Ejaz Ahmad Malikzada

Dr. Tat Puthsodary

Public Policy Making (PAD 210)

American University of Afghanistan

Pollution in Afghanistan: Government’s failure to implement policies

Photo: UN Habitat, Sanitation and Environment Kabul City

Pollution in Afghanistan: Government’s failure to implement poli-

cies

Kabul is one of the most polluted cities of Afghanistan. And in most cases it is said to be one

of the most polluted cities of the world. According to an article in Huffingtonpost (2011), the pollu-

tion problem is worse than the terror by Taliban (Par 3). That is to say the city goes dark by the

smoke and the dust. People are infected by different diseases caused by pollution. According to a

report by UN Habitat (2011) 3000 people die from air pollution (P. 3). 80 percent of patients in hos-

pital are those suffering because of pollution (Rahimi 2011, P. 3). The picture shown in the cover

page can clearly shows a street in Kabul city. It portrays, how the city is polluted and what the air

particles contain. The waste and the fece coming from the houses get in the air and we directly take

it into our system by breathing. Some people use scarfs to avoid breathing bad air but most others

don't know what they breath. This essay will explain briefly the pollution problem in Kabul, the

Capital of Afghanistan. Then it will provide a glance at the nature of the problem. And in final

stage, it will provide useful recommendations on how to solve this problem. What is more, the es-

say will use data from news websites and newspapers to better explain the situation. In the essay

there are explanations of some articles of the environmental law of Afghanistan too.

Explaining the Problem

Speaking about pollution, according to Oxford dictionary (2015), “It is presence in or intro-

duction into the environment of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects” (Oxford Dic-

tionary, 2015). It provides a definition for environment as, "The surroundings or conditions in

which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates: survival in an often hostile environment” (Oxford

Dictionary, 2015).

The number of cars increase day by day in Kabul. Forasmuch as, an estimated 1 Million

number of cars (old and new) run in Kabul (Gopal, 2009, Par. 9). Albeit the population of Kabul is 5

millions, which means 1 in 5 Afghan citizen living in Kabul owns a car (Gopal, 2009, Par. 16). Be-

sides that, the traffic department of Kabul registers 8000 cars every month which means 96000

more cars added to Kabul by end of every year. The number of cars increase by the number of pop-

ulation. Whatever happens, the traffic department doesn't have any plan, program or procedure to

collect the old cars and replace them with new ones. Most of the these cars in Kabul are from mod-

els 1996, 1997 and 1998. In fact, these models have old engines which produce more carbon diox-

ide in the air. The cars from those years produce 10 times more carbon dioxide than the cars from

recent years (Rahimi, 2011, P. 2). That being the case, it ends up creating problem for millions of

citizens living in this city. Explaining it chemically, the respiratory system of humans get harm from

the air polluted by carbon-dioxide produced from the oil burned in the vehicle. This leads to hun-

dreds of cases of lung cancer, asthma…etc.

To change the topic, most of the roads in Kabul are so old dating from 40 years ago. These

roads also further air pollution. The destruction of these roads are the outcome of the tragedy of war

(Lynch, 2012, P. 1). The dust from the road washes the cars and it stinks in the hands and face. It

affects lungs but mostly this one affects the skin. admittedly the dust that contains fecal particles

results “Lashmania”. There are thousands of cases of “Lashmania” reported by Afghanistan’s Min-

istry of Health. To tell you the truth, people are infected from other diseases too. According to a re-

port by New York Times (2013) the air in Kabul contains 30 fecal materials that causes a hundred of

diseases (Nordland, 2013, Par. 4). Canadian soldiers, before being deployed to Afghanistan, are

warned about this. Other reports indicate that in most parts of Kabul, 65 percent of the air is infect-

ed with fecal materials (Nordland, 2013, Par. 5).

Above all, people burn coal for the purpose of warming their homes. Kabul lacks a proper

and sustainable electricity an it does not even satisfy people’s need to for lighting. Besides that in

recent years, the price of charcoal and wood has risen and people cannot afford to buy them. The

alternative only is using coal. However, the price of coal is higher, but it is more efficient and it

lasts longer. Then burning coal produces 3.5 times more carbon dioxide than other burnables (Pitts-

burgh, n.d., Par. 6). Being that by the night time in Kabul, coming out and getting a fresh air is not a

good idea. Because the open environment is fully infected by carbon dioxide produced from coal

that smells bad and gives a dizzy feeling for some hours.

That’s not enough of pollution. There are factories built in Kabul residential areas. Despite

there are different industrial areas in Kabul, several businesses operate in the city which adds to the

pollution. Kabul is built for a population of nearly 1 million people but more than 5 million people

reside in it (Nordland, 2013, Par. 5). A report from United Nations Environment Program (2006)

indicated that 60 percent of people living in Kabul “were exposed to high concentrations of danger-

ous particulate matter, nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide” (Public Radio International, 2012 P. 1)

The river in Kabul which doesn't have water, thanks to years of drought, is full of wastes.

Alternatively, most of Kabul’s houses lack proper canalisation. Only 5 percent of Kabul’s resi-

dences are canalised and all of it flows to the Kabul river (Nordland, 2013, Par. 5). The over-pollut-

ed river is always filled with wastes from peoples’ houses through canals. The no-water-river is an-

other source of pollution in the air. The Karzai administration promised to solve this problem, and

yet there has nothing been done in this case.

Nature of the Problem

The government has worked on solving these problems but due to a corrupt system of gov-

ernment, the efforts ended up with failure. The government banned old cars with old machines.

Even it stopped registering car numbers, but because people had high demands for use of vehicles

the government failed to stop them (Public Radio International, 2012 P. 1). In fact, most govern-

ment officials point that they didn't have political support to solve these issues and most of them

complain lack of enough budget to settle this problem (Public Radio International, 2012 P. 1).

