The economics of the Taliban
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The economy of Afghanistan is collapsing as remittances and foreign aid dry up. As the militant Taliban consolidate their control over the country, it's unclear whether they will be capable, or even interested, in propping up the economy to prevent further humanitarian crises. Today on Business Daily, we're looking at how the economics of life under the Taliban. Professor Jonathan Goodhand of SOAS University of London, explains how the Taliban managed to generate revenues over the years since the US invasion, from local taxation on commodities, as well as support from sympathetic parties outside the country. Ian Hannan, a British mining engineer, says the Taliban has also benefitted enormously from mining in recent years. Now, the big question is whether they will be able to manage the country's entire economy, and Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. thinks Afghanistan cannot survive without the aid it has relied on for decades.
Producer: Frey Lindsay
(Image: Taliban militants in Kabul on August 16th, 2021. Image credit: AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:05.2 | Today, the uncertain future for a generation of Afghans trapped under Taliban rule. |
| 0:11.6 | You have thousands of Afghans who had a hope one day. |
| 0:15.1 | Who invested their lives, their money or whatever in Afghanistan, |
| 0:19.1 | and they were hopeful about the future. |
| 0:24.8 | Really, the outcome of this would be very, very dangerous. |
| 0:30.4 | The UN is warning of a possible humanitarian catastrophe with looming hyperinflation. |
| 0:34.7 | Will the new rulers in Kabul be in a position to cope? |
| 0:38.3 | The Taliban excels in delivering order, |
| 0:39.7 | but they don't build hospitals. |
| 0:41.1 | They don't build clinics. |
| 0:44.4 | They don't know how to construct modern electricity system. The economics of insurrection. |
| 0:47.3 | Business Daily from the country. |
| 1:07.5 | People are waiting to get into planes, to get into charters, to be in a safer place. |
| 1:12.8 | There were around 70,000 or more than that people around the gate that I came in from. |
| 1:19.6 | And they're standing. And I know a lot of people who have been here waiting for five days or four days. |
| 1:27.7 | We are in a hell and you're waiting for 14, 15 hours without water, without food, |
| 1:34.0 | the reason why you are suffering all this, because you work for Burk to show me, |
| 1:39.9 | because you work for foreigners. |
| 1:42.0 | The very visible agony that these people are facing |
| 1:44.7 | is just one aspect of a wider crisis in Afghanistan. |
| 1:48.6 | For the millions out in the countryside, the economy is collapsing. |
... |
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