A Stunning Statistic if True
The US ambassador to Afghanistan said so in a recent interview, and it's a stunning statistic if true. But it's probably not.
A CSM article headlined “Afghan life expectancy has improved by 20 years since 2001?” is followed by the devastating tagline “The US ambassador to Afghanistan said so in a recent interview, and it’s a stunning statistic if true. But it’s probably not.”
But a line in Diehl’s article really jumped out at me. “Life expectancy [in Afghanistan] has increased by 20 years in the past decade.” In the overall context of an article arguing for an extended involvement in Afghanistan based on humanitarian concerns, that’s a stunning statistic.It brought me up short because I’m aware of few, if any, countries in modern history where life expectancy improved dramatically in the course of a war, let alone by such a nearly unbelievable number. I asked a friend, who studies the public health effects of war, if he thought there was any possibility that Afghans today are living 20 years longer than they were 10 years ago, and he answered, “no.”
I e-mailed Diehl asking where the number came from, pointing out that it seems to diverge from theCIA‘s reporting on Afghan life expectancy substantially. He was kind enough to reply, and said it was supplied by Crocker.
While data collection of all sorts is questionable and haphazard in Afghanistan, particularly since so many parts of the country are no-go zones for researchers and telephone penetration is low, it’s possible that the ambassador is working off a data set that I’m not aware of.
But the CIA does keep track of such things. The CIA World Factbook, updated in August, says that the average Afghan life expectancy at birth is 45.02 years, ranking 220 in the world. The CIA’s estimate of life expectancy in 2001 was 46.24.
But it would be a stunning statistic if true.
