"The fragile nation could easily tumble back into chaos. The basic human needs and genuine grievances of the people, lack of jobs, health, education, income, dignity and opportunities for participation must be met," the UNDP said in a report released in Kabul Monday.
"While there has been rapid progress, the country has a long way to go just to get back to where it was 20 years ago", said Zphirin Diabr, associate administrator of the UNDP.
"Without development assistance to meet these needs, Afghanistan could once again become a failed state, posing threat to its own people as also the international community", the report said.
Titled National Human Development Report: Security With a Human Face, the report takes the first comprehensive look at the state of development in Afghanistan in 30 years.
"Human security and development, rather than military force and diplomacy, are key to resolving the country's complex problems", said the report prepared on the basis of data gathered on the living conditions among Afghans.
The report also noted that Afghanistan ranked 173 out of 178 countries in the UN Human Development Index last year despite promises by the US and other countries to help rebuild the country after the Taliban was overthrown.
UN fears anarchy in Afghanistan
"The international community is committed to fighting terrorism and drugs inside Afghanistan, but human security cannot take a back seat to the national and international security interests of other nations," the report's editor Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh said.
The report said Afghanistan's economy has recovered significantly after the fall of the regime in late 2001 with on-drug GDP rising to over USD four billion dollars in 2002 and economic growth for 2003 estimated at 16 per cent.
However, every second Afghan can still be classified as poor, and about a fifth of the rural population consumes less than 2,070 calories per day, while over half the population is severely impacted by drought, it said.
'UNDP is ignorant and insolent'
Considerable progress has been made on the education front with 54.4 percent of primary age children enrolling in school till last year but the country still has "the worst education system in the world" and one of the lowest adult literacy rates at just 28.7 per cent of the population.
Average life expectancy for Afghanistan is 44.5 years and 3.6 million remain refugees or displaced people.
"Most glaring are the inequalities that affect women and children, still some of the worst social indicators in the world today", said Alistair McKechnie, country director of the World Bank, which financed the report along with the Canadians and the United Nations.
While one woman dies from pregnancy-related causes about every 30 minutes and maternal mortality rates are 60 times higher than in industrialised countries, one in five children die before the age of five, 80 per cent of them from preventable diseases, the report said.
