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UNDERSTANDING AFGHANISTAN
The Consolidated Findings of a Research Project Commissioned by Her Majesty’s Government
SULTAN BARAKAT
November 2008
This report was produced as part of a significant research project commissioned by the British
government and implemented by the Recovery & Development Consortium.
The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not represent UK government policy.
The following Recovery & Development Consortium members were involved in this project:
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
Acknowledgements
Report Author:
Sultan Barakat
This report provides a synthesis of more than 500 pages of scholarship generated in the course of
the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ research project commissioned by DFID Afghanistan. The entire
undertaking includes a Political Economy Analysis led by Peter Middlebrook, a Strategic Conflict
Assessment led by myself, Sultan Barakat, a Growth Diagnostic Scoping Study led by Alfie Ulloa and
Sharon Miller, and a Poverty, Gender and Social Exclusion Analysis led by Sippi Azarbaijani-
Mogaddam. ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ draws upon insightful contributions not only from these
output leaders but also from the individual team members: Jonathan Goodhand, Chris Cramer, Anna
Patterson, Simon Foot, Antonio Giustozzi, Christopher Langton, Michael Murphy, Mark Sedra, Arne
Strand, Emma Hooper, Deniz Kandiyoti, Andrew Pinney, Adam Pain, and Abi Masefield.
Numerous informants, who are included in the appendices to the individual reports, allowed the
study to gain timely and intriguing perspectives on conflict, history politics, economics, culture,
reconstruction and social exclusion. The whole team is indebted, in particular, to the several senior
Afghan government figures, including more than half a dozen Ministers and a dozen members of
the National Assembly, who took the time to speak with us.
I would furthermore like to acknowledge the support and guidance provided by Chris Pycroft,
Shalini Bahuguna, Lu Ecclestone, Alan Whaites, James Fennel, Miguel Laric, Rob Ower and numerous
others from DFID. This significant undertaking, which provides one of the very first opportunities to
draw together expertise from numerous sectors pertaining to Afghanistan’s stabilisation and
development, would not have been possible without their keen interest and commitment.
We also would like to recognise the tremendous efforts of the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ project
management team, particularly Peter Middlebrook (Team Leader), Sharon Miller (Project
Coordinator), Oliver Mathieson (Project Director) and Robbie Gregorowski (Project Manager), the
latter two from Maxwell Stamp PLC. Peer reviewers such as Astri Suhrke, and Dianna Wuagneux,
Michaela Prokop and Deniz Kandivoti strengthened the content with their insightful critiques.
Finally, I would like to note the role of the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU)
at the University of York, particularly that of Research Fellow Steven A. Zyck, in supporting the
production of this report. All errors and omissions remain the author’s exclusive responsibility.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 8
1.1 Purpose.................................................................................................................................................................... 8
1.2 Key Findings ........................................................................................................................................................... 9
2. Methodology.................................................................................................................................. 12
2.1 The Political Economy Approach ...................................................................................................................12
2.2 Opportunities and Challenges........................................................................................................................12
3. Context and Conflict in Afghanistan .............................................................................................. 14
3.1 The Structural Context .....................................................................................................................................14
3.1.1 Physical Structures.........................................................................................................................14
3.1.2 Human / Social Structures...........................................................................................................15
3.2 The Historical Context ......................................................................................................................................17
3.3 Conflict and Security ........................................................................................................................................18
3.3.1 The Multi-Conflict System...........................................................................................................19
4. Contemporary Conflict in Afghanistan ........................................................................................... 23
4.1 A ‘Theoretical’ Perspective on Conflict in Afghanistan..........................................................................23
4.2 Insurgents and Armed Opposition Groups.................................................................................................23
4.3 Motivating the Insurgency..............................................................................................................................26
4.4 Financing the Insurgency ................................................................................................................................27
5. Governance and the State .............................................................................................................. 29
5.1 The Envisioned State and Underlying Assumptions................................................................................29
5.2 Setting the Stage: The Bonn Agreement ....................................................................................................29
5.3 Territorial Control...............................................................................................................................................30
5.4 Revenue Control and Mobilisation ...............................................................................................................30
5.4.1 Control of Revenues ......................................................................................................................30
5.4.2 Revenue Mobilisation ....................................................................................................................30
5.5 Corruption, Predation and Taxation............................................................................................................. 31
5.6 (De) Mobilising Legitimacy..............................................................................................................................32
6. Economic Development .................................................................................................................. 34
6.1 Economics and Conflict in Afghanistan .....................................................................................................34
6.2 The Economic Context ......................................................................................................................................34
6.3 Constraints to and Opportunities for Growth ..........................................................................................37
6.3.1 Economic Rule of Law...................................................................................................................37
6.3.2 Crime and Insecurity......................................................................................................................39
6.3.3 Infrastructure ...................................................................................................................................39
6.3.3 Opportunities for Growth ............................................................................................................39
6.4 Contextualising the Growth Diagnostic .....................................................................................................40
7. Poverty, Gender and Social Exclusion ............................................................................................. 41
7.1 Poverty, Gender, Social Exclusion and Conflict ........................................................................................ 41
7.2 Poverty................................................................................................................................................................... 41
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1. Introduction
During the period in which the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ engagement was ongoing (April to
August 2008), the British military suffered some of its greatest losses, measured in the number of
casualties, within Afghanistan since the start of the international intervention in late 2001. This
fact, accompanied by the tragic loss of scores of Afghan civilians during the same interval,
highlights ever more strongly the need for a holistic understanding of Afghanistan – as a country,
an economy, a polity, a society and a zone of frequent international interventionism– in order to
identify the most effective manner in which to intervene in the cycles of national, regional and
global conflict which have affected it for much of the past 30 years.
The ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ research project consists of four main studies: (i) a Political
Economy Analysis, (ii) a Strategic Conflict Assessment, (iii) a Growth Diagnostic and, (iv) a Poverty,
Gender and Social Exclusion Analysis. Combined, they present one of the few initiatives that have
sought to consolidate information pertaining to contemporary Afghanistan as a whole. Their main
arguments and findings are brought together and streamlined within this report. Given the diversity
of the sectors being explored, the methods employed and the findings arrived at, this document
should be understood not as the sum of its parts but, rather, as a useful tool for analysing the
linkages between the different ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ outputs. References are constantly
made to the component reports, and further details, explanations and findings should be sought
from within them where this document, due to its brevity, is unable to reflect their totality and
depth. Furthermore, it should be noted that, while this report captures a snapshot of Afghanistan at
the time of its writing, the highly dynamic situation will require constant analysis and a continuous
updating of studies such as ‘Understanding Afghanistan’.
This Synthesis Report begins with a brief description, in Section 2, of the methodologies and
conceptual frameworks employed within ‘Understanding Afghanistan’. It then turns, in Section 3, to
a discussion of the contemporary and historical context which have ‘set the stage’ for all
developments and interventions that have taken place in Afghanistan since 2001. This contextual
analysis includes a discussion of the multiple ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, which are then
further explored – as regards their participants, objectives, motives and financing – in Section 4.
Sections 5 and 6, respectively, review the current statuses of state building and economic
development in order to understand how limited progress in these areas has hindered the pursuit of
stability. Social exclusion and the constraints to inclusion and equity, particularly as related to
women, the chronically poor and the disabled, among others, is the focus of Section 7. Finally, policy
options for improving interventions in each of these sectors – conflict, governance, economic
development and social exclusion – are offered in Section 8 prior to a conclusion in Section 9. In
sum, these various sections review where Afghanistan currently stands and how, after nearly seven
years of external assistance and internal efforts, conflict has intensified, the State has failed to gain
widespread legitimacy, the economy has deteriorated and social exclusion has continued.
1.1 Purpose
The aim of Understanding of Afghanistan is to improve Her Majesty’s Government’s (HMG)
comprehension of the country in order to inform a multi-donor strategy and the
Department for International Development’s (DFID) Country Plan. In doing so, it not only
serves to consolidate information but to provide analysis which correlates to specific short-, mid-
and long-term strategies and policy options integral in operationalising the National Security,
International Relations and Development (NSID) strategy. However, it is important to note that what
results is not a blueprint or instruction manual but a variety of critical insights and policy options
which DFID and HMG should consider and, where appropriate, adopt for inclusion in a broader
government-wide or multi-donor strategy.
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The pursuit of a ‘grand bargain’ would prove unsettling for northern militias, in particular, who
had initially been privileged in the first post-Bonn systems of governance. The perception of a
pro-Pashtun agenda among key governmental officials or the international community would
severely exacerbate tensions created by the current focus of development and security
assistance on southern Afghanistan. All future interventions must take into
consideration rising North-South tensions, the realistic potential for a large-scale civil war
and the need to consistently provide financial incentives and security guarantees to the North
while politically incorporating or courting the Taliban and other predominantly Pashtun
entities.
