The Impact of Foreign Aid on Women’s Rights in Post-Taliban Afghanistan, 2001-2020

Abstract

Women’s rights have been among the most controversial parts of the social and political realities of Afghanistan. This thesis aims to study the impact of foreign aid on promoting women’s rights in Afghanistan since the late-2001, i.e., in the aftermath of 9/11 and the fall of the Taliban regime. Its main purpose is to find how foreign aid-funded projects and gendered policies have affected the well-being (or lack thereof) of women’s conditions in today’s Afghanistan, as well as to analyze the barriers impeding the effectiveness of these programs. This study is based on the analysis of related literature and the semi-structured in-depth expert interviews (N=6) with researchers and defenders of women’s rights. As part of its literature review, this thesis examines women’s experiences in the past eras, during, and after the many conflicts, specifically under the new Governments of Afghanistan in the post-Taliban period. It also reviews the role of two major international conventions (UNSCR 1325 and CEDAW) in their supposed support of Afghan women’s rights and well-being. In attempting to answer its main research question, this thesis tested three hypotheses on the effects of “ideas,” “(mis)management” and “instrumentalization” vis-à-vis women’s rights and foreign aid in Afghanistan. Of the three, H1 (The social norms and clash of ideas argument) was found to fully hold when analyzing the literature on the topic but to only partially hold when analyzing the responses of the six experts interviewed. However, both H2 (The mismanagement of foreign aid argument) and H3 (The gender instrumentalization argument) were found to be fully supported by the expert interview responses collected by this thesis and the relevant literature review on the topic. This thesis thus concludes that despite some noticeable progress in women’s rights and status quo as compared to the Taliban era, the international community’s engagement via foreign aid in Afghanistan in attempting to significantly improve women’s well-being in the country during the past 19 years have been far from a resounding success as such efforts have largely failed to produce their expected outcomes. This thesis also observes that in the ongoing peace talks in Qatar between the still patriarchic Government of Afghanistan and the misogynistic Taliban leadership, a potential “peace accord” between the two will likely act as a further obstacle to arriving at women’s rights and gender equity in Afghanistan.