On July 3, the World Bank announced that it would support the development of new telecommunications infrastructure in Afghanistan up to 76.5 million dollars. Previous infrastructure has been bombed, torn up, and salvaged for its wire and other components around the country.
The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is a part of the World Bank that insures high-risk business projects for a company in a high-risk state. For many business investors, obtaining insurance and mitigating risk are key factors in the decision to invest in a foreign country. Since the World Bank has signalled its backing, it creates a permission, so to speak, for businesses world-wide to consider investment in Afghanistani telecommunications. MIGA insurance financing also opens the gate for individual states with export credit agencies (ECAs) to insure part of any offering a telecommunications company within their home state. Therefore, this announcement by the World Bank introduces a “Likely Possibility.”
For those of us who have plenty of telecommunications, it's good to reflect just what they are used for besides calling Grandma. That would be: faster business deals-better information about prevailing prices in nearby cities or where shortages are of a product one sells. Stock quotes and commodity prices. Wireless internet. A rapid transmission of information about the conduct of officials, townspeople, how good the hospital is–where one is staying, and if one is well after a natural disaster. A more connected and therefore accurate media–also, a more free media.
Like all infrastructure projects, the program is value-neutral, because it can also support illicit activity–but, without it, legal activity is constrained even more. I wait to see just what shape the project will take and in what areas of the country. One constraint I see is that cellular technology does not always work well in mountains. Whoever invests in this program using MIGA guarantees will have to apply technical know-how that may in the long run benefit all of us. To be sure, it will be of great benefit to Afghanistan.
Photo: CNN
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