One critical challenge to State sovereignty has been the partial and not entirely
successful incorporation of traditional or customary measures into a modern,
constitutional framework. The failure to do so has resulted in the creation of three parallel
systems, those supported by the Afghan government, those created by the international
community and those that had already existed. Each of these is shaped in various ways by
conflict and international, regional, national and local power struggles. A general conclusion
was reached that in sectors such as justice, security, anti-corruption and service delivery, it is
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critical to draw upon and unobtrusively develop customary mechanisms rather than
continuing to treat them as corrosive or illicit. Providing a greater role for Islam within the
Afghan State will greatly facilitate cooperation between public and customary institutions, as
the perception of a technocratic and secular government has frequently led to mistrust and
divisions between the periphery and the centre.
Furthermore, the examinations of economic growth and social exclusion highlight the need to
approach reconstruction and development not only in terms of structural changes and the
creation of enabling environments but also, if not more importantly, in terms of local
development. National growth has, thus far, frequently failed to provide improved living
standards at the local levels from which discontentment has principally emanated.
Poverty rates are high, and a large segment of the Afghan population sits alongside
the poverty line. Consumption poverty and food security are perhaps the most notable forms
which poverty takes, though weak service delivery also contributes to poor living standards.
Rising commodity prices and the high reliance upon grain purchases, compounded by
insecurity and a potentially related decline in the overall economy, could push more people
into poverty and malnutrition. Still, more research must be done into the ‘trajectories’ and
qualitative dimensions of poverty given the weakness of current statistical approaches.
The needs and interests of women, in particular, must be more fully addressed within and
beyond the economic sphere. Doing so must recognise the political nature of what are far too
commonly labelled ‘personal’, ‘private’ or ‘social’ concerns of women. Resources and
assistance targeting sectors in which women have a customary or familial role,
particularly health and education, is critical, as is the use of traditional and religious
leaders to begin loosening the cultural association between familial honour (or
religious purity) and the control of women. In some areas, however, such as justice,
safeguarding women’s rights – as well as the rights of other marginalised groups – will require
training and monitoring to ensure the rule of law. The Afghan government and international
community must support equitable justice, access to social services and the amplification of
empowering customary messages while ensuring accountability through consistent
quantitative as well as qualitative monitoring of women’s evolving position.
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willingness to do so may be blunted by overly broad sentiments that ‘touching’ gender could
inflame additional insurgency. One critical step in tacking this epidemic of violence could be
the engagement of more women in the police and judiciary and the taking of tangible steps to
protect and empower women – not only relying upon the family to provide protection – and to
follow-up conventions and abstract commitments with tangible and closely monitored actions.
Additional socially excluded groups – the chronically poor, female heads of household, the
disabled, youth and others – will, like women, require improved access to basic social services,
to justice, to economic opportunities and to forums for advocating their interests. There is a
genuine need to invest in public goods – such as health, education and justice – in
order to safeguard the interests of those commonly barred, through formal and
informal systems, from accessing such opportunities. Yet, the provision of such goods
must be accompanied by at least minimal social safety nets to assist those who are too
vulnerable to benefit from, for instance, broader economic growth or development
programmes. As with women, the international community would be wise to utilise traditional
mechanisms, such as charitable giving (or zakat), particularly in those cases where
marginalisation is not based on identity, to guarantee sustainability and local ownership.
These findings and many others are explored in further detail within the following sections and, far
more elaborately, in the reports which have contributed to them. The overall picture is one of a
weak State which has lost legitimacy just as the insurgency has expanded and also claimed, if not
yet won, the moral high ground. The country’s future will depend upon the government’s ability to
gain capacity, legitimacy and autonomy and to rid itself of the corruption which has not only
weakened the State but severely hindered the economy. The international community has
contributed to such problems through specific policies and practices and, more broadly, through its
willingness to establish parallel structures and to deprive the government of the rights and
responsibilities of an independent State, despite the stated intention to do quite the opposite.
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2. Methodology
The various ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ outputs utilised differing but complementary
research methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative. In addition, conceptual
frameworks, reflective of their individual undertakings and subject areas, guided the development of
each output. These are encapsulated in the methodology papers designed by each output team in
advance of the field research. For its theoretical grounding, the Political Economy Analysis drew
upon a tri-partite rubric of capital, coercion and legitimacy and the notion of a ‘triple transition’ in
order to better understand the historical and contemporary processes of state building in
Afghanistan. The Strategic Conflict Assessment drew heavily upon DFID’s own Conflict Assessment
Guidance Notes in examining the varied roles of structures, actors and dynamics in the conflict and
the manners in which they were (and could be) affected by the international intervention. The
Growth Diagnostic, in recognition of the lack of conflict-adapted economic assessment tools,
employed the framework developed by Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco (2005), but then, in a
separate and complementary report, analysed the results in the light of Afghanistan’s political
economy and conflict. Finally, the Poverty, Growth and Social Exclusion Analysis drew upon a variety
of qualitative and quantitative methods and the results of the 2005 and 2007 National Risk and
Vulnerability Assessments (NRVAs).
Within each ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ output, a standard process was followed in
reaching the final conclusions and reports. This began with the development of individual
methodologies to ensure rigor, followed by sector-specific literature reviews to highlight the gaps in
knowledge and analysis. Each output team then undertook significant amounts of field-based
research prior to drafting Initial Findings Papers, which were then developed in consultation with
DFID counterparts. The consultation phase not only allowed the output teams to better understand
HMG’s perspectives but also provided an opportunity for team members to identify and develop the
linkages between their findings and streams of analysis. Such connections are evident within this
Synthesis Report and within each of the individual output reports. Finally, peer reviewers, who
brought additional expertise and a refreshing degree of detached objectivity to the findings,
reviewed all outputs, including the final reports. This process allowed for thorough research and
analysis and was guided by the overarching conceptual framework described below.
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into the overarching project. Most significant, however, was not the technical approach and
analytical frameworks but the potential to engage in substantial amounts of field research within
Afghanistan (and, in the case of the Strategic Conflict Assessment team, Pakistan). In sum, more
than 140 person-days were spent conducting field research primarily in Kabul, though
Strategic Conflict Assessment team members were able to conduct more than 15 days of research in
Kandahar, Helmand and Herat provinces in addition to several days in Pakistan.
‘Understanding Afghanistan’ team members, facilitated by DFID Kabul, were able to interview high-
ranking Afghan officials, members of the National Assembly, foreign and Afghan soldiers and
military commanders, Afghan police officers, international police trainers, experts, advisers,
consultants and countless representatives of international, intergovernmental, financial and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) in addition to, in the UK, several Members of Parliament.1 These
individuals provided insights and information which is not publicly available and served to highlight
as well as challenge critical assumptions regarding politics, conflict, economics, reconstruction and
social equity within Afghanistan.
The research was not, however, without minor complications. Security concerns and the limited
amount of time (one month) for field research posed anticipated constraints. However, the most
notable challenge, evident across all outputs, was the lack of historical as well as contemporary data
concerning Afghanistan. Several reports note that, despite the wealth of information gathered
regarding various sectors, the data remains diffuse, decentralised and, in many cases, unpublished.
The lack of data concerning gender and social exclusion, in particular, is noted by the Poverty,
Gender and Social Exclusion Analysis as resulting from the sensitivity of data related to women,
ethnicity and marginalised groups. 2 This lack of data complicated, in particular, the degree of
certainty which could be claimed by the results of the Growth Diagnostic, and, more broadly, data
paucity will continue to inhibit evidence-based policy development and programming. One of the
key recommendations emerging from this study is for DFID to take the lead in gathering
and centralising data related to security, reconstruction, economic growth, governance
and social exclusion.
1 Full lists of informants can be found in the appendices of each ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ report. In many cases,
informants requested to remain anonymous. In such cases, efforts have been made to identify the role or placement of such
individuals if not necessarily their title.
2 Additional information regarding data availability, or the lack thereof, can be found in Section 7 of the Political Economy
Analysis final report, in Sections 2 and 3 of the Growth Diagnostic Scoping Study final report and in Section 1.4 of the
Social Exclusion final report.
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3Structures are discussed throughout each of the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ reports but can be found, most notably, in
Section 3 of the Political Economy Analysis, Section 3.1 of the Strategic Conflict Assessment and Section 2 of the Growth
Diagnostic Policy Discussion Paper.
4 It has suggested that the Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP) would allow the country to serve as a conduit for Central Asian gas
to growing energy markets in Pakistan and India, however, the commercial viability of the project are questionable due to
security concerns, poor and unpredictable Pakistani-Indian cooperation and reliability of gas supply from Turkmenistan.
5A key study of trade in the wider region surrounding Afghanistan has flagged up significant costs of being land-locked for
this region (Byrd & Raiser et al., 2006).
