name: Bismella

f/name: Housain Ali

class: MIS 2

Human skills development for fostering a regional competitive

advantage
Human skills development for fostering a national competitive
advantage(subtitle)
Human skills are an important tool of productivity. Though Afghanistan is a large
pool of human resources, due to having youths making a significant part of its
population, but the most of this young population are unskilled. in todays competitive
world large quantity of youths and human resources are not a competitive advantage
alone. besides, these youths should be skilled. by developing specific human skills our
nation can gain competitive advantage over other nations. now the questions are these
that which human skills we are lacking? which human skills are necessary to be
developed according to the global and regional situations for fostering a competitive
advantage? and how these skills can be developed?
as mentioned earlier Afghanistan is a large pool of human resources and labor
force, but most of them are unskilled, as a result we are lacking specialized and skilled
human resources in every field. human skills shortages are most visible in technology,
industry and agriculture fields. in technology section we do not have specialized and
talent human resources to produce technology intensive products or do researches. in
industry field we lack human skills in food industries, metal industries, chemical
industries, pharmaceutical industries, and others. in order to industrialize our country we
need skilled and talented labor force. Afghanistan is an agricultural country and
agriculture is the main hobby of 80% of our country's population. but agriculture in
Afghanistan is done traditionally which is not effective and efficient. modernizing the
agriculture needs skilled and enough educated farmers, and processing and packaging
the agricultural products need developing specific human skills. as a result we are

lacking human skills in three main fields: technology, industry and agriculture.
developing each human skills will not give us competitive advantage over other
nations. developing human skills in fields in which relative advantage already exists can
foster the competitive advantage. so we can foster a national competitive advantage by
developing human skills in five specific sections. the first one is developing human
skills for producing afghan carpets. afghan carpets are having good quality but they are
not produced in large quantity and they are being sent to Pakistan for further processing
due to the lack of skilled labor in this field. by developing human skills in this field more
of these premium quality carpets can be produced and the further processing can be done
inside the country. in consequence we will gain a competitive advantage over other
countries like Iran, turkey and central Asian countries producing carpets, and afghan
carpet will gain more market share in regional and global markets. the second human
skill that can give Afghanistan a competitive advantage is skills for producing,
processing and packaging dried fruits. dried fruits have the potential of being changed to
global products. but dried fruits are not produced in large amount to serve huge global
and regional markets. developing human skills for producing, processing and packaging
dried fruits can boost the quantity and quality of dried fruits being produced, then these
products can be exported to regional and global markets. most notable than all is that
these products will not have competitors of the same kind in early years. the third one is
human skills for mining and metal processing. investment of Chinese and Indian
companies in Hajigak iron mine and Logar province copper mine need skilled and
educated labor. developing these human skills can turn Afghanistan to a great exporter of
iron and copper made products. the fourth one is developing human skills in technology
fields. that can change Afghanistan to a large pool of technically skilled and cheap
human resource which will encourage investors to invest in Afghanistan and will give
Afghanistan a competitive advantage over other nations in receiving FDI inflows. for
sure that in addition to these skills, leadership and entrepreneurship are skills which are

important for efficiently exploiting the advantages gained through developing mentioned
above human skills.
the last question that raises is how to develop these skills? the answer is that some
of these skills exists traditionally and government should spend more to change existing
traditional skills to formal knowledge and modernize them according to the today's
technologies and teach them to students in schools and universities. but for developing
human skills in technology and mining fields, government should support students
studying in these fields, and pay the tuition fees of students who are studying in private
universities in technology and mining fields.
as a summary: we are lacking skilled labor force in three main fields: technology,
industry, and agriculture. but developing human skills for producing carpets, dried fruits
and in technology and mining fields can give us competitive advantage, alleviate
poverty and boost the economics growth of our country. for developing these skills
government should modernize traditionally existing skills and change them to formal
knowledge and provide supports for students studying in technology and mining fields
and pay the tuition fees of students studying in these fields in private universities.