50 Afghanis World Food Summit

Issued to coincide with the World Food Summit held in Rome in November 1996, this piece was authorized by the Rabbani government — a administration that by that point controlled little more than Kabul, with the Taliban having seized roughly three-quarters of Afghan territory. The country was in the grip of civil war and facing acute famine, making the commemorative subject grimly ironic.

Afghan commemoratives of this period were produced almost entirely for export to collector markets, with no meaningful domestic circulation.