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(Afghanistan Geological Survey, 2007).6 Major mineral reserves are largely untapped, and
much existing mining is illicit. A substantial semi-precious stone industry exists in Afghanistan
but is largely informal with stones passing into Pakistan for cutting and polishing (World Bank,
2004). As such, the recorded activity from such natural resources contributed less than one per cent
of GDP in 2006.7
However, there are predictions that the contribution of minerals, if brought into the formal, licit
economy, to GDP and to government revenues could increase dramatically (ibid). Oil and gas
reserves, which may also be far greater than previously thought, could do the same. The US
Geological Survey estimates that two northern regions could contain up to 1.6 billion
barrels of oil and 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Yet, as research has consistently
reflected, primary export commodities may sustain (if not, necessarily, ignite) conflict (Collier &
Hoeffler, 2002). The mining and trade of gemstones, such as Panjshiri emeralds, for example, was
widely reported as a source of income for the Northern Alliance.
Agricultural resources are also a critical component of the context, including of the
conflict dynamics, as they provide both substantial levels of employment (up to 70 per
cent) and more than 90 per cent of the world’s opium and heroin. Both facts may seem to be
counter-intuitive given that only between 10 and 14 per cent of Afghanistan is comprised of arable
land, only a third to half of which has any access to irrigation. Yet, as later sections will discuss,
agriculture may pose one of the greatest possibilities for economic growth if adequate
infrastructure is put in place to connect Afghanistan with wider markets.
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3.1.2.3 Religion
In addition to ethnicity, Islam, according to its local and fluid interpretations, is a powerful
force though neither strictly fundamentalist nor completely stable in its interpretation
and application. Yet, it is considered a sacred and inviolable part of life. However, it is important to
note that, unlike the ongoing war in Iraq, sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims have
not been a defining feature of conflict within Afghanistan, largely given the country’s
predominantly (80 per cent) Sunni composition.8 Islam has taken four major paths in Afghanistan.
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The first is ‘traditional Islam’, which includes local folklore and is identified with the Sufi orders. The
second, ‘revivalist Islam’, includes Deobandis, Salafis, Tablighis and other groups. The remaining two
are notable for their relation to the State. ‘Pro-government Islam’ is comprised of clerics, generally
on the public payroll, who extol the virtues of the government and its policies, while ‘political Islam’,
as pursued by groups such as Hizb-e Islami and Jamiat-e Islami, seeks the incorporation of Islam (in
varying degrees and forms) into the State and governmental entities. 9
9 Roy (2001) Islamic Radicalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Geneva: UNHCR); Dorronsoro (2000) Pakistan and the Taliban:
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16 Anthony Cordesman (2008) The Afghan-Pakistan War: A Status Update (Washington, DC: Centre for Strategic and
International Studies), p. 24. Data included within the next two rows is provided within the same document or is
extrapolated from statistics provided therein.
17‘Successful’ attacks are those which resulted in casualties. Attacks in which the bomb did not detonate or in which it
detonated accidentally and with no human impact are deemed to have been unsuccessful.
18 Numbers have been consolidated from a number of sources, including: US House of Representatives Committee on
Foreign Affairs (2007) Afghanistan 2007: Problems, Opportunities and Possible Solutions. Available at:
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/ber021507.htm; and Afghanistan Conflict Monitor (2008) Security Incidents. Available
at: http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/incidents.html. The decline in 2007 is commonly credited to the enhanced
interdiction ability of Coalition and Afghan military and security services.
19 UNAMA (2007) Suicide Bombings in Afghanistan (Kabul: UNAMA), Sept.
20 Cordesman (2008) The Afghan-Pakistan War: A Status Update.
21 Afghan Conflict Monitor (2008) Military Casualty Data. Available at: http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org.
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3.3.1.2 Narco-Conflict
For all of the attention provided to the role of narcotics in conflict, this may perhaps be the least
significant and the least violent (or potentially violent). A conflict exists insofar as those engaged in
the cultivation, processing and trafficking of opium poppies (i) pay ‘taxes’ to insurgent groups
which, in return, provide them with protection and freedom to operate and (ii) engage in skirmishes
during eradication or interdiction operations. Parallels to Colombia, where the rebel
organisations themselves operated the drug trade, are unsubstantiated, and no evidence
of direct Taliban involvement in the narcotics trade was found. It is widely perceived that
those who attempt to equate security and poppy eradication are attempting to provide a rationale
for the latter while paying little heed to the former.
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22It is necessary to highlight the potential role of Iran, in particular, in Afghan politics. While there currently appears to be
no credible evidence of Iranian involvement in the Afghan conflict, any political or military action against Iran could allow
the regime in Teheran to, at least, allow non-governmental agents to send weapons and fighters across the border into
Afghanistan. (Current accusations of Iranian weapons being used by the Afghan insurgency appear unfounded. Weapons
recovered may have been purchased on the Iranian black market at an earlier date, are frequently imitations of Iranian
weapons and were almost certainly not provided by the Iranian government
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expansion of the insurgency to northern Afghanistan could draw resistance and provide a
catalyst for a large-scale civil war. The formation of the United National Front (UNF)23, a
political party representing members of the United Front which many see as a defensive alliance
amongst northerners, in 2007 is both a manifestation of Afghanistan’s unstable coalition politics
and the country’s growing North-South bifurcation.
23 Members include Mustafa Zahir (grandson of former king Zahir Shah), ex defence minister Mhd Qasim Fahim,
parliamentary speader Yunus Qanooni, vice President Ahmad Zia Massoud and former general Abdul Rashid Dostam. The
UNF claims to be backed by 40 per cent of parliament.
24Personal communication, UNAMA personnel, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 2008. In such cases, tribal ‘strongmen’ frustrated
with their lack of control over the local, district or provincial administration may temporarily ally themselves with an
insurgent group, such as the Taliban, in order to gain support for an attack. Alternatively, such ‘strongmen’ may attack
independently and allow the attack to be attributed to or claimed by the Taliban in order to avoid responsibility or
retribution.
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oppose the achievement of a stable Afghanistan. Despite the common but misleading use of
the term ‘anti-government elements’ to describe the insurgency, many actors involved in
the contemporary conflict are not attempting to overthrow the State but instead to achieve
autonomy, to earn pride or income or to bolster their negotiating position vis-à-vis the government.
The Taliban – The most significant part of the insurgency remains the Taliban.25 Informed
estimates put its maximum current size at 20,000 members (others closer to 10,000 or 15,000
members) with only a minority being full-time fighters. While many of its original members and
recent recruits are motivated by a fundamentalist Islamic ideology which compels them to impose a
radical interpretation of Sharia law, many newer members have joined out of more traditional
Mujahidin motives of expelling an occupying army and a discredited government (to so-called
‘Mujahidin-isation’ of the Taliban). Relatively unexpectedly, a rising number of recent Taliban
recruits have adopted the global jihadist perspective of al-Qaeda and have become more radical
than the Taliban’s clerical leadership. Still, UN officials in Kabul report that many Taliban elements,
including, potentially, Mullah Mohammed Omar, sustain the ‘insurgency’ as a means of improving
their bargaining power in advance of an anticipated negotiation process or power-sharing
arrangement.26
Hizb-e Islami – The second most significant insurgent group is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e
Islami. While Hekmatyar and his affiliates are officially barred from politics, individuals affiliated
with the Hizb-e Islami political faction, created in 2005 and officially not associated with
Hekmatyar, are active in the Afghan National Assembly in Kabul. 27 Hekmatyar’s dual political and
military approach has provided him with a strong hand in either stability or conflict. Concerns have
recently developed, however, that he has begun re-mobilising his fighters on a broad scale.
Recruitment among university students, a traditional Hizb-e Islami base of support, in northern
Afghanistan has increased. Informed individuals currently estimate that, while far from flexing its
full muscle and from giving up on the political system, Hekmatyar’s faction may account for up to a
quarter of all active insurgents (up from approximately 10 per cent in 2006).
Jamiat-e Islami – There are also signs that ideological fringe of Jamiat-e Islami, the largest of the
Mujahidin groups, are turning to armed opposition to the sitting governmental administration,
particularly in the West (Herat and Ghor provinces) but also in the northeast. This mobilisation,
being small and isolated rather than coordinated, has not had much military impact but contributes
to the spread of insecurity and facilitates the efforts of the Taliban to establish supply lines reaching
to the northern and western borders.
Haqqani Network – Jalaluddin Haqqani, like Jamiat-e Islami, fought with his so-called ‘Haqqani
Network’ for the Mujahidin. The Haqqani Network, which is widely credited with the bombing of the
Serena Hotel in Kabul in January 2008, now commands not only its own fighters but, due to its past
tactical success, has been put in charge of Taliban field operations in, at least, Waziristan.
(Unconfirmed reports say that Jalaluddin Haqqani may be the Taliban’s chief tactician and military
commander.)
Pakistani Insurgents – The so-called Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), led by Baitullah
Mehsud, is believed to have close links to al-Qaeda but seems careful to give allegiance to Mullah
Omar and the Afghan Taliban. In February 2008, TTP members kidnapped the Pakistani ambassador
25 Commentators such as Bearden and Gerges Fawaz who are familiar with the Taliban often note that, despite the constraints
imposed by its current outlaw position, seems to be far less well funded than prior to 2002.
