Afghan Diaspora engages in Rebuilding the Nation
Published Date: Monday, Nov 05, 2012
The decade long conflict in Afghanistan led to serious damage to the country’s economy as well as society. The IS Academy Migration Policy Report by Katie Kuschminder published in December 2011 mentioned that the prolonged conflict in Afghanistan has led to the migration of the highly skilled people to other countries, destruction of education system, inflation, low public-sector wages. However, the report also find some encouraging facts recent years i.e the contribution of Afghan diaspora especially to the non economic sector.
Since 2001, the Government of Afghanistan in collaboration with many international organizations such as UNDP, World Bank, International Organization for Migration (IOM) etc. promoted several programmes such as Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals Program (TOKTEN), Afghanistan Expatriates Programme, TRQN project of the IOM respectively. Several sectors which benefited by these programmes includes education, health, and infrastructure development.
Based on 42 interviews with project participants, host institutions, colleagues of participants, and key stakeholders, the report reveals that these programmes not only gave personal satisfaction to the diaspora for their involvement of the development of their home country, but also it made visible impact in many areas such as capacity building, skill enhancement that are in demand in the local areas. The report strongly suggest for continuation of such programme for long term benefit of the Afghanistan.