When Zainab Ferozi saw Afghan women struggling to feed their families after Taliban authorities took power, she took matters into her own hands and poured her savings into starting a business.Two-and-a-half years after putting 20,000 Afghanis ($300) earned from teaching sewing classes into a carpet weaving enterprise, she now employs around a dozen women who lost their jobs or who had to abandon their education due to Taliban government rules. Through her business in the western province of Herat, the 39-year-old also “covers all the household expenses” of her family of six, she told AFP from her office where samples of brightly coloured and exquisitely woven rugs and bags are displayed.Her husband, a labourer, cannot find work in one of the poorest countries in the world. Ferozi is one of many women who have launched small businesses in the past three years to meet their own needs and support other Afghan women, whose employment sharply declined after the Taliban took power in 2021. Before the Taliban takeover, women made up 26 percent of public sector workers, a figure that “has effectively decreased to zero”, according to UN Women.Girls and women have also been banned from secondary schools and universities under restrictions the UN has described as “gender apartheid”.  Touba Zahid, a 28-year-old mother-of-one, started making jams and pickles in the small basement of her home in the capital Kabul after she was forced to stop her university education. “I came into the world of business… to create job opportunities for women so they can have an income that at least covers their immediate needs,” Zahid said. Half a dozen of her employees, wearing long white coats, were busy jarring jams and pickles labelled “Mom’s delicious homecooking”. – Growing number of businesses -While women may be making the stock, running the shops in Afghanistan remains mostly a man’s job. Saleswomen like Zahid “cannot go to the bazaar to promote and sell their products” themselves, said Fariba Noori, chairwoman of the Afghanistan Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AWCCI).Another issue for Afghan businesswomen is the need for a “mahram” — a male family member chaperone — to accompany them to other cities or provinces to purchase raw materials, said Noori. After 40 years of successive conflicts, many Afghan women have been widowed and lost many male relatives. Despite these challenges, the number of businesses registered with AWCCI has increased since the Taliban takeover, according to Noori. The number went “from 600 big companies to 10,000″ mainly small, home-based businesses and a few bigger companies, said Noori, herself a businesswoman for 12 years. Khadija Mohammadi, who launched her eponymous brand in 2022 after she lost her private school teaching job, now employs more than 200 women sewing dresses and weaving carpets”I am proud of every woman who is giving a hand to another woman to help her become independent,” said the 26-year-old. Though businesses like Mohammadi’s are a lifeline, the salaries ranging from 5,000 to 13,000 Afghanis, cannot cover all costs and many women are still stalked by economic hardship.Qamar Qasimi, who lost her job as a beautician after the Taliban authorities banned beauty salons in 2023, said that even with her salary she and her husband struggle to pay rent and feed their family of eight.”When I worked in the beauty salon, we could earn 3,000-7,000 Afghanis for styling one bride, but here we get 5,000 per month,” said the 24-year-old.”It’s not comparable but I have no other choice,” she added, the room around her full of women chatting as they worked at 30 looms. – Women-only spaces -The closure of beauty salons was not only a financial blow, but also removed key spaces for women to socialise. Zohra Gonish decided to open a restaurant to create a women-only space in northeastern Badakhshan province.”Women can come here and relax,” said the 20-year-old entrepreneur. “We wanted the staff to be women so that the women customers can feel comfortable here.”But starting her business in 2022, aged 18 was not easy in a country where the labour force participation for women is 10 times lower than the world average, according to the World Bank.  It took Gonish a week to convince her father to support her.Aside from helping their families and having space to socialise, some women said work has given them a sense of purpose.Sumaya Ahmadi, 15, joined Ferozi’s carpet company to help her parents after she had to leave school and became “very depressed”.”(Now) I’m very happy and I no longer have any mental health problems. I’m happier and I feel better.”The work has also given her a new goal: to help her two brothers build their futures.”Because schools’ doors are closed to girls, I work instead of my brothers so they can study and do something with their lives.”

Noxious smog smothering the plains of north India is not only choking the lungs of residents and killing millions, but also slowing the country’s economic growth.India’s capital New Delhi frequently ranks among the world’s most polluted cities. Each winter, vehicle and factory emissions couple with farm fires from surrounding states to blanket the city in a dystopian haze.Acrid smog this month contains more than 50 times the World Health Organization recommended limit of fine particulate matter — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants, that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.Experts say India’s worsening air pollution is having a ruinous impact on its economy — with one study estimating losses to the tune of $95 billion annually, or roughly three percent of the country’s GDP.The true extent of the economic price India is paying could be even greater.”The externality costs are huge and you can’t assign a value to it,” said Vibhuti Garg, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.Bhargav Krishna of the Delhi-based research collective Sustainable Futures Collaborative said “costs add up in every phase”.”From missing a day at work to developing chronic illness, the health costs associated with that, to premature death and the impact that has on the family of the person,” Krishna told AFP.- ‘Health and wealth hazard’-Still, several studies have tried to quantify the damage.One by the global consultancy firm Dalberg concluded that in 2019, air pollution cost Indian businesses $95 billion due to “reduced productivity, work absences and premature death”.The amount is nearly three percent of India’s budget, and roughly twice its annual public health expenditure.”India lost 3.8 billion working days in 2019, costing $44 billion to air pollution caused by deaths,” according to the study which calculated that toxic air “contributes to 18 percent of all deaths in India”.Pollution has also had a debilitating impact on the consumer economy because of direct health-related eventualities, the study said, reducing footfall and causing annual losses of $22 billion.The numbers are even more staggering for Delhi, the epicentre of the crisis, with the capital province losing as much as six percent of its GDP annually to air pollution.Restaurateur Sandeep Anand Goyle called the smog a “health and wealth hazard”.”People who are health conscious avoid stepping out so we suffer,” said Goyle, who heads the Delhi chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India.Tourism has also been impacted, as the smog season coincides with the period when foreigners traditionally visit northern India — too hot for many during the blisteringly hot summers.”The smog is giving a bad name to India’s image,” said Rajiv Mehra of the Indian Association of Tour Operators.Delhi faces an average 275 days of unhealthy air a year, according to monitors.- ‘Premature deaths’ -Piecemeal initiatives by the government — — that critics call half-hearted — have failed to adequately address the problem.Academic research indicates that its detrimental impact on the Indian economy is adding up.A 2023 World Bank paper said that air pollution’s “micro-level” impacts on the economy translate to “macro-level effects that can be observed in year-to-year changes in GDP”.The paper estimates that India’s GDP would have been 4.5 percent higher at the end of 2023, had the country managed to curb pollution by half in the previous 25 years.Another study published in the Lancet health journal on the direct health impacts of air pollution in 2019 estimated an annual GDP deceleration of 1.36 percent due to “lost output from premature deaths and morbidity”.Desperate emergency curbs — such as shuttering schools to reduce traffic emissions as well as banning construction — come with their own economic costs.”Stopping work for weeks on end every winter makes our schedules go awry, and we end up overshooting budgets,” said Sanjeev Bansal, the chairman of the Delhi unit of the Builders Association of India.Pollution’s impact on the Indian economy is likely to get worse if action is not taken.With India’s median age expected to rise to 32 by 2030, the Dalberg study predicts that “susceptibility to air pollution will increase, as will the impact on mortality”.