the final price in the case of carpet weavers” (World Bank 2004).