Decades of war in the country have left behind dozens of miseries. These wars have led the country around 100 years behind the development and have demolished its foundational infrastructures. The warriors destroyed many parts of the country. But Kabul, due to being the political capital of the country had been the sole battleground during the black ages of civil war.
Kabul as the result of hosting around thirty years of war had turned to a city of misfortunes. Comparing the 2012 Kabul with 1996 Kabul, when Taliban took over the country, the view is quite encouraging, but roaming around the city, you can find no street, crossroad and pavement where a child is not begging for a loaf of bread and widower is struggling to shelter her orphan children.
Considering the miserable scenes in Kabul streets after a decade of aid and assistance, the citizens are still deemed to be the burdens and the city looks nothing more than a zone of misfortunes who are tolerating the difficulties for no enjoyment of life other than just survival.
Security threats have not been the only contributor of miseries to the life of Afghan people. There are many other concerning issues such as air pollution, unemployment, poverty, the growing graph of population density, lack of access to healthy drinking water that have been adding to the misfortunes headed by the nation.
Kabul, the capital city which was built with the infrastructure capacity of housing around one million population and a maximum circulation of 75,000 cars is currently hosting around five million residents and 400, 000 cars excluding buses, circulating around the city. High densities of population and huge number of vehicles circulating around the city have terribly polluted the air and the citizens are suffering different sorts of respiratory diseases as a result of breathing dirty air.
According to a survey report by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in 2009 published in www.irinnews.org website, "Air pollution in Kabul is causing respiratory diseases that may be hastening the death of around 3,000 every year." The statistics in this report indicate that the number of lives being lost due to air pollution in Kabul is more than the death being caused by the terrorist acts, road accidents and natural death.
Furthermore, since the World Trade Center explosion took place in mid 2001, Afghanistan has been the focal point of international aids and supports. We have been profiting billions of international aids and military supports for a decade and many of our countrymen got the opportunity of crediting their accounts with millions of dollar.
It was really a golden chance for our leaders and ruling figures for getting out of the crisis and rebuild the fundamental infrastructures of the country so that after the international community's withdrawal, the employment graph would not have fallen down up to "35% of unemployment rate," according to CIA's estimation of unemployment rate in 2008. The figure should have doubled now.
The unemployment rate in Afghanistan in 2008 was estimated around 35%, according to a report published on CIA's World Fact Book page. So, calculating the overall percentage of unemployment rate out of the 26 million population in the country and considering the 50000000 people living in Kabul; then, it hosts around 7% of the unemployed people who can be a great source of trouble for the society.
Afghanistan has been the only country that has garnered most of the International Community's attention and aids during the last one decade. There have been thousands of International and National NGOs recruiting hundreds of experts and manual labors in different fields. The NGOs have created millions of employment opportunities for Afghan national and international citizens.
But as the withdrawal of international combat troops is getting closer and closer, the job security and opportunities are getting narrowed dawn. The NGOs are not hiring new employees; in fact, they are in process of downsizing the organization instead of creating new job opportunities. There are no new contracts and the ongoing contracts are all dead lined up to 2014. The business markets are all in pause mode and every one waits for the consequences of the war against terrorists by the end of 2014.
International Community has passed around $60 billion to Afghanistan up to now. But due to lack of capacity and high corruption rate, the funds are not spent efficiently. There have been two very widespread challenges that Afghan government has been facing during the last decade; 1. Security rivalries in southern and eastern parts of the country. 2. High rate of corruption in government.
The majority of the funds instead of being invested on large infrastructure such as the extraction of the natural resources which could lead the country's economy towards stability and independency are billed for security and to the high ranked officials' bank accounts. As a result, after ten years of sacrificing thousands of innocent lives, and tolerating a bloodshed era, the leading counterpart of the government (USA) declares the possibility of failure possibilities of the ongoing projects in the country due to lack of competency.
In addition, poverty is another phenomenon which is halting the system in the society. The estimated population of the country is around 26 million (2012-Est.). UNICEF estimates that around 50 percent of the population of 26 million people is under the age of 18 and up to 30 percent of primary school age children are working.
These children are often the sole source of income for their families. As a result of Soviet invasion in 1979 and three decades of civil war, thousands of men and women are either killed or handicapped. There are hundreds of families who have lost their family men and there is no one to support the family, except children and women. Therefore, labor of child is the only significant option for the most of the poor families to enhance the family's well being. Children are considered the future leaders of the nation, but our children instead of attending school are busy running after a loaf of bread for survival.
Finally, Kabul, along being the focal point of International Communities' billions of humanitarian aids during the last decade would still be ranked as the capital with a number of people begging for a loaf of bread. Kabul, after a decade of grounding the bloodshed against terrorist would still be listed among the most unfortunate capitals of the world.