26 Personal communication, UN officials, Kabul, Afghanistan, April/May 2008.
27Some such individuals have, in order to qualify for public office, been forced to sever ties with Hekmatyar. Such renunciations are,
however, not viewed as particularly meaningful, and Hekmatyar’s covert political role is considered firm. Indeed, he is believed by
some informants to be pursuing broad infiltration of the government, though the extent of his political reach is not considered to
be deep at present.
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Al-Qaeda – At present, there are 14 global jihadist groups operating in Afghanistan, of which al-
Qaeda is the only critical actor.28 While considered a more meaningful symbolic and financial rather
than militant force, al-Qaeda is believed to be behind the increasing use of tactics such as
kidnappings, beheadings and suicide bombings, practices not previously seen in Afghanistan. Al-
Qaeda volunteers from abroad, excluding Pakistani Pashtuns, are commonly unwelcome by the
Taliban inside Afghanistan.29 As such, al-Qaeda’s support may flow to proxies operating in
Afghanistan such as Tahir Yuldashev’s Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan/Turkestan (IMU/T), which
seeks to destabilise the Uzbek government by fostering regional instability and by winning long-
term backing from regional jihadist organisations and fundamentalist financiers.
28 R. Weitz (2008) ‘Afghanistan: New Approaches Needed To Defeat Insurgency’, Eurasia Insight, 17 April.
29A. Giustozzi (2007) Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia University
Press), p. 131.
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Narcotics Traffickers – These networks, which exist in nearly every province of Afghanistan,
extend from poor sharecroppers to ministry-level affiliates and protectors. Rather than involving a
simple connection between farmers and traffickers, they involve a highly complex and flexible
structure similar to that of any organised criminal activity. Corruption of those Afghan agencies
charged with controlling opium production, particularly the Ministry of Interior (MoI), the Afghan
National Police (ANP) and the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) has rendered them
largely immune from domestic law enforcement or interdiction. Eradication, where applied, has
done limited amounts of damage to these networks, which shift their enterprise to neighbouring
areas and, later, return to those areas from which they had previously been removed. Individuals
involved rarely have an ideological aim and are primarily driven by profit. Such networks, far from
promoting the overthrow of State structures, prefer low-level violence which complicates
interdiction efforts while allowing logistical networks to function.
30 David Ignatius (2008) ‘Two Fronts, Same Worries’, The Washington Post, 27 April, p. B07.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
31 The ability to process poppies within Afghanistan has recently expanded from an almost complete lack of processing facilities five
years ago. At present, informants indicate that 2/3 of Afghan poppies are processed domestically.
32 Personal communication, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Islamabad, Pakistan, April 2008.
33 Personal communication, MoI, Kabul, Afghanistan, April 2008.
34 United Nations (2002) Container Traffic (New York: UN).
35 Personal communication, personnel of a multi-national shipping company, April 2008.
27
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
economic development and social change. It remains highly plausible that, as the Taliban
proved, a strong state (even if such strength is widely resented and achieved through
violence) can pre-empt and dissuade challenges. Similarly, an opportunity-laden economy can,
to a certain degree, limit (if not ultimately stop) insurgent recruitment and integrate rather than
fragment the country and the region. Yet, as the next two sections will show, constraints to state
building and economic development have limited these potentially beneficial influences.
28
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
36The concept of a Weberian State stems from Max Weber’s influential definition, in that an organisation that successfully
claims the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Such monopoly traditionally is
mobilised through the armed forces, civil service or state bureaucracy, courts and the police. In all sense Afghanistan is
recognised as a juridical state by the international community, but failures in political settlement most notably with the
Taliban continue to contest (both politically and territorially) such legitimacy.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
end of 2001, northern forces took control over the Ministries of Planning, Defence, Interior and
Foreign Affairs, leaving finance to an ethnic Pashtun. Furthermore, commanders and so-called
‘warlords’ clung to power in the provinces. Of the country’s 32 post-Bonn provincial governors, 20
were militia commanders or ‘strongmen’ (Giustozzi, 2004).
The foundational failure of the Bonn Agreement’s ‘elite pact’ is resoundingly made within both the
Political Economy Analysis and the Strategic Conflict Assessment and should be viewed as perhaps
the most notable factor undermining the State. Without a ‘grand bargain’ involving the
Taliban and other contemporary insurgent groups, the State will fail to mobilise adequate
legitimacy and security to proceed with a relatively unchallenged process of institution
building. Furthermore, despite the temptation to equate the formation and development of
administrative entities and capacities with state building, the two should be understood as
fundamentally different, and the emphasis on the former should not lead one to believe that the
latter has been successfully achieved. A state is far more than its administrative parts.
37The ARTF is a major funding channel for support for the GIRA rehabilitation and development efforts. The largest
contributions to the fund has been made by 1) the United Kingdom (24.6 per cent), Canada (17.6 per cent), the EC/EU (12.9
per cent), United States (12.1 per cent), Netherlands (10.3 per cent), Norway (5.3 per cent) and Germany (4.9 per cent) of 28
donors who totally paid in US$2.34 billion by spring 2008.
38The mobilisation of revenue by the Afghan government is discussed in each ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ final report. For
a particular comprehensive discussion, see Section 6.4 of the Political Economy Analysis final report and Section 5.2.2.2 of
the Growth Diagnostic Scoping Study final report (‘Fiscal Sustainability’ sub-heading).
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
revenues to cover even basic operating costs. By the end of 2008 it is anticipated that the Afghan
government’s revenue-to-GDP ratio will have returned to where it was in the 1940s, at around 7.5
per cent of GDP, allowing the Government to cover some 69 per cent of its projected (and very
minimal) operating expenditures. This inadequate level of resource mobilisation results, in
part, from the over reliance upon external funding which weakened the imperative to
maximise domestic revenues. The current fiscal crisis is compounded by a massive
expansion in expenditures in the security sector. This fact has pushed Afghanistan beyond any
reasonable hope of fiscal independence, perhaps requiring substantial levels of external support
over the next 20 to 30 years or more (thus re-creating one of the primary impediments to effective,
domestic state building). On the current trajectory, potential gains from improved tax administration
and broadening the revenue base will likely be offset by increased costs in security provision.
Several ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ team members felt that this failure is perhaps as strong a
challenge to State sovereignty and legitimacy as the mounting insurgency. Without sufficient
domestic revenues, the Afghan government will continue to be heavily controlled by its
international supporters, will be unable to use government-controlled finances as a tool
of extending national solidarity and will allow better financed non-State entities to
increase their influence upon the country’s periphery (and, increasingly, its centre). By
contrast, the Taliban regime was able to extract sufficient revenues to cover its non-military
expenses (which were financed by governmental and private contributions from Pakistan and the
Middle East). The Taliban taxed production at 10 per cent as well as opium and others sources of
illicit production at 10 to 20 per cent.
By contrast, the current Afghan government lacks the administrative infrastructure to collect taxes
and has lacked the coercive means to extract revenue except on a highly selective and often
politicised basis (discussed further in Section 6). The informal economy, which the Growth
Diagnostic showed as a massive source of revenue if formalised, has been beyond the regulation of
governmental institutions.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
notable within the law and justice sector with the judiciary and ANP having been almost entirely
discredited in the eyes of ordinary Afghans.
It may be important to highlight that corruption, while a common feature of Afghan state
institutions throughout history, was effectively addressed by the Taliban. Most notably, they
continuously moved senior civil servants from institution to institution, thus cutting corruption
links in the process. Furthermore, though less applicable to the current context, the application of
brutal punishments after public trials provided an effective and brutal reminder of the penalties of
corruption.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
attempts to seek support from the South would result in cries of betrayal from the North. President
Karzai has clearly struggled to find a middle ground that balances concerns over domestic and
international legitimacy at the same time.
Given the degree to which his credibility has been eroded internally and externally, he may
ultimately be unable to mobilise support from the Taliban and former Mujahidin factions while
keeping the international community in tow. In the absence of a political party of his own, against
which he could rally support, he has been exposed to heavy criticism at home (including from
within the National Assembly) as well as abroad.
Indeed, it frequently seems as if President Karzai, while certainly an imperfect leader, has unfairly
received the brunt of criticism for a situation so much out of his control and in the hands of the
international community, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance commanders-turned-politicians.
International actors such as DFID and HMG should fully understand that the security and
governance challenges being faced by Afghanistan are not entirely of his doing and that his
replacement in the 2009 elections will not guarantee a sudden turn-around. Further steps, outlined
in Section 8, must be taken.
33
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
6. Economic Development
The economy, it must be noted, is heavily reliant upon governance. Any state which lacks control
and capacity will be likely to witness the breakdown of economic order and the growth of
only those sectors that thrive on conflict and instability. Once such enterprises have been
developed, worse still, they exercise their growing influence to ensure that the conditions which
have allowed their emergence are able to persist long into the future. The question of economic
development is addressed primarily within the Growth Diagnostic and its separate Policy Discussion
Paper, though related issues appear throughout each of the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ outputs.
