Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Martine van Bijlert

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

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
Muttaqi AFP

How The Emirate Wants to be Perceived: A closer look at the Accountability Programme

Martine van Bijlert •

As the third anniversary of its return to power approaches, the Islamic Emirate is presumably readying itself for another round of its Accountability Programme, as it has done in the past two summers. These televised sessions, held by ministers and other senior officials in front of journalists, provide a fairly detailed overview of the Emirate’s […]

Political Landscape Read more

Food Aid in a Collapsed Economy: Relief, tensions and allegations

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

A major focus of the international humanitarian response to Afghanistan’s economic collapse has been a ramped-up distribution of food aid, as large parts of the population no longer have the income to buy enough food for their families. In this fourth instalment of our economic research based on interviews conducted across Afghanistan, we look at […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Living in a Collapsed Economy (3): Surviving poverty, food insecurity and the harsh winter

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

In this third instalment of ‘Living in a Collapsed Economy,’ we returned to the people we interviewed at the beginning of winter to find out how they had managed since we last spoke to them, especially during the harsh winter months. For many of them, not much had changed, although their situation had slowly worsened […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Afghanistan’s Conflict in 2021 (1): The Taleban’s sweeping offensive as told by people on the ground

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

As Afghanistan’s former leaders publicly reflect and comment on the events that led to the fall of the Republic, it has been easy to lose sight of what those months in the summer of 2021 were like for the people who lived through them. In this first of two reports we look back at 2021’s […]

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Living in a Collapsed Economy (2): Even the people who still have money are struggling

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

In this second instalment of ‘Living in a Collapsed Economy,’ we seek to map what Afghanistan’s economic collapse means, at the household level, for the relatively fortunate – those who were wealthy to start with or had a diverse set of income streams, as well as those who still have a stable salary. We hear […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Living in a Collapsed Economy (1): A cook, a labourer, a migrant worker, a small trader and a factory owner tell us what their lives look like now

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

In the summer of 2021 AAN started a new research project for ‘Living under the Taleban’ that looked into how life had changed in districts that were newly coming under Taleban control, one after the other, with dizzying speed. Then the Republic collapsed, mere days after we conducted our first interviews. When we picked up the […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

The Taleban’s Caretaker Cabinet and other Senior Appointments

Martine van Bijlert •

After three rounds of senior appointments — on 7 September, 21 September and 4 October – most key posts appear to have been filled, at least in Kabul. These appointments have solved the immediate question of who will head the state institutions that will help restart the government. However, given the uncertainties about how the […]

Political Landscape Read more

The Focus of the Taleban’s New Government: Internal cohesion, external dominance

Martine van Bijlert •

As the twentieth anniversary of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks that brought the US to Afghanistan to topple the Taleban’s emirate came round, it was the Taleban who were back in power. This week, they announced their new interim administration. It is all-male, almost all-Pashtun, almost all clerical and all-Taleban. Set alongside their sustained military campaign in […]

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The Moment in Between: After the Americans, before the new regime

Martine van Bijlert •

Monday night, Centcom Commander General Kenneth McKenzie announced the withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan as complete, while the Taleban declared the country once again a “free and sovereign nation.” After the last American soldier left Afghan soil, Taleban forces giddily moved into the last part of Kabul airport that had still been in […]

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The Taleban leadership converges on Kabul as remnants of the republic reposition themselves

Martine van Bijlert •

The various Taleban leaders have started converging on Kabul. The ever-elusive but eminently reachable, Taleban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahed showed his face for the first time in a press conference at Kabul’s media centre. What he said matched earlier messaging by the Taleban, as he sought to assure both the Afghans and the international community of […]

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