Paper short abstract:

The paper will explore the behaviour and structuring of actual commodity and labour markets in Afghanistan, their interlinkage with the political market place and the disjuncture of actual practice with donor technocratic efforts to address employment creation.

Paper long abstract:

Jobs and employment creation in Afghanistan have not been high on the reconstruction agenda and when addressed has been loaded with peace building aspirations, concerns to reduce the outflow of migrants and assumptions of agricultural led growth. The approach has been largely technical and input driven in an economy that is subject to diverse forms of social regulation. The upper reaches of the economic market place are closely intertwined with the political one and rent seeking practices limit access and returns in order to consolidate power for its key actors. In its lower reaches aspects of geography, identity and gender regulate access and returns. The one economic activity that generated income and employment was the opium poppy economy but this represented a form of economic disobedience which the international donor community found difficult to tolerate and incapable of regulating.

Drawing on four detailed case studies on commodity and labour markets (on onions, urban street vendors, saffron and rural labour markets) the paper will explore the dynamics of control, regulation and returns in the lower reaches of Afghanistan's economic life and its disjuncture with donors models. In an absence of an environment of generalised trust, networks of personalised social relationships regulate access and returns to work underpinned by a strong distributional economy and mutual need given the absence of employment opportunities.

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