An Urgent Need for Economic Creativity To Avoid Exacerbating Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan

The recent Afghan Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Javid Ahmad, offered several “insider’s” criticisms of the international actors — both at the SCO Summit last week and amongst the West — on their posturing around the Afghanistan crisis. Then he addressed the key matter: What is required is “a regional economic understanding of Afghanistan, mainly between Pakistan, China, India, Russia, Iran, as well as Qatar, Turkey and the United States.... In the interim, these countries need to unite and mobilize their economic and humanitarian effort to form a conditional engagement mechanism with the Taliban under the United Nations…. There is an urgent need for the region (and Washington) to engage in economic creativity to avoid an impending devastating humanitarian crisis and an economic collapse.”