The Taliban will struggle to provide core government services, maintain infrastructure and generate public investment to support growth in Afghanistan’s largely aid-dependent economy, which will create room for internal dissent and unrest by leaving subsistence agriculture and illegal activities as the main sources of revenue in the war-torn country. The Taliban takeover will exacerbate Afghanistan’s pre-existing economic challenges , while the combined effects of COVID-19 and a severe drought will create new ones. According to a February 2021 report released by the U.S. government’s Afghan Study Group, the poverty rate in Afghanistan is now estimated to be as high as 72%, up from 55% in 2017 — driven largely by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. In 2020, the U.N. Development Program ranked Afghanistan 170 out of 189 countries and territories in terms of human development and also estimated that more than one million Afghans were internally displaced.