Job creations and crises in Afghanistan
After security, major threat to Afghans, especially the growing number of youth, is high rate of unemployment in the country. According to the updated IMF forecasts from 14 April 2020, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19, GDP growth is expected to fall to -3% in 2020 and pick up to 4.5% in 2021, subject to global recovery. The pandemic crisis has already affected the unemployment rate in the country increasing unemployment rate from 23.9 percent in 2017 to 37.9 percent in 2020.
Educational achievements and participation rates across the country are severely depressed, causing non-alignment between educational outputs and labour market needs. Majority of our Afghan youth live in the rural areas just close to their farms where the potential for job opportunities are very high. Thus, there is need to train agripreneurs to increase employment opportunities across the country, particularly the rural areas of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) places high priority to address low literacy rates that result in less than a quarter of students completing the first nine years of education and less than ten percent pursuing education until grade 12. Gender inequality is also a deeply entrenched problem. Teachers in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) need access to enhanced teaching materials and support to improve their teaching methods. Many teachers lack formal training in delivering courses related to agribusiness. These challenges are endemic at the primary and secondary levels and are more pronounced at the tertiary level when graduating students struggle to find gainful employment.
Although Afghanistan is very popular for its agriculture sector, it does not have well trained people to engage in post-harvest agriculture activities, mainly agribusiness development. One of the reasons for this deficiency is that our public or private universities do not provide formal trainings in agripreneurship or agriculture entrepreneurship. Almost all public universities has agriculture departments but none of them has any agriculture entrepreneurship/business programs. There is need to strike partnership with these universities aiming at: (a) developing innovative, transformative, and market-oriented curricula for undergraduate students with due consideration of gender equity; and (b) facilitating agribusiness and entrepreneurship curricula that addresses the current and emerging needs of Afghanistan horticulture, food and livestock sectors. This will lead to market-ready students with an entrepreneurial vision that can create immediate impacts in Afghanistan’s agribusiness. There is a need to create a self-reliant program focusing on agribusiness and entrepreneurship with the participation of women students through an undergraduate externship program developed in close consultation with the Ministry of Higher Education. The students should be provided externship programs to be conducted in Afghanistan and India or any other neighboring country with exposure to target industries like seeds, cotton, cold chain/cold storage facilities, and food processing, packaging industries and supply chain management etc. Upon successful implementation of these programs this will promote the emergence of new agribusinesses by graduating students; increased employment; market-oriented curriculum and increased participation of women.
Interventions: Horticulture and Livestock sector should be strengthened through policy changes in higher education system in Afghanistan.
1. Component I: Development and introduction of curricula to develop industry ready human resources
2. Component II- In close consultation with Ministry of Higher Education develop an externship program to support to students and faculty from six Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the country in agribusiness and agripreneurship:
3. Component III: Sustainability: Need to establish an Advisory Board guiding us to engage with all relevant Afghan partners (government; private; NGO’s).
Geographic Location:
The Kabul University should serve as the model and be the focus of interventions that is replicable across different regions of the country. There is need to focus in eight regions where six HEI’s are based: North (Balkh, Faryab, Juazjan, Samangan, Sar-i-Pul); Northeast (Badakhshan, Baghlan, Kunduz, Takhar); West (Herat, Farah, Badghis); West Central (Ghor, Bamyan); Central (Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Logar, Wardak, Bamyan); South (Paktika, Paktya, Khost, Ghazni); East (Nangarhar, Lagman, Kunar, Niuristan); and Southwest (Nimroz, Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, Uruzgan).