The impact of international forces withdrawal on investment in Herat, Afghanistan

Abstract

This paper evaluates international forces withdrawal from Afghanistan. This paper has mainly addressed an important question that: what is the impact of the withdrawal of the international forces on investment in Herat, Afghanistan? The primary data was collected through the distribution of questionnaires to different key informants, including professors at Herat University, local investors, and governmental employees. The number of respondents was selected based on using stratified random sampling method. In the past 13 years, Afghanistan saw a massive influx of international aids, to invest in different sectors and development of the country overall. The Government of Afghanistan with the help of the international community has paid attention on attracting domestic and foreign investments. The investment activities were progressing smoothly with comparatively high productivity during the 2003 to 2008 throughout the country. Afterward, the investment activities started its downward due to security problems such as armed robbery and kidnapping. Since 2011, the situation was changing day by day and getting worse. Specially, the announcement of withdrawal of the international forces from Afghanistan in 2014 has negatively impacted on development activities throughout the country.