Infrastructure critical to stimulate Afghan economic growth – UN envoy

The top United Nations official in Afghanistan has stressed the need for investment in large infrastructure projects, which he said would connect the region and stimulate economic growth.

Addressing the informal Group of Eight (G8) meeting on Afghanistan, held last week in Trieste, Italy, Kai Eide noted that most of the economic growth today stems from the influx of donor resources. “We all know this is not sustainable. Afghanistan needs to generate its own wealth.”

Mr. Eide, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said that the development of infrastructure was “the most critical precondition for economic growth.”

Investments in transport infrastructure, for example, would “turn the country from being a barrier in the region to being a land bridge, enabling products to go from the east – from India and Pakistan through to Afghanistan and north or west.”

He noted that two railway lines were already being planned, one from the northern border to Torkham, and the other from Iran to the north-east. “What we are asking is that you fill in the gaps,” he told donors.

Transport infrastructure would also allow the country to develop its vast natural resources. Planned railway lines would run close to existing iron ore deposits, making their extraction economically feasible.

Also crucial for the country and the region was investment in energy sector, he added. “With additional transport and energy infrastructure, investments that are now economically unfeasible would become possible.”

Mr. Eide pointed out that investment in large projects that can drive sustainable economic development in Afghanistan and the region will deliver returns, economic and political, in both the short and long term.