Afghanistan, You Are Not Alone.
From the Golden Age to a current humanitarian crisis: Understanding the situation and how to empower Afghans through blockchain and UBI.
“کوه هر قدر بلند باشد باز هم سر خود راه دارد.’”
"Even on the highest mountain, there is still a road." — Afghan Proverb.
It is not needed to go so far in the history of Afghanistan to understand there were some golden times when people mattered, and some progress in people's lives happened.
What is referred to as the Golden Age (1963 and 1973) was a period in which the monarch, Zahir Shah, worked with Afghan intellectuals and technocrats to create a constitution that supported more individual freedoms, but it was a slow implementation process.
So not long ago, Afghanistan had political stability and a religiously moderate government that recognized women's rights and Afghan natives. Despite this wave of freedom, war came after and defined the country and its people.
After being traumatized by decades of war, Afghanistan is in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, worsened by drought, COVID-19, and the Taliban's takeover one year ago. Last year in August, the Islamist group seized power in just 15 days; however, they caused enduring destruction, devastatingly impacting millions of lives. Afghans are now facing starvation, a collapsed healthcare system, and struggling to survive under inhuman conditions.
At impactMarket, every day, we witness Afghans striving to make their way through the most challenging circumstances, and we are inspired by the courage and persistence they show even in the darkest hour. By harnessing the power of impactMarket protocol, we are here to support and strengthen beautiful Afghan communities at risk due to the Taliban's regime.
From Unconquerable Region To Taliban's Takeover
Afghanistan is located in Central Asia and is bounded by enormous deserts and mountains, earning it the slogan of being uncontrollable and unconquerable. Due to its geopolitical location, in terms of external domination, the region's history as a gateway to Asia and Europe dates back to the Cold War, imperial colonialism, and the reign of Alexander the Great.
Although the Kingdom of Afghanistan enjoyed a protracted era of peace and stability under the leadership of King Zahir Shah, the events that have taken place since then have plunged the nation into corruption, war, and poverty. Afghanistan has lost its peace and a tremendous amount of its people after deteriorating years full of fear and insecurity.
According to statistics by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), there are over 5 million internally displaced people in Afghanistan as of late 2021. Ongoing conflicts, prosecution, torture, and genocides are major elements in this mass displacement of Afghans from their homelands.
The current humanitarian situation in Afghanistan
As a result of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group that declared Afghanistan an Islamic Emirate after assassinating the country's president in 1996, rose to power for the first time in two decades. The Taliban took control of the capital city, Kabul, on August 15, 2021.
The withdrawal of US forces was completed on August 30, 2021, bringing the two-decade war to a close. The withdrawal of external powers has restored harsh interpretations of Sharia law, including extreme interpretations of religious texts and brutal public punishments such as amputations, floggings, and mass executions.
Furthermore, the role of women in Afghan communities has been brutally limited, with extreme measures such as keeping young female children out of schools. And with humanitarian crisis comes outrageous consequences:
- The United Nations has declared that nearly 20 million people in Afghanistan, almost half the population, experience insufficient food consumption and food insecurity.
- Families take a great economic hit as, as of August 2021, 82% of Afghan families have lost wages.
- The exploitation of children in the labor market has also risen, depriving them of their childhood and right to education.
- Due to the implications of the Taliban policies, women are no longer able to work in the majority of the paid sectors, devastating and disempowering households with sole or main earners that are women.
- There are an estimated over 2 million widows in Afghanistan, and 100,000 of these women who previously received $100 monthly support from the former government have lost their only income with the return of the Taliban.
- Low attendance of girls in schools, since most girls' secondary schools, were closed, leaving them with no educational institution or resources to access.
- The poor infrastructure of Afghanistan's healthcare system has negatively impacted maternal and infant health and access to sexual and reproductive health care. The lack of privacy concerning women's health checks requires a woman to be escorted to health appointments by a male family member.
