With the Taliban capturing control of Afghanistan, the potential future for illicit economies and organised crime within the country and the region more broadly is in enormous flux.

Institutions currently have limited to no access to the country and an entirely new infrastructure for monitoring the evolution of illicit markets and the political economy of illicit markets within the country and the region more broadly is needed.

Governments in the region and in Europe need capacity to monitor emerging threats and shifts in illicit market activities to adequately respond to them. This project aims to provide an actionable framework for understanding and monitoring future trends in the regional and global political economy of illicit markets and SOC in Afghanistan.

Research questions

• What are current trends for illicit economies in Afghanistan and future challenges?
• What is a usable framework for monitoring the evolution of the political economy of the illicit economy in Afghanistan?
• How can the monitoring of illicit economies in Afghanistan be implemented on a practical basis?

Expected impact

We intend to develop an overarching framework to better understand how a monitoring system for illicit markets in Afghanistan could operate. This will provide policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere with more advanced tools for scenario planning illicit trade developments and thereby formulate more effective policy responses against them.