Due to years of war and conflict, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It is facing myriads of problems, ranging from
high rate of child mortality and maternal death to high level of illiteracy and backbreaking poverty. There has been progress made after the fall of brutal and hard-line regime of Taliban in late 2001, which had led Afghanistan into isolation from the world and harbored the global network of terrorism that was threatening security across the world.

After the 9/11, which took the lives of about three thousand innocent people, Afghanistan was catapulted into international focus. Over the last one decade, there has been a great deal of interaction between Afghanistan and the outside world.
Afghanistan has benefited from this interaction the most and the donor countries have been contributing to economic restoration and reconstruction efforts by building roads, bridges, schools and carrying out the capacity-building programs for the human resources in the country. Despite a decade of international endeavor to help rebuild the country, the people of Afghanistan are yet to get to the point to live with dignity due to increasing deterioration in security situation and widespread poverty.

Afghanistan remains an aid recipient country and will continue to remain so in the foreseeable future because of the poor capacity to tap its resources to begin to generate sufficient income to stand on its feet.
The Presidential Palace on Friday, June 03, 2011 said that Afghanistan and Italy have signed two agreements on increased political interaction and multilateral cooperation. Italy has around 3,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is one of the major troop-contributing countries to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The agreements were signed by the foreign ministers of the two countries during President Hamid Karzai's visit to Italy where he attended a ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of Italy's unification along with many other international leaders. According to the statement from the presidential office, the newly signed pacts are aimed at strengthening ties and cooperation in areas of trade, culture and education. In the meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in his talks with president Karzai pledged long-term commitment to Afghanistan's reconstruction.

Afghanistan needs to further increase its interactions with developed countries in order to make its way towards development and modernity.
It cannot get rid of the current ills of insecurity, poverty and other social fragmentation by choosing to stick to its traditional status.