Despite progress, Afghanistan faces major economic, security and political challenges in 2016 – UN envoy

21 December 2015 - At the end of the first year of its transformation decade, the Afghan National Unity Government is struggling to project national unity, security has deteriorated as it grapples with intensified fighting with much less international support, and the economy remains a matter of concern, the top United Nations official in the country warned today.

"In 2016, it is vital that the National Unity Government demonstrates increasingly its effectiveness, not only to the Afghan people but also donors, on whom it is largely dependent for financial, material and technical assistance," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative for Afghanistan Nicholas Haysom told the Security Council.

He stressed that many Afghans are anxious about the future, with some feeling they have no choice other than to leave the country in search of security and economic opportunity elsewhere.

"Civilians, as ever, continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, as casualties rise at an ever increasing pace and more people have been displaced from their homes by the conflict," he said, stressing that with the fiscal gap between revenue raised and spent, poverty is no less prevalent, economic contraction has led to high unemployment, and corruption has yet to be overcome," he said.

While challenges of such a scale and complexity would test any Government, however, there has been progress on reforming the civil service and electoral sector, economic growth though low is projected to increase in the next years, and Afghan security forces (ANSF) have shown resilience in the face of an intensified insurgency, he noted.