Publication: Afghanistan Private Sector Rapid Survey - An Assessment of the Business Environment: Round 3
Loading...
Date
2024-06-21
ISSN
Published
2024-06-21
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Since the Interim Taliban Administration (ITA) assumed control of the country in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy has experienced a significant contraction that affected all sectors. The declines in international aid, economic output, and employment during this period have been compounded by the adverse effects of climate change, insufficient infrastructure, and the inability of most of the population to afford basic food items. The country remains isolated from the global economy, with continued high poverty and tighter restrictions on women’s economic activities. In this context, the World Bank continues to monitor the pulse of the country’s businesses through iterative implementation of a Private Sector Rapid Survey (PSRS). To better understand the economic situation on the ground and identify bottlenecks to growth, there is a need for ongoing collection and analysis of reliable micro-level data from the private sector. This report provides a new update on the private sector operating environment in the country, based on the results of Round 3 of the PSRS, implemented in March 2023, in large part through in-person interviews. The findings of this report underscore key constraints that prevent Afghanistan’s private sector from becoming a self-sustaining endogenous growth engine for economic recovery.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2024. Afghanistan Private Sector Rapid Survey - An Assessment of the Business Environment: Round 3. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41753 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication 2023 Food security monitoring in Papua New Guinea - Insights from high frequency phone surveys(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-06)The objective of the Pacific Observatory is to improve welfare for the poor and vulnerable in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Island Countries through expanding socio-economic information for better data-driven policymaking.Publication Insights from High Frequency Phone Surveys in Tonga(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-06)The development objective of the Pacific Observatory is to improve welfare for the poor and vulnerable in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Island Countries throughexpanding socio-economic information for better data-driven policymaking.Publication Nicaragua Poverty Assessment : Challenges and Opportunities for Poverty Reduction, Volume 1. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2001-02-21)The purpose of this Poverty Assessment is to provide background material and analysis that will assist the Government in designing this strategy, but it is not itself designed to formulate the strategy. Chapter 1 looks at the macro situation in historical perspective, including structural reform during the 1990s, and the current debt and balance of payments situation. Chapter 2 examines poverty in Nicaragua today and during 1993-98 and includes the results of a qualitative assessment of poverty. Chapter 3 looks at public expenditures in the social sectors and their impact on poverty. Chapter 4 looks at rural poverty and agriculture, while Chapter 5 lays out key issues that would be important to address in a poverty reduction strategy. Some key priorities emerge from the analysis that should be considered: 1) Broad-based growth is essential to reduce poverty. 2) Poverty reduction is limited by population growth. 3) Sustaining rural income growth. 4) Improvements are needed in the public sector to build strong programs that reach the poor. 5) Foreign capital inflows distort expenditures. 6) Donors share the responsibility with the Government to reconsider priorities in order to ensure greater impact of development assistance on poverty reduction. 7) Sustaining the provision of basic social services and building human capital. 8) Establishing effective social protection mechanisms for the poor.Publication Serbia and Montenegro : Poverty Assessment, Volume 1. Executive Summary(Washington, DC, 2003-11-13)This Poverty Assessment is the first output of a multi-year program adopted by the World Bank to assist the Governments of Serbia and Montenegro in the development and implementation of their Poverty Reduction Strategies. The program relies on collaboration in joint data production and analysis. Based on data collected in 2002, the report finds that absolute material poverty affects every tenth person in both Serbia and Montenegro. From an historical standpoint, this is a very high incidence. Inequality remained moderate by regional standards, and as a result poverty is shallow. At the same time vulnerability--or exposure to negative shocks and inability to cope with them-- threatens many currently non-poor individuals. At least as many suffer from deprivation in other dimensions of well being, such as health, education, housing, social inclusion or property rights. Material poverty, therefore, is not the only challenge for the Governments. Four factors are most strongly related to poverty: low education attainment; joblessness; the location in rural areas and depressed regions, and the presence of socially disadvantaged members (such as internally displaced persons or Roma). The poor are found to face serious problems of access to public services (health, education, sanitation) and suffer disproportionately from the deterioration in the quality of public service provision. Even though some of the social assistance programs are among the best targeted programs in the region, the social protection system as a whole suffers from large exclusion errors. Given the high level of vulnerability of the population and the shallowness of poverty, a broad-based growth strategy that ensures that the benefits accrue at least proportionately to the poor is central for accelerated poverty reduction. Improvements in the business climate will stimulate private sector growth and feed into employment generation. Growth will increase fiscal revenues to remedy the problems of chronic under funding, while structural and public administration reforms will strengthen the governance and the quality of services provided to the poor. The multidimensional nature of poverty requires concerted and well coordinated action in different sectors. The report is organized in two volumes. Volume One (Executive summary) summarizes the Report content. Volume Two (Main report) provides detailed results of poverty analysis. Due to data limitations the sectoral part of the main report covers Serbia in greater details. An analysis of available data for Montenegro is presented in a background paper.Publication Gender Dimensions of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining : A Rapid Assessment Toolkit(World Bank, 2012-01-01)Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a global reality. It represents a longstanding and important livelihood for more than 100 million men and women around the world. In some places, communities have practiced it for generations; in other places, the prospect of new mineral finds draws large numbers of people suddenly to mining areas. Whether newly begun or long established, ASM has the potential to help men and women out of poverty when conducted in an informed and responsible way. In different communities, different techniques are used, and men and women share different divisions of labor, risks, and opportunities. ASM assessments, and the recommendations for action arising from these, are critical to the objectives of every ASM stakeholder, whether the large-scale mining (LSM) company seeking to improve the outcomes of its corporate social responsibility programs, a government agency or nongovernmental organization (NGO) seeking to fulfill its policy mandate, a microfinance organization promoting small and medium enterprise development in mining areas, or an association of miners seeking to formalize its activities. The toolkit is comprised of six components: introduction to gender and ASM; the gender and ASM framework; gender and ASM tools; the toolkit in practice; resources; and supplemental CD-ROM.