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Afghanistan

Families at the Mar Garh camp, Afghanistan, received vital assistance from CAFOD and Islamic Relief [Marsha Pereira]

There are only two countries in the world with lower poverty indices than Afghanistan - the number of people with access to safe drinking water source is one of the lowest in the world (23%)

Just 12% of the population has access to adequate sanitation and average life expectancy is 46 years - more than 15 years lower than in neighbouring countries.

One child in four does not survive beyond its fifth birthday.

CAFOD spent £138,000 in Afghanistan in 2008

Afghanistan's economy has recovered greatly since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, but the country still faces numerous problems - such as a devastated economy, the return of millions of refugees, continued warlordism, drug trafficking, and a new government struggling with different political forces.

[REUTERS/Omar Sobhani, courtesy www.alertnet.org]

Women working for themselves

CRS Afghanistan works to improve women’s livelihoods by giving grants to women-managed businesses and enterprises

Afghan children sitting on a truck. Thousands of children are either begging or working in the streets [REUTERS/Ali Imam, courtesy www.alertnet.org]

Schooling sacrificed to poverty

The Mayhan Foundation aims to give orphans, working children and other poor children in Afghanistan the opportunity to have an education

Registering for free distribution of wheat with Islamic Relief, Afghanistan 2002.

Key challenges

Afghan officials estimate the urban population will double to about 13 million by 2015. The influx of returning refugees is increasing pressure on devastated infrastructures

Meeting women's basic needs

Two years after Taliban rule ended in Afghanistan, thousands of refugees - most of them women and children - returned to the war-ravaged country

A family outside their home in Kashmir, India.

Torn apart by its neighbours

The status of Kashmir, which was partitioned in 1947, and the history of events leading to its division, have long been violently contested between India and Pakistan