Behind the violence and regional tensions lies a quieter, but equally destructive crisis, the steady erosion of Afghanistan’s basic state functions.
Delays in appointing qualified teachers, despite completed examinations and verifications, reveal administrative paralysis. No timelines, no transparency, and no accountability have left hundreds unemployed and classrooms understaffed. Similar inertia plagues other sectors, where announcements are plentiful but implementation rare.
The healthcare system offers a stark warning. WHO alerts, UN assessments, and donor reports all describe a system stretched to collapse. Clinics are closing, medicines are scarce, and staff face intimidation. Restrictions on women in healthcare have further degraded capacity, particularly in maternal and reproductive services. Ideological policing of hospitals has undermined medical neutrality and frightened professionals away from their duties.
Economic hardship compounds the damage. Poverty, unemployment, and hunger have become normalized. Families are selling possessions to survive. Young Afghans risk death attempting migration. Women face the harshest consequences, stripped of work, education, and autonomy.
Former officials warn that while fear currently suppresses unrest, the pressure is building. Economic suffering, political exclusion, and centralized power have historically produced backlash in the region. The absence of political alternatives may delay resistance, but it does not eliminate it.
What is unfolding is not merely a humanitarian crisis, but a governance vacuum. Institutions exist in name, not function. Decision-making is opaque, centralized, and ideological. Without reform, Afghanistan risks becoming a state where control persists, but capacity disappears.
