While Presidents of Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic and top representatives from some other countries were in Kabul for celebrating one of the Nawroz festivals, the World Bank Group’s Board of Directors approved US$ 526.5 million in grant for the Central Asia, South Asia Electricity Transmission and Trade Project (CASA-1000) for four countries: Afghanistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. The project will build 1,270 kilometers of electricity transmission lines between the four countries from which more than 500 kilometer of it will stretch inside Afghanistan.

The project is estimated to cost more than one billion dollar. The remaining cost will be given by Islamic Development Bank and USAID. It will transit 1300 Mega Watt  (MW) of electricity from republic of central Asia to south Asia where 400 million do not have proper and regular access to electricity. Both Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic have excess summer hydropower. From 1300 MW of electricity, 300 MW of it would be spent inside Afghanistan and the rest will be transmitted to Pakistan. The transmission line of the electricity will add annually 80 million dollar to Afghan government public budget.

Additional to economic benefits of the project, I think it has several other benefits. Presently, our country largely suffers from dependent economy. It has changed into a consumption market for goods and services of neighboring and foreign countries. Even for transferring those goods, we largely depend on the transit line of our neighboring countries since we our country is surrounded by land and have no access to international water.

But during past few years, our neighboring countries often mounted pressure on government through closing through those transit lines without caring about the reaction of Kabul. Because they clearly understand that Kabul has no choice other than yielding to their demands.

Therefore, the built of such vital trade lines tighten our economic relation with neighbors. Their economic interests also get knotted to our peace and instability. In other words, the economic and political power balance shifts from a unilateral to bilateral and multilateral relations. Kabul finds a chance to act tit-for-tat in the case of any irresponsible pressure on the country as imposed during past years. Meanwhile, it will compensate the energy shortages of the country. However, we have enormous water which in the future would be the engine of our economic development but for now the tense regional environment does not allow the construction of such facilities. So, the construction of CASA-1000 and other similar project will both support peace and stability and also economic growth in this region.