Afghanistan deserves a few matches against teams like Australia and New Zealand. But I believe that some of the SENA boards want to expel Afghanistan from international cricket and that complicates things. Even associate nations such as Scotland, Netherlands and Nepal are now performing better than Zimbabwe. And that too with 1/50th of the funding that Zimbabwe receive. But the ICC remains blind to this and they continue to prop up Zimbabwe by pumping tens of millions of USD into that country every year.
Yes this is worry that some major cricket boards (SENA) might be trying to exclude Afghanistan. Furthermore you highlight that associate nations like Scotland Netherlands and Nepal are now playing better than Zimbabwe despite receiving far less money which exactly makes question that why ICC continues to heavily fund Zimbabwe when those funds do not seem to improve their performance suggesting problem with how cricket resources are managed globally.