Uncovering Market Opportunities in Afghanistan: A Wealth Creation Approach

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With over 15 years of experience in wealth creation, I’ve worked with diverse communities, regions, and organizations. My latest challenge was applying these principles in Afghanistan. I had the privilege of being part of a team responding to a solicitation from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), led by an exceptional consultant in London who had ties to the Afghanistan Center for Excellence (ACE) and a network on the ground in Afghanistan.

Our mission was to explore market opportunities in Southeastern Afghanistan – specifically the provinces of Paktika, Paktya, Logar, and Khost – that could empower women, internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees, and youth.

Typically, wealth creation value chains begin with a defined market opportunity—whether in recreation, tourism, food, forestry, housing or other sectors. However, in Southeastern Afghanistan, no clear starting point existed.

To address this challenge, we took a different approach. Collectively, we trained and deployed a cohort of interviewers to gather insights from businesses, agencies, and institutions both within and beyond the region. These interviews aimed to uncover the pain points and challenges businesses faced doing business in Afghanistan.

From approximately 250 interviews, our team identified around 100 potential market opportunities across various sectors, including food and agriculture, fiber (including cashmere, cotton and wool), communications, energy, banking/finance, textiles, health, construction, education and more. By applying key selection criteria, we narrowed the list to the most viable prospects. The criteria included:

  • 1. Significant potential exists to scale up within internal and/or external markets.

  • 2. At least two specific demand partners have been identified.

  • 3. The volume of demand is larger than one company can supply.

  • 4. Some production already is taking place in the Southeastern Region.

  • 5. There are opportunities to increase local ownership and control.

  • 6. The target beneficiaries (women, youth, IDPs and returnees) can participate and benefit as the situation currently stands (i.e. with existing restrictions on women, etc.)

  • 7.  It’s low-hanging fruit: relatively minimal investment is required to improve outcomes for target beneficiaries.

  • 8. There are opportunities for multiple forms of investment in and positive impacts on multiple forms of wealth (i.e. individual, intellectual, social, built, natural, political, cultural, financial).

  • 9. Demand partners appear willing to invest in the wealth creation value chain.

Ultimately, we chose two promising market opportunities for deeper analysis and additional buyer interviews, eventually mapping out potential value chains around wool and tomatoes. Buyer interviews around wool and tomatoes uncovered significant demand -  including specifics around volumes and characteristics of specific products - and a willingness to invest in a wealth creation value chain in a variety of ways, including technical support, space, marketing support, quality assurance support, material, financial support, labor, training, transportation and market information.

Lessons learned include:

1.        The WealthWorks framework is transferable, even across language and cultural barriers. We offered training to the English-speaking project partners at ACE, who then offered training to non-English speaking partners at ACE on the ground in the Southeastern region of Afghanistan.

2.        There is substantial interest from buyers in supporting the creation of value chains that meet their needs. Through hundreds of interviews of businesses, agencies and institutions in the Southeastern region and beyond, the team uncovered approximately 100 potential market opportunities that could include women, internally displaced people, returnees and youth.

3.        People who have never done this work can quickly understand the concepts and put them into practice. The team developed processes to train people in minimal time to do the necessary investigations into market demand. With training, role playing, and coaching along the way, a local team of Afghanis on the ground were able to uncover serious market opportunities.

The ultimate finding from this work is that wealth creation is a market-driven approach that crosses boundaries of all kinds. To learn more, visit www.wealthworks.org.