Kabul’s water crisis and the politics of neglect by Avani Devi

Kabul, once a proud and resilient city nestled in the mountains of Afghanistan, is fast becoming the world’s first capital to run dry. It is a haunting paradox, surrounded by snowcapped peaks, yet dying of thirst. But water, in Kabul today, is more than just a natural resource; it’s a symbol of political paralysis, global indifference, and human suffering.

The warnings have been coming for years. Wells are drying. Reservoirs are shrinking. Groundwater levels are plunging. Climate change has dealt a heavy blow to the region, true, but Kabul’s water crisis isn’t just environmental. It is deeply, painfully political.

Let’s be blunt: the international community has largely abandoned Afghanistan, especially after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021. NGOs that once brought vital infrastructure, medical aid, and water access are now either gone or operating under suffocating restrictions. The Taliban, now the de facto rulers, are ill-equipped, unrecognized, and in many ways uninterested in long-term environmental planning. Their version of governance is one of tight control, not strategic foresight.

The result? A city of over five million people is teetering on the edge of an ecological disaster. Children walk miles to find water, often missing school. Women queue for hours at shrinking wells, clutching empty jugs. Farmers abandon their lands. Even basic hygiene is a luxury for many. In Kabul today, water scarcity means not just thirst, it means disease, displacement, desperation.

But let’s talk about what’s not happening. There is no meaningful international collaboration. No major water pipeline or desalination project. No emergency task force mobilized by the United Nations. No regional water-sharing agreement. The world is watching, shrugging, really, as Kabul’s taps go dry.

It’s easy to point fingers at the Taliban and make no mistake, their rigid governance, focus on ideological control, and lack of scientific infrastructure has worsened the crisis. But this is also a failure of the global community, especially those nations that once pledged to rebuild Afghanistan. Billions were spent on military campaigns and political experiments, but now that Afghans face a basic existential threat, the silence is deafening.

Water, in Kabul, is more than a basic need. It’s become a test of humanity. What happens when a capital city, home to millions, is allowed to become uninhabitable? What precedent does that set for other vulnerable cities, from Sana’a to Cape Town?

The answer doesn’t lie solely in condemning the Taliban. It lies in finding new frameworks for humanitarian aid that don’t depend on recognition of regimes. It lies in empowering Afghans—scientists, engineers, civil society actors, who are still there, trying to make things work with duct tape and hope. It lies in treating water not as a bargaining chip, but as a right.

What Kabul needs isn’t pity. It’s policy. It’s pressure. It’s plumbing. And it’s the political will, from both inside and outside Afghanistan, to confront this crisis not as an inconvenience, but as a warning to the world.

We are watching a capital city die of thirst, not because there isn’t water but because there isn’t the leadership to get it to the people. And that should shake every one of us.

Before Kabul becomes a ghost city of cracked earth and broken promises, the world must ask itself: what are we really waiting for?