RASC News Agency: In the face of Afghanistan’s deepening economic collapse and the Taliban’s draconian gender restrictions, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced that it has supported over 80,000 small businesses across the country since 2021 an overwhelming 97% of which are led by women. This revelation came in a report released on Sunday, July 13, outlining the agency’s efforts to stave off the complete disintegration of Afghanistan’s economic fabric. The report notes that more than 25 million individuals have benefited from UNDP’s critical humanitarian and developmental services during this period of authoritarian repression and international isolation.
The report underscores a disturbing trend: Afghanistan’s female population is being pushed almost entirely into the informal economy, as the Taliban systematically erases women from public and economic life. According to the UNDP, the percentage of women dependent on irregular or unpaid work surged from 37% in 2023 to 57% in 2024, a clear indicator of the regime’s impact on gender equity and economic autonomy. Meanwhile, only 7% of women are currently employed outside their homes, compared to 84% of men a gender disparity engineered through policy, force, and fear. The Taliban’s sweeping bans on women’s employment, education, and participation in public spaces have rendered millions of Afghanistani women economically invisible and politically voiceless.
The UNDP warns that the exclusion of women from the formal economy is not only a social tragedy but an economic catastrophe in the making. The agency estimates that the country may incur up to $920 million in economic losses between 2024 and 2026 due to the ongoing marginalization of women from meaningful participation in national development. Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Afghanistan has been thrust into a cascade of crises: the abrupt halt of international funding, a spiraling humanitarian emergency, and the institutionalization of gender apartheid. Under these conditions, the survival of entire communities increasingly depends on the ingenuity and resilience of women operating beneath the regime’s repressive gaze.
In this grim context, the UN and other international bodies have acted as lifelines, offering support to prevent total collapse. UNDP’s assistance to small-scale women-led businesses is not merely a development strategy it is a humanitarian imperative designed to keep hope alive in a society where even dreaming has become dangerous. Yet, the reliance on informal businesses carries enormous risk. Women operating outside the regime’s sanctioned structures remain vulnerable to harassment, exploitation, and punishment. Their work, though vital, exists in a legal and economic vacuum that offers neither protection nor recognition.
With the Taliban showing no signs of easing their grip on women’s rights, the country’s economy is not just stagnating it is bleeding out. The loss is not just measured in GDP but in the millions of lost dreams, crushed talents, and silenced voices of Afghanistani women who once participated fully in their society. The international community, the report suggests, must move beyond rhetoric. Support for women-led businesses cannot replace structural change. Without restoring women’s access to education, employment, and public life, no amount of aid will rebuild Afghanistan’s future.
As the report makes clear: empowering Afghanistani women is no longer an option it is the only path out of the abyss created by a regime that has declared war not just on women, but on progress itself.