The core question concerns the constraints on growth and development, an issue to which the
Growth Diagnostic applies standard economic tools as well as the lens of political economy.
34
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
weaken economic growth. The Growth Diagnostic shows that economic growth is only
partly based on sustainable, national developments and should be considered highly
fragile.
Figure 5. Afghan Imports and Exports, 1962-2006
1400
1200
1000
Real US$ Million
800
600
400
200
0
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
Imports Exports
Source: United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE) 2008
35
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
improved road and border port infrastructure difficult to access by would-be agricultural exporters.
As the Growth Diagnostic indicates, ‘the government’s inability to extend the rule of law along key
export routes will leave exporters of agricultural outputs at the mercy of informal taxation’ (Ulloa,
2008:66). Informal taxes and extortion, that alongside the growing costs of fuel, are making the
transport of goods to domestic and regional markets financially unviable, especially for the smaller
agricultural producers. The Export Promotion Agency of Afghanistan (EPAA) estimates that a truck
of melons on the way to market from Mazar-e-Sharif may be stopped up to 20 times inside
Afghanistan and illegally taxed.
Figure 6. Afghanistan’s Informal Economy, by Sector
Informal Economy – The informal economy, which is unrecorded rather than necessarily illegal
(though much of it is), includes barter trade, manufacturing, commerce and other non-recorded
services, as well as smuggling and re-exports. Afghanistan’s informal economy, including poppy
cultivation and narcotics trafficking, has been estimated at around US$7 billion annually,
or between 80 to 90 per cent of Afghanistan’s recorded GDP. The main components in the
informal economy are: opium production and processing activities (35 per cent of official GDP),
subsistence agriculture and livestock (30 per cent) and the illegal trade in goods other than opium
(8 per cent). The bulk of the labour force is employed by the informal economy, and the large
majority of Afghanistan’s population is dependent upon it.
Institutional Multiplicity – While all post-conflict environments involve numerous overlapping
and competing institutions, this situation has been particularly pronounced within Afghanistan. The
Growth Diagnostic Policy Discussion Paper provides a full accounting of such institutions, but the
following are deemed to officially and unofficially share responsibility: (i) government entities such
as the Central Bank, the Ministries of Labour and Social Affairs, Commerce and Industry, Finance,
Rural Rehabilitation and Development and Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock; (ii) legal institutions
and policies such as the Ministry of Justice, the 2003 Private Investment Law, the 2006 Labour Code;
and numerous pending laws (the Secure Transaction Laws of Moveable and Immovable Property and
the Negotiable Instruments Law among them); (iii) business membership organisations such as the
36
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce
(AICC) and at least a half dozen others; and (iv) informal institutions reflective of the combat,
shadow and coping economies (see Policy Discussion Paper). These institutions have, in the context
of weak governance, little rule of law and over-centralisation, begun to engage in informal
collaboration and coordination which will require transformation (rather than dissolution) once an
improved policy environment is meaningfully pursued by the Afghan government (at all levels) and
its international partners.
Policy Environment – The Growth Diagnostic and its Policy Discussion Paper highlight the
unpredictability of economic policy in Afghanistan as a factor contributing to the difficult
investment environment. Despite the ANDS establishing itself as the centrepiece of
Afghanistan’s private-sector-led future, there is startlingly little detail given regarding
the strategies that will deliver this aim in the medium- and short-term in this and in
other policy documents of the Afghan government. Thus although the ANDS confirms that
‘a growth strategy is the backbone of ANDS’ (ANDS, 2008: 40), benchmarks related to
private sector development lack sufficient detail. This reflects not only the de facto peripheral
treatment of private sector development but also a range of different opinions within government
(at the national and sub-national levels) and the international community over the appropriate
direction of economic policy in Afghanistan. Donors have spent time and resources, though not at
sufficient levels, drafting and implementing policies and programmes which are, in the end, stalled
or ignored by Afghan actors who consider them inappropriate. These differences in opinion,
including significant divergence from the free-market models favoured by donors and IFIs are often
treated as ‘embarrassing’ by donors and have not been addressed in a public forum. A number of
conferences dealing with private sector development have skirted around these issues, and often
fallen into the re-conceptualising of the same shopping lists of desirable outcomes for the private
sector. While such lists are apt, the widely agreed upon prioritisation of interventions, as was
pursued within the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ Growth Diagnostic, must be achieved.
40 These specific constraints were arrived at following an economic methodology which was not able to directly consider the
influence of conflict and insecurity. As such, they are joined (in Section 6.4) with an analysis of several additional factors
related to the political economy of state building and conflict.
37
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
entrepreneurs to receive the full economic benefits of their enterprises and investments. These are
taxation, corruption and property rights, what this section terms ‘economic rule of law’. In
particular, the 2004 tax reform and the subsequent selectively-aggressive behaviour of the Large
Taxpayers’ Office (LTO) as an economic ‘shock’ which has, to a significant extent, caused a reduction
and stagnation in foreign and domestic private investment since 2005. At the same time, a
perceptible increase in corruption has been reported by several agencies such as
Transparency International, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, the World Bank and others.
Even if the recent efforts to isolate large taxpayers from previous corrupt and inefficient tax
collection agencies indicate a move in the right direction, an inherently weak institutional setting,
such as currently exists within the Afghan government, cannot prevent ‘informal’ taxes and
corruption. Administrative fees, permits and licenses at the national and sub-national levels
of governance have increased, the majority of them unsanctioned, misapplied or illegal.
The MoI and the judiciary are perceived as the most corrupt entities in the Afghan Government
(Gardizi, 2007). Corruption and inefficiency also limit contract enforceability and property rights in
Afghanistan, with negative impact all across the economy, and very negative effects on the financial
market and long-term investment prospects. In addition, security issues linked to the conflict (i.e.,
suicide bombings and armed conflict) as well as criminal activity (i.e., the opium economy,
abductions, robbery) have also, as previously noted, worsened since 2005.
Figure 7. Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco Growth Diagnostic Framework41
41 This diagram was created within the process of the Growth Diagnostic, and readers are advised to see output 3.4.1 for a
comprehensive interpretation. Key terms, however, deserve explanation. ‘Low appropriability’ refers to an investor’s limited
ability to receive the market-derived profits of one’s investment or enterprise. For instance, corruption would result in low
appropriability given that profits would be appropriated by rent-seeking officials rather than by the people responsible for
generating them. ‘Poor intermediation’ refers to a low level of reasonable trust between creditors and loan recipients which
results in difficulty accessing credit without burdensome requests for high levels of collateral or the payment of excessive
processing fees. Finally ‘information externalities’ or ‘self-discovery’ simply refers to a country’s inability to find its niche
within the world economy, often due to the constraining influence of negative information concerning that country.
Information externalities are the perceptual elements restraining basic market forces which link demand with logical
suppliers.
38
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
6.3.3 Infrastructure
Infrastructure is the most critical issue for Afghanistan’s competitiveness and long-term
development. With the appropriate investments in transit and storage infrastructure, in
particular, the country’s geographic characteristics could shift from a liability to an asset.
Afghan would, as previously discussed, reclaim its role as a trade route and would be able to better
exploit domestic natural resources.
Electricity supply remains a particularly poignant constraint. Afghanistan is still a long way from
realising additional and reliable supply. Even if most of the infrastructure is in place, the power
purchasing agreements (PPA) with Uzbekistan are still being negotiated and rising fuel costs may cast
doubt over the viability of the diesel power plant. Most importantly, however, the unreliability and cost
of electricity provision (whether through the use of Industrial Parks or diesel generation) is a source of
great disadvantage to Afghanistan’s competitiveness. The ICA survey reports that firms lose on
average about 18 percent of their merchandise value due to power disruptions, and this
number can reach 30 percent in provinces more dependent on the national grid such as
Kandahar. Power generation is heavily dependent on imported fuel and the diesel market in
Afghanistan is characterized by abuse of market power and barriers to new entrants, corrupt allocation
of import licenses, and unregulated imports of poor-quality fuel (Paterson, 2005).
From a long-term (or possibly mid-term) perspective, those areas of the economy with the greatest
potential for future growth and value-adding will require a substantial improvement in
infrastructure. These include, for instance, agricultural business as well as mining and some
industrial production.
39
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
systems of quality certification, (iv) access to nearby ports in Pakistan and (v) improved security.
Furthermore, basic gains in agricultural techniques, input quality and mechanisation will be integral
in increasing the annual volume of agricultural produce.
Such systems, once in place, could also prove useful in sectors such as mining. While natural
resources pose economic opportunities for Afghanistan, their too-early exploitation could, in a
context of corruption and conflict, lend financial support for violence, as is already happening on a
limited scale. This sector should be safeguarded in the short-term in order to avoid detracting from
its long-term contribution to the economy.
