How to engage with the Taliban, if you have to

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The New Humanitarian, 11 July 2024

An opinion piece published by Patricia Gossman, Associate director for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, and Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan Researcher at that organisation, at The New Humanitarian, following the third UN-sponsored Afghanistan special envoy meeting in Doha, with (not-so-high ranking) Taleban representatives participating, while, also for the first time, meetings Afghan women and civil society representatives were not part of the meetings official agenda – which was condemned by many activists. The authors say:

Outrage by Afghan women’s rights groups led the UN to lamely hold separate talks with Afghan women and civil society representatives the day after the Doha discussions. But the question left hanging in the ether is how to address Afghanistan’s protracted economic crisis and worsening poverty without signalling support for the Taliban’s abusive policies. (…) While donors should continue to press Taliban leaders to end their violations of the rights of women and girls, limiting support to Afghanistan to ever-dwindling levels of humanitarian aid to isolate them is not the answer.

They conclude:

There is no way to address Afghanistan’s acute problems while bypassing the Taliban altogether. (…) … given that women and girls have suffered the most under the Taliban’s abusive policies (…), principled engagement is the only viable choice. (…)

For the long term, even more important than humanitarian aid is assistance directed at durable solutions on a national scale – and not just on a project-to-project basis – in essential areas such as water management, irrigation, agriculture, climate adaptation, and public health. (…) Such developments are crucial because women and women-headed households have higher rates of food insecurity, which contribute to increased chances of malnutrition-related disease, child labour, and early marriage. Water scarcity and Afghanistan’s increasingly intense cycles of droughts and floods also disproportionately harm women and girls.  (…) building resilience in these areas would also reduce Afghanistan’s dependence on humanitarian aid, while improving food security and access to essential public goods in the long run.