The Afghan government actually has environmental laws put into a document but never put

into implementation. The document which has forty pages starts from introducing concepts and

terminology, duties of state and persons and ends with offences and penalties. The document also

indicates an Agency called, “The National Environmental Protection Agency”. All the laws and ar-

ticles in this document are never put in practice because of several problems.

Lack of political support for such organization is one of the main problems. The organiza-

tion is not given authority. It is a part of executive branch but it is not given much of support by the

executive. Besides that this laws defines an advisory committee in this regards which has to work in

terms of finance and policies related to environment (Afghan Government, 2007, P. 15). The advi-

sor council’s member appointed by respected president of Afghanistan has to meet once a year. This

council has other subnational councils. The document does not exactly talk on how this council will

perform its duties (Afghan Government, 2007, P. 15).

The law in article 14 defines that no one is allowed to carry out a project, plan or policy that

will harm the environment significantly (Afghan Government, 2007, P. 15). Any project, plan or

policy shall go through National Environmental Protection agency for the review and get the ap-

proval of the agency (Afghanistan Government, 2007, P. 15). Article 16 of the environmental law

also indicates that the agency shall not allow and authorize any project that significantly harms the

environment (Afghanistan Government, 2007, P. 16).

As we can see, there is law and there is an agency to implement laws, but is that enough?

The answer to this question is quite simple. People don't even know such an agency exists. If they

know, they can easily get through it by bribing and other corrupted procedures. It seems that the

lawmakers didn't know about corrupt practices in this country, or they knew about them but ignored

it. So far, this document does not authorize any enforcement agency to take action against any ac-

tion that pollutes the air significantly. Further, the law does not identify any procedure to bring of-

fenders to justice or restore the harm they have brought to the environment. Such an agency would

be able to implement the laws and prevent pollution.

The Context

To be able to tackle down the problem, the context of the problem should be determined.

And since this problem is affecting the public widely, and it’s causes and effects are dynamic, it can

be said that the context of this policy problem is social. It is also an environmental issue, for it is

related to pollution and environment. On the other hand, the context can be political also, since it

involves Afghan government’s failure to protect the environment. Now that the context is deter-

mined, and the government’s involvement can be felt, there should be a way for government to get

involved. The reason for government’s involvement is, as mentioned before, it’s failure to protect

the environment. The government has failed to regulate the activities that harm the environment,

that is to say that the government has failed to implement the laws.

Solutions (Recommendations)

This paper only works on changing some policies. For that, the necessity for policy legiti-

mation is felt. To get political support (Policy Legitimation) for this policy change, the current data

on effects of polluted environment is enough. As we can see the demographics as well as the in-

creasing effects of the pollution, it’s affecting the public excessively. The solution for this problem

is also better implementation of existing laws as well as inspecting, regulating and enforcement of

standards within environmental laws of the country.

The first recommendation for this problem is reforming policies and laws in regard to pro-

tection of environment, because in most parts it doesn't have proper definition of offenders and of-

fences. The law doesn't define the responsibilities and jobs of government in regard to protection of

environment. The organizations involved in protection of environment and the organisations en-

force environmental laws should be properly defined and given the responsibility. These organiza-

tion should work with coordination/and report to all branches of government.

I terms of oil and gas, the recommendation for this policy problem is regulation and inspec-

tion. The government shall inspect and control import of oil and gas in the country. The prices of oil

and gas should be controlled, so that the people could afford it. People then wouldn't use coal to

warm up their homes. This will reduce pollution significantly. As mentioned before, there are more

than a million cars in the city and 80 percent of them are old cars with old engines. The government

should also work on decreasing the number of cars in the city. The government should not allow old

cars to be imported to the country.

Lack of proper punishment for offenders of environment and lack of an enforcement agency

for environmental laws was another problem for the increase of pollution. So for that there is a need

for such an environment protection organisation with the support of government and legislative to

be able to bring the offenders to justice. To illustrate, the government should give the organization

enough authority and budget to work on implementing the laws. As long as there is enough authori-

ty to detain and bring offenders to justice, offenders will be afraid to harm the environment. For in-

stance, when a person creates a factory in residential areas, he or she should be stopped and should

restore the damage he or she caused to the environment. Hence, the environment protection organzi-

tion’s activities should be highly overviewed by a committee to avoid corruption and fraud in this

area.

In terms of settlements, government should work on avoiding factories working in residen-

tial areas. The government should also avoid illegal settlements. Since, wastes and waste waters in

the streets contribute to pollution and it is mostly near illegal settled areas, the government should

enhance illegal settlements. Besides that, the government should work on building roads with prop-

er canalization in the city. Besides the material used for the reconstruction of roads in Kabul should

have high quality to increase the life of roads. Furthermore, planting trees in the streets and roads of

Kabul will contribute to decreasing corruption. It helps reduce the carbon dioxide produced by ve-

hicles.

Conclusion

To conclude this piece, Kabul city is over-polluted and there are several factors that con-

tribute to this problem. Low quality roads, increasing number of vehicles in the city, low quality

fuel, illegal settlements, and higher prices of oil has increased this problem. Moreover, there is a

lack of implementation of environmental laws of Afghanistan. This problem is because of lack of

support to the Environmental Protection Agency. Corruption in different levels of administration

adds to this problem. The paper worked to provide recommendations to solve this problem. The

recommendations are quite feasible and can be achieved within a short period of time. Decreasing

the number of cars and increasing the quality of fuel will add to a better quality air and hence, con-

trolling the prices of oil and gas. Controlling the prices of oil would allow people to replace coal

and other polluting materials with old and gas to warm their homes. And finally, illegal settlements

should be decreased to avoid wastes in the city.

Bibliography:

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