Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
William Byrd of the US Institute of Peace (USIP) said that even if only half of DAB’s total reserves are devoted to support its basic activities as a central bank, it would “provide an opportunity to make a start toward stabilizing the economy and private sector.”
Last summer, following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, the Taliban seized control of the country. In the months since Afghanistan’s economy has been devested by the Taliban’s policies and by international sanctions against the country. On this episode of CNA Talks Jon Schroden welcomes economists Torek Farhadi and Bill Byrd, to discuss this crisis and what can be done to alienate it...
With its economy in free fall, the Taliban is banking on private enterprise to rescue Afghanistan’s people and solidify its regime. That will be tough for a country under international sanctions, with its banks paralyzed, poverty reaching near-universal levels and little confidence among the population in what the future holds. When the Taliban seized power in August, the international aid that made up about 40% of its GDP evaporated. Taliban officials have now cast that as an opportunity...
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and Vice President of Russia-Europe at the United States Institute of Peace, William Taylor, joins News NOW to discuss whether diplomacy can prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine and how the U.S. should be handling the tense situation...
For the rest, resources have been prey to what William Byrd, a development economist with the United States Institute of Peace, has dubbed "industrial-scale looting".
"Obviously it's something Afghanistan should be doing. It's crazy to be importing cement over long distances," said William Byrd, a development economist with the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.
What mining does occur in Afghanistan is mostly carried out on a small to medium scale, according to William Byrd, an economist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Much of this mining is illicit and robs the Afghan government of critical revenue. “It tends to empower power brokers, politically connected people, and in some places insurgents,” Byrd, the former country manager for Afghanistan at the World Bank, told FP.
As if Coca-Cola gave up making soft drinks, the Taliban announced to great fanfare last year that they were getting out of the drug business. The group that rode big opium profits to a takeover of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 suddenly, seemingly, swore off the stuff. Poppy planting was banned and drugs were...
On august 19th Afghans will take to the streets to mark 100 years of independence from Britain. They have more to protest about than to celebrate: their country has not known peace for 40 years. Afghanistan’s modern woes began in earnest in 1979, when the...