KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The government of Japan has announced that, in partnership with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, it will provide $10 million to support counternarcotics initiatives in Afghanistan.
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Thursday, July 4, that the funding aims to secure alternative livelihoods for former poppy farmers and provide treatment services for communities in the Badakhshan, Helmand, and Kandahar provinces of Afghanistan.
“The funding will ensure alternative livelihoods for former poppy farmers and to provide drug use prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and reintegration services for the most vulnerable communities in Badakhshan, Helmand, and Kandahar,” the Japanese embassy said.
“We will continue to support counternarcotics efforts by Afghan people,” it added.
For nearly two decades, Afghanistan was the largest producer and global supplier of heroin, claiming up to 85% of the global market shares. Products from this landlocked country reached consumers worldwide through various trafficking routes, including those through Central Asia, Iran, and Pakistan.
The Taliban, who financed their insurgency against the former government of Afghanistan and its international allies through drug revenues, promised to eradicate poppy cultivation after returning to power in 2021.
In April 2022, Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issued a decree strictly prohibiting the cultivation of poppy, the primary source of opium used in the production of heroin. “Anyone violating the ban would have their field destroyed and be penalized according to Sharia law,” Hibatullah said.
After the Taliban decree, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported a significant decrease (95%) in drug cultivation in Afghanistan due to the ban.
The Taliban’s ban, however, has pushed tens of thousands of impoverished farmers into extreme poverty, as poppies were the best cash crop in the arid, mountainous country.
Despite the Taliban’s ban, some farmers in Afghanistan clandestinely persist in sowing poppy seeds, determined to continue until they find a viable alternative amidst the country’s severe economic challenges, which have left over 23 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
