A few days ago, I watched interview of a senior government official who was trying his best to hide the inactiveness of government regarding the soaring unemployment in the country and giving strange and funny explanations and excuses in this regard. The said official was a senior official in the ministry of youth affairs and he was called to talk about the worsening situation of unemployment in the country given the fact it was the prime factor behind the disappointment of youth from the country and their future and were heading to face all the difficulties to reach to European states. According to the said official, ‘Here, our youngsters feel embarrassed to do pity works like cleaning, dishwashing and others but they do happily the same work in European countries.’ His next important weapon was the use of feeling of patriotism and whenever he felt himself answerless, he would revert to his typical words, ‘We need to show sacrifice to the country as this country has given us a lot and now is our turn to give back to this country. Countries are never built in favorable conditions but great nations have always built their countries by facing the adverse conditions.’

More or less is the case with the announcement of government to develop employment opportunities for the jobless people. The President made this announcement after much pressure from public and media that unemployment is giving birth to so many other problems like uncertainty about the future of the country, increase in crime rates, and others. In the first phase of this plan, thousands of jobs will be created in which Afghan youths will clean the cities and towns. This project has been initially planned for some major cities, which will be later extended to all other cities and towns of the country.

The idea has been taken from that of the United States after the Great Depression of 1930s in which American economy experienced its worst recession and unemployment skyrocketed. In response to this, American government came into action and established large numbers of arms factories in which thousands of jobs were created and economic activities started pumping blood into the body of the American economy. With this, American economy started its recovery and then became the biggest economy of the world. But it was lucky for them that in 1939, the Second World War started and the idea of establishing weapons factories turned out to be a perfect decision. When the war ended in 1945, the American economy had already recovered and it was no more dependent on the weapons industry. As a part of this campaign, a wave of construction-based activities will start with the financial and technical support of our neighboring friend country of China. According to the media reports, China will build ten thousand apartments in a number of cities in Afghanistan and this will give rise to a new wave of economic activities in the country. It will generate job opportunities to thousands of people and many other directly or indirectly related industries will benefit from the project. At the same time, it will provide cheaper houses to thousands of Afghans and will bring down the prices of houses and apartments in the country. Comparing to the first idea of cleaning the cities, this idea seems to be more meaningful as it will involve not only illiterate labor but will also involve engineers and technical people from different fields. This project is also self-sustaining as these apartments can be then sold to people and it will provide capital to restart the cycle and invest in similar projects in the country. However, it remains a fact that in last 14 years of democracy, construction was the most corrupt business in which millions of dollars were wasted and it is the reason that newly paved roads broke down in a span of few years and the standard of construction of buildings in the country was really unsatisfactory. There were number of blacklisted construction companies that stole millions of dollars of public money and majority of them belonged to the most rich and powerful families who are also present at high positions in the government. It must be made sure that the whole process should be transparent and there should be vigilant check and balance so that this project should not be the victim of corruption and it should not hurt the trust of republic of China who have come forward to help the country in its critical conditions.

When visiting shops and markets, we realize that there are hundreds or even thousands of products that are imported from other countries but these products can be easily manufactured in the country. It is needed that a detailed study should be carried out that should find out what products can be manufactured in the country that we are at present importing from other countries and then government should work to establish factories where these products should be manufactured. It is the responsibility of government to establish factories so that people should get more and more jobs. Factories are also the sustainable and long-lasting factors of an economy while cleanliness campaigns can only bring temporary economic activities and it can soon eat away the funds of government, which is not the case with factories and industries.

It is also unfortunate that on one hand, we cry about joblessness and on the other, government and its concerned ministry and offices never show any seriousness to make the conditions favorable for a new factory or business. Afghanistan is still one of the most difficult countries to establish a new business or run a business. Flagrant corruption and bribe-acceptance is the main reason that people are hesitant to invest in the country. In the last 14 years, thousands of Afghans or foreigners brought their money to establish factories in the country but they got disappointed having a look at the difficult conditions to do business. On the other hand, numerous countries not only make starting a new business easy but they also provide businessmen with numerous benefits and incentives so that more and more investors should be attracted. In Afghanistan, it is exact opposite; here, all the efforts are made so that a person should be disappointed and pack his business. In the same way, the security conditions in the country are a big question mark in this regard. Until and unless the government does not make efforts to bring peace and stability in the country, dreaming of new businesses and creating job opportunities would remain an impossible task to be achieved.  After the given steps are taken, government can expect actual and sustainable business and employment opportunities in the country and would not be dependent on those projects that are both baseless and illogical.