This paper highlights the importance of transnational migratory networks in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Current trends in policy making on migration tend to focus on repatriation of Afghans from neighbouring countries. The Afghanistan Research Evaluation Unit advocates a fundamental shift in order to recognise migration as a key livelihoods strategy, as well as migration’s role in Afghanistan’s future economic growth.
Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, around three million refugees in Pakistan and Iran have returned to Afghanistan. Around four million Afghans remain, but up to one million are expected to return home within the next two years. This reflects a degree of optimism in the new state as well as faith in donor pledges to rebuild Afghanistan; but this estimated return also reflects deteriorating living conditions, unemployment and an increasingly hostile policy environment toward refugees in Iran and Pakistan. Yet movement to and from Afghanistan to its neighbouring countries continues and must be understood not only as a result of war and poverty but also as a key livelihoods strategy for households and a key contributor to the economy. Figures show that the average Afghan labour migrant remits around 70-80 per cent of their wages which are significantly higher than they could earn back home. These remittances are necessary for families to meet basic needs as well as build capital for investment.
The cyclical nature of migration is blurring the distinction between refugees and migrants: a continuous circulation of people, money, commodities and information constitute transnational networks of cooperation across international borders. This also reflects broader changes in Afghanistan, where despite war and diaspora, UN figures estimate that the population has grown from about 15 million in the late 1970s to over 29 million in 2004. This has created pressure on land ownership, exacerbated by customary systems of inheritance which divide land into small parcels equally amongst sons; ecological conditions of drought and a lack of sufficient development in urban areas to provide opportunities for rural to urban migration. The UN estimates that the Afghan population may triple to over 97 million by 2050.
Even if in time Afghanistan is able to sustain an effective democratic government, population pressures will continue to make migration a necessary livelihood strategy.
This briefing outlines a range of responses that policy makers need to consider in order to recognise and harness the role of migration in Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction.
