Afghanistan is considered to be, by many sources, one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world. On April 2nd 2008, the World Bank chief economist, Shanta Devarajan, for Asia stated that poor people in areas such as Afghanistan and other places are continually getting hurt economically by the increasing world food prices. Which as stated on the World Bank website at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,,contentMDK:21712205~menuPK:158937~pagePK:2865106~piPK:2865128~theSitePK:223547,00.html says, “World food prices have been increasing rapidly since 2006, and the rate of increase during 2007 had been much higher than average. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), overall food prices have increased by 75 percent in dollar terms since 2000. “Most countries in South Asia are net importers of food and have suffered severe terms of trade shocks of 1 percent of GDP.” He also stated that he believes that this trend will continue to occur as a result of the rise in the cost of life in China and India. He further goes on to say that these food increases affect the poor the most in a negative way, because that is how most of people make and spend their money: on food.
As a result, he gives many solutions to help the struggling people of these poor nations such as Afghanistan to survive. The main point that he states is to “target subsidies” this can protect the poor people without causing the food to increase and allow the overall budget to decrease. Another solution is to borrow money from other countries as well as banks, but there is a side effect to this method in that it will cause price increases. However, his final solution in which he thinks will work the best is to increase efficiency in agriculture.
Another way in which the World Bank is aiding Afghanistan is with health care. On another pat of the World Bank website, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546-1174426445479/annex21.pdf, it states, “When the Taliban fell, Afghanistan had some of the worst health indicators in the world. It had an estimated under-five mortality rate of 256 per 1,000 births, compared to 92 for South Asia.” As a result the World Bank is making a conscious effort to improve health care in this poor country.
