Challenges and Opportunities of Afghanistan’s Accession to the World Trade Organization

Abstract

The thesis aims to present the challenges and opportunities of Afghanistan’s accession to the WTO and provide recommendations to the government and donor institutions. A number of interviews have been conducted with the representatives of the government, donor institutions and businesses inside Afghanistan to identify these challenges and opportunities. A comparative study was also carried out to analyze the experiences of other LDCs and explore what lessons could be drawn for Afghanistan. The interviews and comparative study suggest that the country’s accession to the WTO is an opportunity for its fragile economy to grow despite of having some negative implications on the government revenues. In particular, the accession will provide Afghanistan the opportunity of access to the international markets without trade barriers and bring institutional reform within its trade sector, but it is questionable whether the country will be able to address the technical and professional challenges of post-accession in agriculture, health, education, international law and trade as it lacks expertise in these areas. Although the extension of the thesis findings requires more evidence to judge, the study’s findings challenge general understanding of Afghanistan’s accession to the WTO in the country and point to important new avenues of research.