Mountain Partnership

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a mountainous, extremely poor country. Around 85 percent of the Afghan population works in the rural economy. Agriculture in Afghanistan is largely a household activity, with women and children as well as men producing crops, engaging in horticulture and rearing livestock. The country has suffered greatly from the recent political and military unrest, leading to the destruction of infrastructure and the erosion of its social and economic asset base. Severe drought between 1998-2001 has added to the nation's difficulties.

One of the poorest regions of Afghanistan is the Eastern Hazarajat, which covers the mountains north-west and east of Kabul and includes all of Bamiyan province and the high altitude areas of Wardak, Ghazni, Uruzgan and Ghor. People are living there between 2000 and 3200 metres altitude, with summer grazing and rangeland extending even higher, to over 4000 metres. Life is a permanent struggle. The Hazaras are one of the ethnic groups in Afghanistan, comprising some nine percent of the population.

They have suffered over a century of discrimination and neglect, which has been made worse by the ravages of the civil war with human rights abuses and, most recently, severe drought. Read more…

World Population Day (11 July, 2006).
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), lead coordinating agency for the World Population Day, chose the occasion to highlight the plight of girls and young women in the remote Badakhshan region of Afghanistan. The harsh environment of Badakhshan in the Pamir mountains boasts the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. For every 100,000 babies born, 6,500 women will lose their lives. Here a woman faces almost 600 times the risk of dying in childbirth than do her counterparts living in North America. Of the thousands of infants left motherless, 75 per cent will perish either during, or soon after, delivery. Healthcare workers maintain this crisis has as much to do with the low social and nutritional status of its victims as it does with the remote and rugged terrain and lack of infrastructure. UNFPA, a Mountain Partnership member, is working towards alleviating the suffering and offering better opportunities for girls and young women in Badakhshan. Since 2003, the organization has been raising better awareness of health issues, training healthcare personnel in emergency obstetric care and educating local leaders, women and their families about family planning and adequate pre- and antenatal care. Read the feature, ‘Dying to Give Life: Maternal Mortality in Afghanistan’.

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