The West’s failure in Afghanistan may well have resulted from not spending enough money in the right places. A different balance between US military expenditure and economic aid might have convinced ordinary Afghans that they had a significant stake in the success of the state that the US and its allies were striving to build.
CAMBRIDGE – Assume you knew nothing about a particular low-income country except the following facts. Its annual income per capita in 2020 was just $509, the seventh lowest in the world. In the decade to 2019, annual aid inflows had halved, to just $114 per capita, or 31 cents per person per day. As a result, its GDP per capita fell by 14% over this period. Meanwhile, annual per capita imports also fell by half between 2012 and 2020, to $179, or just 49 cents per person per day – one of the lowest levels in the world. Exports per capita, at just under $38, were the world’s lowest. The official poverty rate increased from 38% in 2011 to 47.3% in 2020.
CAMBRIDGE – Assume you knew nothing about a particular low-income country except the following facts. Its annual income per capita in 2020 was just $509, the seventh lowest in the world. In the decade to 2019, annual aid inflows had halved, to just $114 per capita, or 31 cents per person per day. As a result, its GDP per capita fell by 14% over this period. Meanwhile, annual per capita imports also fell by half between 2012 and 2020, to $179, or just 49 cents per person per day – one of the lowest levels in the world. Exports per capita, at just under $38, were the world’s lowest. The official poverty rate increased from 38% in 2011 to 47.3% in 2020.