42 In acknowledging that integrated approach is required to economic development to meet these goals and objectives,
sector investment programmes have been developed with regard to: (i) private sector development; (ii) energy; (iii) water
and irrigation; (iv) agricultural and rural development; (v) transport; (vi) information and communications technology; (vii)
urban development; (viii) mining; (ix) health and nutrition; (x) education; (xi) culture, youth and media; and, (xii) social
protection policies. Indicators and baselines for these programmes are provided in Annex II of the ANDS, and are therefore
not repeated here.
40
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
7.2 Poverty
An examination of poverty headcount data shows that a significant proportion of the population
lives below the poverty line. The incidence of poverty is highly sensitive to small consumption
shifts43 as well as having marked seasonal dimensions.
Headcounts: The Spring 2007 survey estimates that 42 per cent of the population
(approximately 12 million people) live below the poverty line and do not meet their
minimum daily food and non-food requirements. This represents an increase over the 2005
estimate of 33 per cent44. Poverty headcounts are likely to be higher now (September 2008) given
the hard 2007-08 winter and dry spring leading to crop failure in many parts of the country. Rural
poverty is considerably worse than urban poverty (36 per cent as compared to 21 per cent for 2005,
45 per cent as compared to 27 per cent for 2007). While urban poverty rose during this period, rural
poverty rose at a faster rate. There are high levels of vulnerability to consumption poverty among an
estimated 20 per cent of the population who are not poor, but whose consumption level is just
above the national poverty line. Using NRVA 2005 data, it is estimated that only a five per cent
reduction in consumption could cause the national poverty headcount rate to rise from 33 per cent
to 38 per cent.
Seasonality: The seasonal variation in poverty is reflects the impact of winter on other aspects of
people’s lives (reduced access/productivity and higher expenditures on fuel, transport, medical costs,
etc.). Vulnerability to cold season shocks is more apparent among rural and Kuchi communities.
Levels of Consumption Inequality: While inequalities are significant, the NRVA data suggests
43 The absence of appropriate panel data prevented this study from being able to provide statistical analysis on the causes
of vulnerability.
44 In noting this increase, account has to be taken of differences in timing and method of the two surveys .
41
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
that consumption inequality per capita is relatively low compared to other countries in the region. 45
That said, low consumption inequalities exacerbated by limited access to luxury items and
widespread poverty are not uncommon in post-conflict countries.
Food Insecurity: Up until 2006-07 food security estimates have remained remarkably stable, with
21 to 27 per cent of Afghan households being unable to acquire sufficient calories to fulfil basic
nutritional requirements.46 Surveys confirm that there was little acute malnutrition but there
were high levels (45-59 per cent) of chronic malnutrition (stunting) and micro-nutrient
deficiencies. Furthermore, the shard decline in rural wage labour rates combined with a rapid rise
in food prices is likely to have substantially increased the number of food insecure and there are
recent estimates of 45 per cent of Afghan households experiencing food insecurity.
45 Data on consumption inequality highlights that the bottom 10 per cent of the population accounts for only 4 per cent of
total consumption, while the bottom 30 per cent accounts for 15.6 per cent share of total consumption. By contrast the top
10 per cent has a 21.1 per cent share of total consumption.
46 See Pinney and Ronchini (2007).
42
DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
The disaggregation by province of indicators relating to health status, education etc. also highlights
the fact that different indicators tell different stories thus drawing attention to the multiple
dimensions of poverty and the dangers of focusing on single measures of it. For instance while
Badakhshan and Daikundi provinces have high poverty headcount rates (60.1 per cent and 77 per
cent respectively as compared to rural average of 35 per cent) and are thus consumption poor,
female school enrolment figures tell a different story with values (26 per cent and 20.6 per cent
respectively) above or equal to the rural average of 20 per cent. For Daikundi province, the
percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel is 61.5 per cent is substantially better than
rural average of 9.4 per cent. There is not necessarily a correlation between different poverty and
human development indicators.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
qualifications of Grade 14, and only 28 per cent are female47), and curricula are receiving attention,
but demand-related factors have not been systematically examined. For instance, parents may desire
education for both sons and daughters but are constrained by poverty. Research (Mansory, 2007)
confirms that there is more pressure on children from poor and illiterate families to drop out, thus
indicating that gaps in formal educational attainment between poor and rich may widen.
7.3 Gender
Over a period of more than two generations of conflict, formal and informal social
institutions in Afghanistan have both replicated and changed patterns of gender-based
disadvantage and inequality. Using the ‘gender’ lens as an analytical tool to examine the formal
and informal processes underlying, and the mechanisms causing, gender inequity in these three
domains, can shed light on the reasons for persistent gender inequality, which in turn affects (and is
affected by) the political economy of the country.
In this regard, four influencing factors have been identified as critical:
Gender-based disadvantage resulting from existing kinship and customary practices;
The impact on gender of the erosion of local livelihoods;
The criminalization of the economy; and,
Insecurity at the hands of armed groups.
These four influences combine together to produce extreme forms of female vulnerability, which
also have significant negative implications for poverty reduction policies. For the vast majority of
women in Afghanistan, vulnerability is most visible in relation to the household, the community, the
market and the state.
47 World Bank, 2008. Project Paper for Proposed Grant to Second Education Quality Improvement Project, Afghanistan. P2
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
Household Level – Concepts of male ‘honour’ or namus48 are critical for gender relations.
They are closely related to the protection of and control over women – as well as to notions of
female modesty and propriety and the ability to provide shelter to women in the domestic sphere.
Many observers from the international community argue that these deep-rooted concepts, whilst
strongly patriarchal, should not be tampered with, as they are in most cases the only form of social
protection available to women and children. They are also politically sensitive.49 The focus of
international development interventions by institutions subscribing to this perspective, has
therefore tended to be on the family or on a complementary model of gender relations, which
assumes that the men of a household will take women’s views and needs into account. However, the
way in which informal institutions interact, and in which traditional norms are interpreted in a
context of conflict, mean that this is not always the case.
Community Level – At the local level, women’s participation in local governance is low.50 The
number of women participating in governance does not honestly reflect their decision-
making power or the extent to which their voice is heard. In access terms, they are excluded
from customary bodies of local governance, dispute settlement and arbitration such as tribal jirgas
or village shuras, which tend to be all-male assemblies. Thus, local norms and institutions limit or
block gender-related change in terms of both access to justice and voice, regardless of the
numerical accomplishments claimed by segments of the international community and the Afghan
government.
The Market – Markets in Afghanistan constitute another spatial and economic location where the
gender-based disadvantages embedded in households and communities, play out, underlining
women’s marginality and vulnerability. Gender, in particular the gendered division of labour, is
a critical component of how Afghanistan’s markets operate. For example, key export
commodities such as carpets, dried fruits, nuts and opium poppies benefit from either
unremunerated or low-paid female labour. Likewise, women’s livestock and post-harvest processing
activities are vital for both subsistence and income-generating activities in rural areas, though they
have not necessarily led to a corresponding level of status within ‘the market’ as an abstract
concept or physical location.51 Policy interventions to address these issues have largely been
confined to the provision of credit through the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for
Afghanistan (MISFA) and capacity-building efforts for female entrepreneurs. However, women
entrepreneurs draw mainly on a narrow range of traditional skills and experience very low
profit margins.52 The growth of a predominantly informal, extensively criminalized economy in
Afghanistan has reinforced male networks of recruitment and patronage. As such, the last potential
outlet for female employment is likely to be the public sector, at least in the short- to medium-
term.
The State – Throughout Afghan history, periods of reforms initiating equality between men and
women have been followed by conservative backlash and curtailment of rights. Even today, gender
issues are at the heart of how ethnically diverse groups identify themselves and relate to control
from the central government. Contestation over women’s rights has featured prominently in
each successive state-building intervention. Recent experience in Afghanistan has shown that
the domination of efforts to mainstream gender can open up new battlefields of contestation
among political factions and between the centre and the periphery. Responses to this
48 According to Edwards (1996) “The concept of namus...signifies those people (especially his wife, mother, sisters, and
daughters), objects (e.g., his rifle), and properties (especially his home, lands and tribal homeland) that a man must defend
in order to preserve his honour.”
49 See Barakat 2004; World Bank 2005.
50 See for example Wordsworth (2008).
51 See Grace 2005.
52 Mercy Corps 2002.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
ideological/social conflict have been to emphasise Afghan ownership and the engagement of
‘traditional’ structures which are frequently seen as more legitimate than the State, especially at
sub-national level. While such institutions and their legitimacy may usefully be harnessed by the
centre in order to strengthen its institutional credibility, local, traditional and informal practices of
power will ultimately reflect rather than contest women’s marginalisation and the physical, social
and economic insecurity which has historically and contemporarily accompanied it.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
than 0.5 per cent of police personnel are women, and female police personnel usually play a minor
support role and are ill-placed to protect or advocate on behalf of women.