Afghan children are starving to death, and humanitarian organizations worldwide have issued multiple warnings regarding the worsening circumstances. Not to mention the system's inequality that is so severe that children are forced to marry, and girls are sold off by their families to obtain basic survival resources such as food.
Afghanistan's future is unknown; millions are displaced, and over 90% of its citizens live below the poverty line.
How do we empower the people and communities in Afghanistan?
As soon as we heard Afghanistan's cries for help, as impactMarket, we took responsibility by leveraging blockchain-driven UBI to meet the basic needs of Afghans and collaborated with NGOs in the region to reach thousands in need.
- We took immediate action to help people in Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. In September 2021, we built the very first UBI community in the region the Afghan Community. Since we have witnessed the dire situation, in November 2021, we decided to provide impactMarket UBI to the Afghan Hope Community, managed by a local NGO established in 2007 in Herat. After having successful results in the pilot region, we expanded to other cities (Badghis, Samangan, Kabul) with the help of this local NGO.
- Currently, as impactMarket, we are supporting 5 communities in Afghanistan, a total of 1076 beneficiaries. The people we help consist of women with children that were forced to stay at home, often uneducated widows with several children, people that live in tents (about 200 people), men that had sold one kidney to survive (150 people), and internally displaced people (IDPs).
- We are providing weekly $7 UBI (or 734,72 AF) to our beneficiaries, the minimum amount for a family of 5 people to feed.
- Our beneficiaries use their basic income not only to meet their fundamental needs but also to rebuild their lives, especially the widows living in extreme poverty in Afghanistan. Afghan women save their UBI to buy sewing machines and other tools to secure a source of income. They can earn up to $8–10/week by sewing and cutting wood and $5 weekly by knitting.
- We are working with community volunteers who provide internet to our beneficiaries to claim and cash out their UBI. They send the UBI via crypto exchanges to the money exchanger's crypto wallet account, which allows them to be paid in cash.
- We have secured agreements with merchants in Herat, Afghanistan, to accept payments made with cUSD from beneficiaries. We continually develop new partnerships, products, and solutions for beneficiaries to easily claim and cash out their UBI.
Why is UBI essential?
We are empowering women and men that live in chronic poverty and allowing them to survive and create new sources of income. It's undeniable that Afghanistan is a country with many individual restrictions and sanctions. That is why we are using blockchain technology to reach the ones in need with security for the beneficiary and transparency to the donor.
With your support, we keep empowering individuals and communities in Afghanistan.
The need in this country continues to grow, and your support is crucial for vulnerable people lacking access to basic needs and essential services. Your donations will show Afghan people living in extreme conditions and poverty that they are not alone, and that we can walk easily on the highest mountain's road as long as we are together.
Make your UBI donations now and help us to build a prosperous future where Afghan communities finally feel safe.
If you have any questions, you can reach out to us at impactmarket.com, docs.impactmarket.com, or directly by emailing us at hello@impactmarket.com.
You can also find us on Medium, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Youtube, Telegram, and Discord.
Dare to dream with us!
You can be part of the change and empower people all around the world. Your contribution goes to the UBI communities, and when donating cUSD to a specific community or through the impact Farming page or to a specific community, you get $PACT tokens as a reward for the impact you´ll have made. You can also stake your $PACT to get even more rewards.
impactMarket (The Human Empowerment Protocol)
impactMarket provides accessible financial solutions to empower underprivileged people all over the world, unlocking opportunities and human potential. Our inclusive protocol is transparent, reliable, and borderless. It operates as a DAO on top of the Celo network, using $PACT as its governance token while running autonomously through smart contracts.
impactLabs (the company)
impactLabs Lda, based in Portugal, was founded in Nov 2020, by Marco Barbosa, Bernardo Vieira, Afonso Barbosa, and eSolidar. The company is focused on building accessible decentralized systems to unleash human potential and disrupt access to finance while driving DeFi adoption.
