Twenty-three years of war have left Afghanistan's economy virtually prostrate. To assist the country's economic recovery, GIZ supports institutions like the investment promotion agency AISA, which currently manages an investment volume of US$ 500,000,000. Investments lead to the creation of jobs that give people a steady income and better prospects for the future: in this way, GIZ helps to alleviate the hardship people suffer in the aftermath of war. 

Like Afghanistan, many developing countries find themselves in a conflict or post-conflict situation. Development cooperation supports reconstruction and seeks to normalise living conditions in these countries.

From a development cooperation perspective, the economy plays a key role in societies afflicted by conflict. Certain transnational corporations – known as "war profiteers" – make a practice of exploiting conflict situations: they fuel crises or hinder resolution. These enterprises work against the interests of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which depend on peaceful and stable framework conditions and often cannot survive conflicts. It is particularly the SMEs that are vital for peaceful employment and growth.

The task of Private Sector Development (PSD) is, in this complex and charged situation, to identify measures that support the kind of economic structures that foster reconstruction, without unintentionally lending support to war profiteers.