At present, there is no coherent state-sponsored approach to the provision of gender-equitable
security where women have a voice in determining the security agenda and where gender is
mainstreamed into security policies to ensure equitable outcomes. None the less, the state has made
some ad hoc efforts to address private violence against women and to make the issue into a public
concern. For example, the MoWA has an arrangement with a number of NGOs to provide shelter for
abused women. The MoWA, with the help of international organizations, has also launched a
campaign on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW), but the impact of such activities
is difficult to evaluate. Although public outcries concerning violence against women do
occasionally occur, there are very few cases (if any) where state actors have ensured that
the perpetrators of crimes have been tried and punished or where crimes are condemned
by community, religious or political leaders.
Gender tends to be regarded by the state as an ‘add-on’ agenda, with often token
appointments of ministry staff tasked with the issue, under-resourced institutional units and
practical as well as psychological disempowerment of women appointed to address the issue (e.g.
lack of vehicles to attend meetings; social norms around women’s ‘correct’ behaviour in public that
mitigate against active participation in the public sphere, even for a public appointee).
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
conveying abstract notions such as found in the Constitution or ANDS. This is particularly relevant
for the Afghan context, where the rules of the game are so skewed against women’s interests
that tangible proof of the benefits of addressing women’s and gender issues take on a
critical importance.
The fact that so many women in the country are poor highlights the urgent need to focus on
practical issues and activities that are going to improve the sorely-needed access to basic services
and livelihoods. At the government level, this has meant service provision ‘following the money’, in
the form of gender-responsive budgeting. At the household and community levels, women are
increasingly being allowed to form groups and participate in public life, provided that there are
obvious, immediate, practical and tangible benefits to be had which can be demonstrated to their
male counterparts. It is therefore critically important that men are empowered to reach an
understanding that gender needs are relevant to, and important for, the betterment of
family and community life. For example, available field evidence57 indicates that men’s groups
are learning that if they send women to complain about an issue, they may get a better hearing
from certain parties, rather than going themselves. This is a positive gender dynamic which can be
exploited and strengthened to give women a stronger role in communities.
The greater the tangible, evident, positive impact that an activity or process can have on
the immediate quality of life, the greater the amount of buy-in that is generated, and the
greater the increase in ownership from male stakeholders. To achieve this win-win outcome,
it is critical to address stakeholder realities at both national and sub-national levels. Neglecting
these merely serves to mask the profound challenges, but also the very real opportunities for
modest, but genuine progress in altering the ‘rules of the game’, at the levels where these play out:
the household; the community, the province and the nation.
Drivers Blockers
General: General:
Moderate elements at all levels; Women as symbols of honour and namus
Donors, especially those pushing gender but only when convenient to male
budgeting; interests;
57 Azarbaijani-Moghaddam 2006
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
State: State:
Women in political fora; Few sympathetic, influential, and
MoWA and DoWAs – provided that skills powerful women at policy-making level;
and capacity to effectively design, No responsibility given to sub-national
develop and manage gender issues and governance bodies to improve HDIs for
activities can be built in; women and girls;
MoF by earmarking money for gender Ministries which isolate units and
activities through specific gender individuals working on gender related
budgeting activities; issues. Other ministries which window
Ministers pursuing specific and dress their activities around gender issues
coordinated gender equality issues; for funding purposes;
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
Household: Household:
Better access to basic services, especially Women as extensions of factions or
education for girls; families;
Women inheriting land and property and Lack of access and education regarding
controlling productive assets; and, the use of contraception and family
Access to formal credit. planning;
Lack of access to basic services such as
education, credit, and health; and,
Women unable to inherit land and other
assets.
A number of lessons learned emerge from the examination of opportunities. These include:
Avoiding the creation of situations where the international community is perceived as
forcing an agenda and or the pace of its development;
Placing increased emphasis on building understanding in the MoWA and other
relevant gender activists on how the national budget works, together with building
capacity around the appropriate analytical skills required to address gender, across ministries
and in activist groups;
Identifying change agents within both government and informal groups, who understand
(or can be empowered to understand) the logic of gender mainstreaming and are committed to
the initiative; and,
Identifying opportunities to raise gender issues with potential champions of change
at sub-national level, in order to strengthen local-level planning processes: for example,
ensuring that budgeting for gender-related activities goes hand-in-hand with good
governance initiatives and practices.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled (MoLSAMD) covers war and mine disabled
but cannot provide assistance to those disabled at birth or due to illness or accidents. A National
Policy Framework for Action for Persons with Disability has recently emerged as a result of policy
initiatives supported by strong international NGOs. In addition, a disability law is awaiting approval
by the National Assembly, and there is a national action plan to mainstream disability in the
ministries.
7.4.3 Youth
Over half of the Afghan population is estimated to be below the age of 19 which makes youth an
important sub-set when dealing with poverty, social exclusion and gender.58 While additional
research into the position of Afghanistan’s youth is necessary, global examples indicate that
economic pressures in post-conflict societies, including contemporary Afghanistan, lead
adults to force children to leave school and take up labour at an early age. Doing so
provides temporary economic benefits but is widely seen as limiting longer-term individual and
familial well-being. This trend in turn leads to the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Such issues are often ignored as youth in Afghanistan have no dedicated policies specifically
addressing their welfare. Responsibility for youth is spread across a number of ministries and
institutions. The MoLSAMD recognizes around twenty types of vulnerability in relation to children in
Afghanistan and has prepared a National Strategy for Children at Risk with UNICEF and has recently
established a Children’s Secretariat59, as part of the ANDS Social Protection Strategy. Planning and
programming, however, are slow to follow such high-profile but minimally effectual steps.
Lack of attention to youth issues together with a youth bulge in the population can be a potent
mix. Urdal (2004) tested claims that youth bulges – extraordinary large youth cohorts relative to the
58 The figure given was 59.33 per cent in UNFPA Afghanistan – A Socioeconomic and Demographic Profile and Household
Listing 2003-2005
59 The Deputy Minister for MoLSAMD is the chair of the SAARC Committee for Children.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
adult population – may be causally linked to internal armed conflict. Youth bulges, according to the
results of Urdal’s study, are believed to strain social institutions such as the labour market and the
educational system, thereby causing grievances that may contribute to violent conflict. This
dynamic was deemed particularly likely under conditions of economic stagnation such as exist in
present-day Afghanistan.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
60 President Karzai, somewhat discredited in the eyes of many Afghans and much of the international community, may no
longer possess the clout to successfully initiate or complete a ‘grand bargain’ with the Taliban while maintaining the loyalty
of armed groups in northern Afghanistan.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
important that clerics of all types are part of the process which persuades people not to support the
insurgency. A correctly structured message delivered in this way is essential. But so too is the
follow-up. This is where development connects with counter-insurgency. ‘Fast track’ development
projects to meet local needs are not only essential once an area is taken over by
government and international forces but also are integral in preventing the loss of the
territory gained. The failure to deliver improvements in infrastructure and quality of life means
that messages concerning the good will of the international community will be lost.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
commonly perceived as high if not nearly certain. Perhaps most worryingly, community-self
defence will, by necessity, be rolled out in locations with the greatest insecurity which is
focused in the predominantly Pashtun South and East. As such, it will be viewed as a direct
challenge to the non-Pashtun North, in particular, and would be almost certain to lead them to
dramatically the remobilisation and re-armament of their minimally demobilised militias.
8.3 Governance
While the ‘grand bargain’ remains the lynchpin for building effective governance in Afghanistan,
the ongoing ‘collaborative governance’ between the Afghan government and the
international community must also be strengthened in a manner that meets the interests
of both. While individual suggestions for doing so are identified below, a basic conceptual shift
must occur where by international actors realise that their primary security-oriented aims are best
pursued by listening and responding to the stated interests and goals of the Afghan government
and people. Doing so will require ceding control over the reconstruction process to Afghans and
ensuring that local priorities such as livelihoods are valued more than Western goals of counter-
narcotics. Once this shift is widely achieved, the remainder of the agenda becomes clearer.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
security sector. The multi-donor Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA) provides one
viable model, though many involved in ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ would prefer the use of entirely
government-controlled mechanisms within the Ministry of Finance (MoF). That said, the
international community and Afghan government cannot take sole responsibility for mobilising and
allocating resources. A large segment of the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’ team, particularly from
within the Strategic Conflict Assessment and Growth Diagnostic, also advocated for the inclusion
of a bottom-up, community-driven approach whereby revenues are not only mobilised
nationally for security provision but also for tangible community-improvement projects.
Such an approach, utilised effectively within the NSP showed that communities are willing to pay
for public improvements and services but only when secure in the knowledge that they will receive
most of the benefits of what they contribute.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
of their rights vis-à-vis rent-seeking behaviour. It is also recommended that the international
community improve its own policies and practices towards corruption, as its willingness to pay
bribes and submit to unofficial permit and licensing costs has undercut broader anti-
corruption efforts.
