The per capita income of the United Arab Emirates for 2007 was $37,300. The per capita income for Afghanistan was $1,000. The presence of which resource BEST explains the vast difference in incomes for these two nations?

The correct answer is - oil.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) are a country located in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, right on a place where there's one of the biggest reserves of oil in the world. The income from the oil has made this country very rich, and from small, undeveloped, pastoral country, in just few decades it became a very rich and highly developed country.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, doesn't have that luck with the oil reserves. The country's trademark product is the opium, and while it is very well paid for on the global market, the unprocessed product is actually relatively cheap, so the people get very little for it. Also, the military interventions from other countries, the separatist movements, terrorist activities, has all contributed to the country being a low developed country in terrible condition.