Improving Agricultural Statistics in the COMCEC Region
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3.2 Afghanistan
Despite the strong national economic growth during the 2000’s, Afghanistan remains one of
the poorest countries in the world; with its subsistence agriculture sector contributing to
about half of its GDP in 2002 and over 25 percent in 2013 (excluding the illicit opium
economy). Like many other countries that are either coming out of civil war and/or
experiencing severe internal conflicts, Afghanistan is a state experiencing security crisis,
underdevelopment and poverty. This is made even worse by being ranked 181 out of 182
countries on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index
in 2009. Consequently, strategizing agriculture and rural statistics in the national statistical
system becomes imperative to guide policymakers to advocate and support interventions for
improving the livelihoods of rural communities in Afghanistan.33
In Afghanistan, the national statistical system is poor and suffers from two major limitations:
its weak infrastructural capabilities and individual knowledge capacities. The Central
Statistical Organization (CSO) was established in the early 1970s; however, several decades of
civil war that followed, has put the country back into an urgent state of reform. The current
situation analysis of the CSO shows that only 11 percent of its staffs have graduated from
university and only the head of the Economic Statistics Department (ESD) holds a Master’s
degree. The enabling environment of infrastructure and cooperation between the CSO and line
ministries is weak.34
Agriculture is the main economic occupation in Afghanistan, with over nine million hectares of
the arable land in the countryside providing the livelihood of over 70 percent of rural
households. For this country, agricultural development is vital to achieving the UNDP’s MDGs,
in particular those relating to extreme poverty, hunger and the environment. During the
beginning of the peace period in the early 2000’s, both the federal government of Afghanistan
and the international community increasingly considered agriculture as an economic activity
for most Afghanis, as a source of livelihood in rural communities, and as a way of clearing air
pollution in Kabul. Although Afghanistan’s economy can be accepted as agrarian, with
agriculture being its backbone for further development, there is apparent negligence of
agricultural statistics. These are necessary to develop and integrate agriculture in the national
statistics system.35
Agriculturists are observing the serious commitments of the Afghan government and donors to
improve the country’s agricultural statistics. The EU seed project, the World Bank’s 50 million
USD agricultural input delivery programme, and many other agricultural projects monitored
by FAO and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), manifest this commitment to
agricultural development in Afghanistan. The chart below illustrates the circular flow starting
from improving the collection of agricultural statistics using evidence-based decisions on
investment, to the receiving necessary aid to enhance the development of agriculture, in order
to finally qualify agricultural statistics as an apparatus to develop agrarian economies.
Integrating agriculture data into Afghanistan’s national statistical system and making it
compatible with those from other sectors on production, consumption, capital formation or
33 CSO, 2014b.
34 CSO, 2012 and CSO, 2014b.
35 CSO, 2012.