8.4.2 Take Early Action to Protect Business from Crime and Insecurity
The specific threats to business need to be acknowledged, alongside and not after the broader
challenge posed by the insurgency has been addressed. Without security for business, the type
of growth necessary to discourage Taliban recruitment will not be possible. The Afghan
government has yet to provide an adequate response to this escalating threat to the business
community and there are few examples of successful and transparent prosecutions of kidnappers. A
delegation of businessmen has asked the President to establish a special court to try kidnapers. A
response is required even if only to recognise the seriousness of these threats to the private sector.
While developing a broader strategy, emergency measures to protect business may be worth
considering, such as the proposal made recently by the EPAA to the Afghanistan Investment Climate
Facility (AICF) for the piloting of a 24 hour hotline for exporters moving goods by road. The hotline
could allow exporters whose trucks are illegally stopped and asked for payment to access unarmed
mobile teams, stationed in cities along the major export routes, which could attend the scene if
necessary. A database of the frequency and types of illegal roadside payments could then be
presented to government. The AICF is an appropriate organisation to pioneer and fund measures for
protecting business from kidnap and extortion, and DFID, as in Sudan, may by the appropriate
organisation to support a National Risk and Threat Assessment at the district level in order to better
understand micro-economic risks.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
resources or state capture, is vital. Nonetheless, donors should try to be cognisant of who the large
political-economic interest groups are and how programmes supporting the private sector can be
made independent of such interest groups. Corporate governance and responsibility should be firmly
integrated into the wider governance agenda in Afghanistan. Interventions targeted at SMEs may
help to boost this sector amidst an uneven playing field.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
businesses (in addition to the public sector) will require well educated and highly skilled personnel.
This process – which should have begun in earnest in early 2002 – must begin now if
Afghanistan is to be prepared to continue developing ten years from now. Institutions of
higher education, potentially more so than even basic vocational training centres, should be made a
high priority, particularly as their development has been seriously neglected in the rush to raise
rates of primary education.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
and other structural reasons will not be addressed unless they are systematically analysed and
responded to. There is a danger that structural determinants of these inequalities, particularly where
they are socially or politically based (e.g. cultural prescriptions endorsing gender inequality) will
simply be treated as disadvantages and the underlying causes not addressed.
Improve Poverty Targeting. A focus on public goods, social protection and poverty inequalities
will all require some degree of targeting, from the decision not to target to targeting based on
poverty assessments, self-targeting and targeting based on categorical or geographical
characteristics.
Better Understand Poverty. Effort is required at a minimum not only to improve the country level
cross-sectional metric assessments of consumption or income poverty but to build systematically
and link it with more qualitative and socially informed understanding. This requires multi-level
qualitative-quantitative studies (not just Q2) which include analysis of household trajectories. This
in turn highlights the importance of building the capacity of government institutions to collect,
collate and analyse quantitative and qualitative data in order to formulate appropriate policies and
programmes to address poverty.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
(village councils) are discriminatory against women, they account for 80 per cent of cases settled
throughout the country. They are more accessible, more efficient and perceived as less corrupt than
the formal state courts. They also represent the only route for the majority of Afghans to access,
and are closed to women’s participation and biased against them. DFID should support measures
to address women’s and men’s legal awareness and to monitor informal justice systems
(e.g. for conformity with human rights principles).
Additional justice-related interventions requiring DFID support include:
Support for the state’s legal apparatus in applying the equal rights enshrined in the
Constitution, improving the ability of the formal legal system (including the MoJ) to interact
with local, informal/tribal systems of justice, to promote and protect women’s rights;
Support for the provision of legal aid for women at the provincial and district levels;
A legal rights outreach programme to inform women and men about inheritance
rights at the village level; promotion of legal literacy and awareness-raising on men’s and
women’s rights around land, provisions of customary vs. Islamic law, justice mechanisms etc,
delivered in a way that seeks to synergise with local institutional mechanisms and that
generates local level ownership, as well as building on gender equity: (e.g. for female judges in
family courts in rural areas to facilitate inheritance claims); and,
Support for land-related policy development, which should seek to actively consult with
women and men to promote inclusion of interests.
Develop Institutional Capacity to Support Gender Equity. DFID should bring to bear its
experience and institutional memory, to broker the multi-dimensional nature of issues such as
gender inequality and female vulnerability in policy making. DFID can increase effectiveness in
activities, delivery and programmes by: pushing for innovation in programme design,
moving away from approaches which have not yielded results, and helping to identify and
enhance the gender awareness and understanding of stakeholders in formal and informal
institutions who have the ability and influence to enact long-lasting changes.
Formal and institutional personnel constitute the most effective change agents. Here, quality, not
just quantity, will be critical. Going beyond the numbers alone (e.g. an increase in the number of
women in institutions and processes) to focus on how they should be included to yield maximum
impact, and what support they will need to deliver on it, will be critical.
Additional Recommendations. The following should also be considered in DFID policy formulation
and programming concerning gender and women’s empowerment.
A robust, realistic understanding of women’s rights, gender equality issues and insights on the
complexity of local socio-political and economic relationships and power interactions will need
to be mainstreamed across DFID’s Afghanistan programme;
DFID should, when security conditions permit, reach out beyond the urban areas to reach
women and men whose contact with state institutions, markets and NGOs is limited;
DFID should aim to bridge the gap between constitutional commitments and informal
institutional understanding through dissemination of knowledge and capacity building
around tangible, practical interventions with evident benefits to men and women;
Support to civil society to continue to build a constituency of support for gender
equality will be important, not least because sustainable change in male-female relations
will only come from within Afghanistan, in all its geographic and socio-cultural diversity.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
Improve Access to Social Services. Perhaps the leading concern of socially excluded groups is
access to social services such as health and education. Access to such public goods has been
increasing, though each group has faced specific challenges in receiving their benefits. The
poor may require basic social safety nets rather than mainstream services, as the chronically poor
may be required to forsake children’s education in order to maintain a meagre sustenance lifestyle.
Other marginalised groups may face similar barriers, particularly when marginalisation is based on
identity, or may be too geographically isolated to readily access public goods. DFID must take a
strong role in improving access to social services and, equally if not more important, ensuring that
the Afghan government is prepared to maintain services and social safety nets in the event of
diminished international financial support.
Utilise Customary Institutions. Afghanistan, as noted in Section 7, has consistently demonstrated
a religiously-founded obligation to support the poor and marginalised and a strong emphasis on
safeguarding women’s honour. Such systems must be utilised productively. Zakat and other
charitable obligations must be mobilised and regularised in order to ensure the locally
owned provision of basic social safety nets for the chronically poor, the disabled, female
headed households and others. Similarly, customary and religious leaders must be incorporated
into programmes aimed at reducing the marginalisation of women and other groups. For instance,
emphasising women’s role as mothers and their traditional responsibility for the family, schools and
health may be used to advocate for their education and for their expanded involvement in local
governance.
Strengthen Monitoring and Accountability. The dual responsibilities of the State and customary
institutions for social service provision and for mediating the experience of the poor, women and
the socially excluded is likely to persist. Each is subject to failures and complications in relation to
particular populations, services or locations, thus leaving gaps which will require attention. In order
to highlight and respond to these gaps, improved monitoring and data collection
regarding marginal populations must be ensured. Rather than focusing strictly upon
quantitative indicators of progress, a dual emphasis should be placed upon qualitative
research concerning inter-personal relations and the evolving nature of impediments to
equity and social inclusion. Such a system should, for instance, attempt to change the changing
notion of female honour and its application or manipulation by parties in the intensifying
contemporary conflict.
Support Policy-Oriented Advocacy. Finally, institutions to facilitate policy advocacy among
excluded and marginalised groups should be created to give them a political voice. This role
has largely been filled by donor institutions and international NGOs, though it may be time for a
‘nationalisation’ process. As indicated above, a public information programme with the goal of de-
stigmatising marginalised groups may need to first be implemented in order to create a facilitative
environment for such policy-oriented activities.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
will be necessary in order to capture the ‘relational’ and experiential dynamics influencing
trajectories of gender, poverty and other forms of marginalisation.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
9. Conclusion
This synthesis has attempted to consolidate the various outputs of the ‘Understanding Afghanistan’
undertaking and to reflect those key points and areas of mutual concern. Above all else, the need to
better understand conflict in order to contribute to its resolution is highlighted. Security is
necessary for facilitating economic growth, for allowing the foundation of a stable State
and for the inclusion of marginalised groups. That said, a strict focus upon security
through military and counter-insurgency efforts is widely deemed short-sighted and
bound to fail. A concerted effort to integrate the Taliban-led insurgency into the government is
critical and will provide, perhaps, the only viable route to stability and, eventually, peace. As the
brief historical analysis provided in this report shows, power-sharing arrangements which exclude
key stakeholders will be subject to continued contestation until they ultimately devolve into all-out
armed conflict.
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DFID Understanding Afghanistan – Synthesis Report
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70
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