Contradicting rosy statements made this week by the State Department, a Gallup poll released Friday showed that Afghanistan is wallowing in misery like few countries have this millennium.
The research firm reported that 61 percent of Afghans consider themselves to be “suffering”–a number that is up from 23 percent in 2010, and the highest level of national misery measured by Gallup since it launched the poll in 2005.
A worsening economy appeared to be a major factor behind the deterioration. The proportion of Afghans that claimed to be “dissatisfied with efforts to deal with the poor” was at 86 percent–up 9 percentage points on a year-ago basis and up 54 percentage points since 2008. Thirty-two percent of urban Afghans and 44 percent of rural Afghans reported not having enough money for food at certain times throughout the past year.
Gallup suggested that the country’s economy is being strained by the insurgency. Last month, US Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson said that the number of Afghan security forces killed in combat rose this year to 4,634 from 4,350 last year. The commander described the increasing casualty rate as “unsustainable.”
Regardless, the survey showed that the people of Afghanistan do not see the situation getting better. Two-thirds of the country reported economic conditions worsening while only 6 percent said they were improving.
At an international conference on the country’s future in London this week, two years after a similar symposium in Tokyo, Secretary of State John Kerry offered a different assessment.
“Afghanistan has obviously made enormous progress. It’s just a transformation taking place, and you have to go there to see it and feel it,” he commented Thursday, before qualifying his statement to recognize “the difficulties of security, [and] the difficulties of an insurgent force that still chooses to kill people randomly rather than offer a platform for progress and for the future.”
Gallup reported people “thriving,” “struggling” or “suffering” according to numerical answers to survey questions. Respondents gave answers from zero to ten. Ratings of current conditions and predictions measuring four or lower qualified people as “suffering.”
