Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

AAN Team

Inside Afghanistan’s Unequal Economic Recovery: How households have fared since 2021

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

Since the crash following the collapse of the Republic in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy has witnessed a modest recovery, although many households have not. In a new longitudinal study, AAN has followed a number of families across Afghanistan and over time, to better understand how the country’s economic trajectory has played out for individual households. When we first […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

What went wrong? Two AAN studies for Norway’s Afghanistan Commission

AAN Team •

In October 2024, Norway appointed a second Afghanistan Commission to evaluate the country’s efforts in Afghanistan, this time covering the period from 2015 to 2021. As part of its review, it examined Norway’s military contribution, development assistance and its efforts to support peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, as well as the 2021 evacuation operation. As with […]

External publications Read more

Recommended Reads on Afghanistan: From travellers’ tales to ‘peace negotiations’ to stories of oppression and resistance

AAN Team • AAN Guests •

Today, we bring you some book reviews. We asked AAN writers and friends to recommend books about Afghanistan that they had enjoyed. Their choices are an eclectic mix, ranging from the scholarly to the journalistic, memoirs and travelogues to novels and short stories, and even a podcast. Our reviews begin with a gripping account of […]

Context and Culture Read more

Law, Control, Fear – and some Defiance: Citizens and enforcers talk about the ‘promotion of virtue and prevention of vice’

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

It has been more than a year since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan introduced a new vice and virtue law. This law lays out what behaviour and actions the Islamic Emirate deems obligatory or forbidden for Afghan men and women. It gives its enforcers wide-ranging powers to both police and punish ‘wrongdoers,’ who have no […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Is maternal mortality on the rise in Afghanistan? No official data, but much cause for concern

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate was already among the ten highest in the world, but it has come under further pressure. The United States’ decision to entirely cut aid to Afghanistan earlier this year has led to the closure of over 400 health facilities and that is likely to have particularly affected women during the most […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

A year of Propagating Virtue and Preventing Vice: Enforcers and ‘enforced’ speak about the Emirate’s morality law

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

It is a year since the Islamic Emirate issued a new law to propagate virtue and prevent vice. The goal, of changing Afghans’ dress and behaviour, has been an abiding mission of the Taliban’s since they first emerged as a movement in the 1990s. The law laid out not only the actions that the Emirate […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

The End of US Aid to Afghanistan: What will it mean for families, services and the economy?

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

The full weight of the United States’ cuts to aid to Afghanistan has finally become clear. Almost all the aid that was promised – at least USD 1.8 billion – will now not be given, according to the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The United Nations has announced a reprioritisation of the humanitarian […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Rural Women’s Access to Health in Afghanistan: “Most of the time, we just don’t go”

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Since the return of the Islamic Emirate, Afghanistan’s already fragile healthcare system has deteriorated, with stark inequalities for women and rural populations. The system faces a severe lack of funding, inadequate infrastructure and a critical shortage of qualified professionals, which has been exacerbated by prohibitions targeting women since 2021. These failings are felt most acutely […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

In Pursuit of Virtue: Men’s views on the Islamic Emirate’s restrictions on women

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

Since taking power in August 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has introduced increasingly severe restrictions on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women and girls, that have reverberated across families and communities. The new rules have bolstered traditional male roles as women’s ‘gatekeepers’, determining what they can and cannot do. At the same […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Recommended Reads from AAN Writers: The poetry of peace, magical realism in Logar, class in Nuristan, Sufis

Kate Clark • AAN Guests • AAN Team •

We thought we would start 2025 by asking AAN writers and friends to recommend books about Afghanistan. Their choices are eclectic, ranging across the academic and journalistic, memoirs and fiction, books written by Afghans and others. Our recommended reads include one book which its reviewer believes will become a standard work for universities teaching about […]

Context and Culture Read more

How Fares the Afghan Private Sector? Trying to run a business in a “stagnant” economy

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

There is a consensus that the private sector is crucial to getting any real growth back into the Afghan economy – described by the World Bank as “persistently stagnant.” Long-term growth, it said, was contingent on a “more resilient, private-sector led economy that capitalizes on the nation’s inherent strengths.” Boosting the private sector is also high […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

The Fate of the Village Councils: The Emirate’s effort to institute hegemony over rural Afghanistan

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Afghanistan’s Community Development Councils (CDCs), which were established under the Islamic Republic by the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) and its successor Citizen’s Charter, have been abolished by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Government bodies have been told to coordinate economic projects with ulema councils instead. Afghanistan, however, has a longstanding tradition of grassroots, collective, […]

Political Landscape Read more

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