The General President's Message on

2006 Statistical Yearbook of Afghanistan

This is the forth year of publication of the Afghanistan Statistical Yearbook in this new format.  Five years after the war ended, our economy has now recovered to roughly its pre- war 1357 (1978/79) level.  In 1384 (21 March 2005-20 March 2006), real GDP growth was estimated at 14.5% and the inflation rate was 9.1%.   The year 1384 however was not easy; growth was constrained by insecurity especially in the South and the rise in international petroleum prices.  Despite these external shocks, in 1384, Afghanistan continued to make progress in macroeconomic stabilization, structural reforms, social and economic improvement and poverty reduction.

In the social sector, considerable progress has been achieved in the past five years: a) double in school enrolment with more than 5 million children enrolled; b) high proportion of female enrollment-30%; c) substantial increase in vaccination of polio, DTC, BCG, and measles now reach six million children; 4) increase in employment in the rural and urban areas through various public and private sectors.

In March 2004, the Government of Afghanistan signed up the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).  Not only is it a late entrant to the MDG, but also Afghanistan is building up from an extremely low base.  In addition, most of the data needed for monitoring the MDG are not available, especially the baseline year (1990).  Most countries implementation and tracking progress began from 2000.  In Afghanistan it is only now getting started after some degree of political stability.

Beginning of 2005, the Government also lunched the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) for promoting growth, generating wealth and reducing poverty and vulnerability. It will provide the framework for the development of Government policies, and guide the allocation of resources and programs towards these goals.  The ANDS is very much in need statistics for guiding.

Not only for the above purposes, but also for many others, such as monetary, fiscal and other policies, the Government and its partners are in need of reliable, comprehensive and timely data. Two decades of war and conflict have left Afghanistan’s institutional systems devastated.  The Central Statistical Office (CSO) as with most government agencies and institutions in Afghanistan has suffered destruction. The CSO is confronted by serious human resource, material, and physical constraints.

The CSO is committed to produce solid and credible statistics that show where we are advancing and where we are falling behind.  Based on this commitment, currently the CSO is conducting the Household Income Expenditure Survey, Integrated Business Enterprise Survey, National Risk and Vulnerability Survey, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, and other small sample surveys. 

This document is designed to serve as a basis for an annual dialogue between national authorities and development partners on the progress of Afghanistan in improving the lives of its people and in reducing poverty.  These are tremendous challenges that have to be faced to make an impact on poverty.  The MDG and ANDS targets can only be met through the continued support and cooperation of all development partners and stakeholders with systematic and transparent monitoring of the progress made with a view to adapting to the changing environment.  The Afghanistan Statistics Yearbook shows how far we have come and how far we still have to go.  That is the purpose of this publication.

We would like to thank the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), UNFPA, UNICEF and European Union for technical and financial support for the CSO. We also like to thank the staff of the CSO for their ongoing efforts to prepare this yearbook.  We also appreciate comments and responses from the book’s users, which help us to improve the publication each year and make it an invaluable analytical tool.

Abdul Rashid Fakhri

General President of Central Statistics Office, Afghanistan

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