Along the narrow tarmac road linking Kabul to Kandahar you could be in New Mexico: green valleys, with scattered trees turning orange and yellow; clusters of adobe-style walled compounds; and looming above huge barren mountains and empty blue skies. This small road is one of the few signs of progress in an appallingly underdeveloped country; indeed, it is one of only very few paved roads in the whole of Afghanistan. It cost international donors a mere $198 million, and thanks to it remote villages in south-east Afghanistan are building new links with the global economy, though these links aren't always of the sort imagined by donors and planners.

LRB 20 January 2005 | PDF Download