Month: November 2023

The Daily Hustle: “Helping the dreams of girls come true”

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour •

After the Islamic Emirate banned older girls from education, many girls found alternative avenues to continue their studies, find intellectual stimulation – and even, as this Daily Hustle found out, make a living in the private education sector. AAN’s Rohullah Sorush hears from one young Afghan woman about how, even in the face of overwhelming […]

24 Nov 2023

The Long Winding River: Unravelling the water dispute between Afghanistan and Iran

Mhd Assem Mayar • Roxanna Shapour •

Afghanistan and Iran have been at loggerheads for much of this year over the Helmand River and its water. As the region grappled with a punishing drought for the third year running, the two neighbouring countries have been locked in a tense melee over shared transboundary rivers. While Iran seeks to assert its rights over […]

20 Nov 2023

Thomas Barfield on Afghanistan’s current situation

Afghan Hindsight, 17 November 2023 A summary by Tim Foxley, of Afghan Hindsight blog, of Thomas Barfield’s presentation and discussion organised by UK-based Conservative Friends of Afghanistan. His two key points to highlight from it: Barfield also cautioned that it is very hard to know the inner workings and thinking of the Taliban so his […]

17 Nov 2023

Prosperity or Penury: The political and economic fallout of the opium ban in Afghanistan

Kate Clark • Jelena Bjelica •

Two new reports, one from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and another by David Mansfield and Alcis, show that Afghan farmers have largely complied with the Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation. They chart a swingeing cut in cultivation in 2023 – just 10,000 to 30,000 hectares of land sown with opium […]

15 Nov 2023

Pakistan’s Mass Deportation of Afghans Poses Risks to Regional Stability

ICG, 13 November 2023 In his analysis, Crisis Group’s Ibraheem Bahiss answers the following questions: What is happening on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? Why is Pakistan taking this step? How are the Taliban reacting? What will happen next?

13 Nov 2023

Nature’s Fury: The Herat earthquakes of 2023

Roxanna Shapour •

The earth has continued to shudder in Herat province ever since the first of a series of deadly earthquakes hit the province on Saturday 7 October around 11am local time. They have destroyed entire villages and killed and injured thousands of people. Since then, dozens more tremors, including three powerful earthquakes have caused additional havoc […]

10 Nov 2023

German ODA in Afghanistan [2001-21]

Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, 7 November 2023 This research report – one of the few independent studies of a major donor country’s development funding for Afghanistan during the entire foreign intervention from 2001 to 2021 – examines the scope and impact of German Official Development Assistance (ODA), focusing on the “networked approach” during NATO operations. It analyzes the […]

7 Nov 2023

Survival and Stagnation: The State of the Afghan economy

Kate Clark •

This paper is an attempt to give an overview of the Afghan economy in light of two new World Bank reports, one on the economy, two years on from the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), and a second on the welfare of households. The Emirate has not published budgets for this year […]

7 Nov 2023

Neuer Drogenbericht der UNO: Taliban erfolgreich gegen Opium

Tageszeitung, 6 November 2023 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reviews UNODC’s ‘Afghanistan Opium Survey 2023’ that found that the area where poppy has been planted and the expected yield from it is down 95 per cent after the Taleban’s April 2022 ban on all types of narcotics. He concludes that they managed to implement what the West […]

6 Nov 2023

Uncharted Territory: Does the Taliban’s new edict signal a crackdown on the drugs trade is looming?

Alcis, 2 November 2023 David Mansfield looks at the Taleban crackdown on poppy cultivation and increasing pressure on the drugs trade. He also takes a first look at a new drugs law with penalties for trading and cultivating drugs that became public on 1 October 2023.

2 Nov 2023

‘We were seven. Only I am left’: the plight of Afghanistan’s earthquake survivors

The National, 1 November 2023 A new reportage from the earthquake disaster zone near Herat, with some remarkable findings: An engineer working for an international NGO, who also requested anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to journalists, said [Taleban-led disaster management authority] Anda and aid groups had learnt many lessons from the major […]

1 Nov 2023