1. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has suffered many years of conflict. Prime Minister Tony Blair promised ‘The conflict will not be the end, we will not walk away as the outside world has done so many times before.’ Throughout this inquiry into securing the future of Afghanistan, we have received starkly opposing evidence and narratives of future scenarios following the withdrawal of combat forces from those which are overly optimistic to those which see only gloom and doom.