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Decrypting New Age International Capital Flows(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10)This paper employs high frequency transactions data on the world’s oldest and most extensive centralized peer-to-peer Bitcoin market, which enables trade in the currencies of more than 135 countries. It presents an algorithm that allows, with high probability, the detection of “crypto vehicle transactions” in which crypto currency is used to move capital across borders or facilitate domestic transactions. In contrast to previous work which has used “on-chain” data, this paper’s approach enables one to investigate parts of the vastly larger pool of “off-chain” transactions. Finding that, as a conservative lower bound, over 7 percent of the 45 million trades on the exchange we explore represent crypto vehicle transactions in which Bitcoin is used to make payments in fiat currency. Roughly 20 percent of these represent international capital flight/flows/remittances. Although this work cannot be used to put a price on cryptocurrencies, it provides the first systematic quantitative evidence that the transactional use of cryptocurrencies constitutes a fundamental component of their value, at least under the current regulatory regime.Publication Realizing the Potential of Pakistan’s Secondary Cities(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-21)Pakistan is currently navigating an unfavorable urban trajectory. Poor urban management is preventing it from realizing the full promise of urbanization in the form of improved prosperity and livability. City growth is poorly planned, housing and service delivery lag badly, and city residents are, increasingly, exposed to environmental hazards. These conditions arise from a weak, ineffective, and unsuitable urban management and financing system that has regressed rather than strengthened over time. For Pakistan to harness the potential of its urbanization to lead it out of poverty, boost national productivity, and act as an engine of growth, the institutional and fiscal architecture of urban management and local government requires fundamental reform. The current system must be empowered by a more coherent, accountable, and capacitated structure that gives municipal institutions functional responsibility for the built environment and key infrastructure sectors (water, sewerage, solid waste, roads, and drainage, among others), within geographical jurisdictions aligned with the actual population and spatial boundaries of Pakistan’s evolving urban system. And these institutions must be anchored to a fiscal and financial system that can generate and effectively spend the resources necessary for sustainable urban development, while also encouraging private sector involvement in municipal service provision. To achieve this, concerted and sustained action is needed toward decentralization reforms at both federal and provincial levels.Publication Contingent Liabilities Risk Management(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01)Sovereign credit guarantees and government on-lending can catalyze private sector investment and fulfill specific policy objectives. However, contingent liabilities stemming from guarantees and contingent assets stemming from on-lending expose governments to risk. Prudent risk management, including risk analysis and measurement, can help identify and mitigate these risks. This paper proposes a four-step structure for analyzing and measuring credit risk: (i) defining key characteristics to determine the choice of a risk analysis approach; (ii) analyzing risk drivers; (iii) quantifying risks; and (iv) applying risk analyses and quantification to the design of risk management tools. This structure is based on an assessment of approaches discussed in academia and applied in practice. The paper demonstrates how the four steps of credit risk management are applied in Colombia, Sweden, and Turkey. It also discusses how the proposed framework is applied in Indonesia as it develops a credit risk management framework for sovereign guarantees. Country experiences show that although sovereign risk managers can draw on insights from credit risk management in the private sector, academic literature, and practices in other countries, approaches to risk management need to be highly context-specific. Key differentiating factors include characteristics of the guarantee and on-lending portfolio, the sovereign’s specific risk exposure, the availability of market information and data, and resources and capacity in the public sector. Developing a sound risk analysis and measurement framework requires significant investments in resources, capacity building, and time. Governments should view this process as iterative and long-term.Publication Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review, October 2024: Taxing Wealth for Equity and Growth(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-09)The report highlights the progress made on inflation and, despite some resistance in the last mile, the resulting fall in interest rates that will ease pressures on debt service and investment. However, growth is projected to remain low, debt remains high, private and public investment is depressed, and the region appears to be missing the boat on nearshoring FDI. The need to generate more fiscal space, reduce the high corporate tax burden, and mitigate persistent inequality have moved wealth taxes to center stage. But traditional wealth taxes on financial assets face challenges due to the ease of moving and hiding assets which will be difficult to control without elusive global coordination. A viable alternative is a tax on real estate which is less mobile, easier to track, and less of a distortionary burden on economic activity, given the low initial rates. Property taxes also have the potential to reduce the excessive dependence of subnational governments on federal transfers. For property taxes to play a greater role, there must be improvements in property valuation which can be engineered through the use of digital platforms and centralized land registries.Publication Afghanistan’s New Economic Landscape(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-18)This study uses nighttime lights to examine the evolution of economic activity in Afghanistan after the August 2021 regime change. A year later, nighttime luminosity had dropped by 20 percent, with two-thirds of this decline tied to the pre-planned international military withdrawal. To focus on local economic activity, the study filters out light emissions from foreign military installations, which accounted for up to 30 percent of lights over the past decade. Using civilian nighttime lights to understand the new economic reality in the country indicates a significant economic recovery concentrated in previously conflict-affected regions. By 2023/24, civilian luminosity had surpassed pre-2020/21 levels by 10.5 percent while, in contrast, official gross domestic product indicates an economy that is one-quarter smaller. The findings highlight changes in economic dynamics, including increased informality, shifts in the geographic distribution of activity, and improved security post-Taliban takeover.