Together For Afghanistan: Scaling Impact and Amplifying Voices

Through this blog, we share the most pressing concerns facing Afghanistan today — its consequences in the words of Afghans themselves and what the international community can do to support Afghans — especially Afghan women in small and big ways.

By Samuel Hall Team

Photographed in Kabul by Preethi Nallu

August 15th, 2023 marked two years to the American withdrawal from Afghanistan resulting in millions of Afghans being pushed into extreme poverty in Afghanistan. As a research organisation founded and based in Kabul since 2010, we have witnessed a reduction in information, evidence and reporting in and from Afghanistan.

We bring to you our latest research from this past year to look beyond the crisis into the implications for future generations, particularly for girls and women who are being deprived of education and livelihoods.

Our projections, in collaboration with UNESCO for a forthcoming study indicate that the cumulative effect of losing the last educated Afghan woman from the post-primary education system will translate to a loss of nearly $10 billion, which represents approximately two-thirds of the current GDP.

We continue to bear witness to the lives of Afghans, to speak up for their rights and amplify their voices through our research. Working with various local and global partners, we have data and on-the-ground insight from these two years to share.

Through this blog, we share the most pressing concerns facing Afghanistan today — its consequences in the words of Afghans themselves and what the international community can do to support Afghans — especially Afghan women in small and big ways.

In a context where global standards for human lives speak of supporting the agency and resilience of people in vulnerable situations, Afghans need the support of the world, the most, today.

Today, in Afghanistan, 2.5 million (80%) of school-aged Afghan girls and young women are out of school.

By 2030,… 11,000 teachers and 1,000 healthcare professionals will be missing from the labour market.

This calls for more flexibility and space for education to be implemented through non-formal means as the link between local and central educational structures has been broken.

Our study with War Child underscores the urgent need to invest in local structures, trust, and relationships that will sustain girls’ education, even in the face of a national ban. This means supporting:

• Education programmes within mosques that engage with girls
• Informal and child-friendly spaces for schooling
• Radio-based education such as that provided by Radio Begum
• We are also calling for higher education as a pathway for protection, with support from universities abroad. The University of Manchester and the University of Oxford have already made strides in this regard.

Our 2023 research study assesses the current landscape of civil documentation and identity management in Afghanistan and provides actionable recommendations for the protection of all Afghans across the country.

In this study, with the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR, and NRC as part of the Interagency Working Group on Legal Identity, we find that:

• Most Afghans are unable to leave or access aid as they do not have passports or other forms of civil documentation. As a community leader in Herat province explains it: ‘Without a tazkira a person cannot be a beneficiary of an organisation’s aid. A person without a citizenship tazkira is uncredited and anonymous, and cannot apply for a passport.’
• Displaced individuals and returnees are often viewed with suspicion, they struggle to find witnesses for their Tazkira applications, resulting in the deprivation of essential services, including crucial humanitarian aid.
• Printing of essential documents like e-Tazkiras is now centralised in Kabul, leading to lengthy processing times and added travel costs and time for those in other parts of the country.

We are calling for:

• Increasing the number of centres dedicated to processing identification and civil registration documents
• Increasing public awareness campaigns through radio, television, and religious leaders’ involvement,
• Financial support to open more facilities for issuing tazkiras/e-takers, passports, and civil registration documents.

Now, more than ever, there is a need for Afghan women, men and children to access legal identity to ensure they can access their right to freedom of movement and many other rights.

Afghanistan is one of the highest ranked countries for its vulnerability to climate change over the next three decades — ranking eighth out of 170 countries, yet it is one of the lowest greenhouse emitting countries in the world (overall and per capita).

Nearly 60% of the population suffers from climate shocks. At the end of 2019, Afghanistan had more people displaced due to climate disasters than any other country in the world. Four years later, the country remains unequipped to face the challenges of climate change in rural and urban areas alike. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier by compounding existing vulnerabilities.

Samuel Hall’s research for IOM shows that climate change has a growing impact on migration, especially among rural and marginalised communities dependent on agriculture. The tipping point comes when households and sometimes entire communities have no choice but to abandon their homes, rendered uninhabitable, and move unprepared, without assets and skills to other areas.

Our report highlights recommendations to better accommodate sustainable solutions to climate change:

• Fund targeted research on the links between displacement and climate change in Afghanistan
• Increase capacity building and training of officials on sustainable natural resource management
• Invest in community consultations and encourage community-led solutions such as digging trenches, using drought-resistant seeds within climate programming.

The post August 2021 humanitarian and economic crisis has led to a decline in mental health in Afghanistan. In our research; all 39 FGD respondents & 22 interviewees suggest that displaced communities have been hit hard.

We find that

• Restrictions on women’s education, work and mobility have led to increased anxiety and depression.
• Men have also been hit, as they’re unable to fulfil their socially prescribed role as the sole provider for their families.
• Community health has declined, with communities no longer having the resources to care for their own. Community health is the set of environmental, social and economic resources that can support the emotional and physical well-being of people in a region. What we see first is that these resources are often no longer available.

Our report recommends to::

• Utilise existing community and social dynamics, such as training mullahs and elders on mental health conditions, mental health first aid, and referral pathways
• Destigmatise Mental health conditions through local-level community campaigns
• Integrate/Design MHPSS programmes into all programming activities.

Najma was a participant in our participatory forum in Jalalabad as part of the International Institute for Environment and Deve opment (IIED)’s Protracted Displacement in Urban World (PDUW) project. We set up these participatory forums to address local IDPs and returnees’ needs, engage in a local dialogue on solutions to displacement, and provide a space for local decision making..

A recurring theme was the need to transform the city into a space of inclusion rather than marginalisation. The participatory forum facilitated recommendations:

• Women Shuras (women councils) are seeking financial support from donors. They also ask for access to municipality officers who can listen and acknowledge their issues and aspirations.
• To address the pressing need for a greener and cleaner Jalalabad, humanitarian actors should collaborate with municipal stakeholders to develop comprehensive city expansion plans that account for the overpopulation and informal settlements.
• Within the city expansion plans, identify new places for IDPs to reside, and new spaces for organisations to deliver assistance, and for children, youth and women to have a place to spend time in and avoid insecurity.
• By embracing partnerships between municipalities and communities and seeking support from international organisations and donors, we can work towards building more inclusive and resilient urban spaces. It is crucial that we continue these conversations.

Finally, we need to facilitate more legal pathways for Afghans outside of Afghanistan — where their rights are protected and respected and their voices — especially those of women — are heard and acknowledged.

*All images used in the stories are for representational purposes only.