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Towards Peace in Afghanistan : Can mapping help with poverty reduction by identifying job gaps and creating 'Sustainable' jobs?

Kabul Rupert Douglas-Bate visited Afghanistan in May and June 2010, to research the domain of sustainable job creation. A sustainable job is one where someone gains a skill enabling them to create an immediate and enduring income, wherever they are. Start-up costs are usually minimal. Shoe mending, car maintenance, carpentry are examples. Government or public jobs are not defined here, as sustainable, as nearly always they have to be paid for by the taxes levied on sustainable jobs.

In Afghanistan unemployment is at 40% and that’s not including underemployment. The ‘dangerous demographic’ are the 3 million young men, aged between 15 to 30 years old, these are the ones who pick up a gun and fight for money or excitement.

The visit confirmed that to achieve long-term peace the primary strategy must be on poverty reduction, by establishing national job-skill training programs as an integral part of the secondary school programs and by creating massive numbers of sustainable jobs, especially for young men. When young men take up training and jobs, their Parents, local Mullahs and the Village Elders, must join with them and promise to live in peace. The organisation that runs this must not be corrupt.


Afghanistan People

In 2010, 80,000 secondary school leavers will graduate, 70% of them boys. By 2013 it will be 600,000 per year. And this 600,000 will continue, year on year. Unless aggressive forward looking national education programmes and sustainable job creation measures are taken today, many of these young people will become unemployed, as it is estimated there will only be enough university places for 100,000 per year in 2013. The questions that need to be asked today are: “What will happen to unemployed but educated youth ? Are they going to join Bin Laden ?”

Creating sustainable jobs could wisely be done, as an honourable alternative to fighting, in a land where ‘Honour’ is an incredibly important consideration. In Afghanistan, ‘Honour’ begins by talking at length with local Leaders, meaning Mullahs, Village Elders, Fathers, local Government.

Rupert took with him ideas and schematics to illustrate to the various donors how information on ‘job gaps’ could be collected and mapped. This mapping could feed directly into a realistic sustainable job programme.

On his return, he also created some visualizations (‘mind maps’) and a couple of articles.