Thread by @ContextNewsroom

🇦🇫 Five months since the Taliban seized power, Afghan companies are battling to stay afloat.

📉 International sanctions and curbs against the hardline Islamist group are fuelling a deepening economic crisis.

⭕️ Here's how businesses in the country have been affected. 👇

1️⃣ Dynamic Vision

⭕️ Dynamic Vision was one of the country's top infrastructure companies.

It had more than 300 projects, some 1,200 employees and an annual turnover of $10 million.

⛔️ But the Taliban takeover meant millions stuck in unpaid dues and limited cash.

🤝 Now, Dynamic Vision has shifted from infrastructure to humanitarian work.

🇺🇳 It's currently doing research for the @UNmigration.

💼 CEO @AbdulEhsanMohma warns that unless jobs are created, the poor will suffer the most.

2️⃣ Ehtesab

⭕️ @SaraWahedi founded @EhtesabApp, which provides real-time alerts on security, traffic and power outages in Kabul.

📱Security experts, journalists, government officials and volunteers vets and verifies reports.

🚨 This allows Ehtesab to send alerts within minutes.

⏱ Now that most of her employees have left the country, it takes as long as 15 minutes for an alert to be sent.

⚡️ The few who remain work when they can - in the intervals between power cuts and internet outages.

🗣 "We are running on fumes at this point," she said.

3️⃣ BrightPoint

💼 @Matiullahfr owned BrightPoint, a business consulting firm.

🗓 Between preparing for a @TEDx talk and planning for his wedding, his schedule was packed.

Then everything ground to a halt.

📉 20 workers became 4. A dozen projects turned to 0. Cash dried up.

⭕️ @Matiullahfr is now in Abu Dhabi, waiting for his asylum claim to France to be processed.

📱 He has developed the platform "Entrepreneur on the Go" to help fellow migrant entrepreneurs access tools and contacts.

💰 Humanitarian aid are still coming to Afghanistan despite the sanctions, but Afghan entrepreneurs say it will not help revive the economy and create jobs.

⭕️ Read more about the businesses fighting to survive in Afghanistan 👇

news.trust.org/item/202201250…