Afghanistan

Conceptualizing Gendered Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: Contextual Conditions and Drivers of Change

Citation:

Goodrich, Chanda Gurung, Pranita Bhushan Udas, and Harriet Larrington-Spencer. 2019. "Conceptualizing Gendered Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: Contextual Conditions and Drivers of Change." Environmental Development 31: 9-18.

Authors: Chanda Gurung Goodrich, Pranita Bhushan Udas, Harriet Larrington-Spencer

Abstract:

Not all women or all men are equally vulnerable. Manifestations of vulnerability to climate change vary in different groups of people, based on their position in a social and gender structure in a particular location and at a particular time. We need to understand the pre-existing conditions, what we term “contextual conditions” that underlie experiences of vulnerability and lead to its complexity and reproduction. This paper is based on a literature review and takes the standpoint that not only is gender a powerful and pervasive contextual condition, but that it intersects with other contextual conditions to shape vulnerabilities. Further, gender and other contextual conditions also influence and are influenced by socioeconomic drivers of change to produce differential gendered vulnerabilities. Therefore, manifestations of gendered vulnerability to climate change are the result of complex and interlinked factors, which cannot be simplified for the sake of efficiency. This paper offers a conceptual framework bringing together these interlinkages and intersectionalities in understanding differential gendered vulnerabilities.

Keywords: climate change, Gender, Hindu Kush Himalaya, vulnerabilities

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Intersectionality Regions: Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan

Year: 2019

Traumatic Stress Among Sexual and Gender Minority Refugees from the Middle East, North African, and Asia who Fled to the European Union

Citation:

Alessi, Edward J., Sarilee Kahn, Leah Woolner, and Rebecca Van Der Horn. 2018. "Traumatic Stress Among Sexual and Gender Minority Refugees From the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia Who Fled to the European Union." Journal of Traumatic Stress 31 (6): 805-15.

Authors: Edward J. Alessi, Sarilee Kahn, Leah Woolner, Rebecca Van Der Horn

Abstract:

In 2015, more than 600,000 individuals from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan fled to Europe in search of protection. Among the most understudied of this population are individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ). These individuals have not only fled war but also violence due to their sexual and/or gender identities. At the same time, LGBTQ individuals from other parts of the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and North Africa have also fled to Europe to escape persecution. The purpose of this multimethod study was to understand how traumatic stress shaped the experiences of 38 LGBTQ individuals who fled to Austria (n = 19) and the Netherlands (n = 19) from these regions. We assessed participants for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and conducted qualitative interviews to understand their migration experiences. Of the 37 participants assessed for PTSD, 33 (89.2%) reported that their most distressing event occurred prior to migration. For the 24 (64.9%) participants who met criteria for a provisional diagnosis of PTSD, 15 reported that the precipitating event was related to their sexual and/or gender identities and 9 reported that it was related to another type of event (e.g., war). Grounded theory was used to analyze qualitative data. Themes demonstrated that participants encountered targeted violence and abuse throughout migration and upon their arrival in Austria and the Netherlands. Findings indicate that LGBTQ refugees may be vulnerable to ongoing trauma from other refugees and immigration officials. Recommendations for protecting and supporting LGBTQ refugees during humanitarian emergencies are provided.

 

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Gender, Health, PTSD, Trauma, Humanitarian Assistance, Sexuality, Violence Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Western Europe Countries: Afghanistan, Austria, Iraq, Netherlands, Syria

Year: 2018

The ‘Third Gender’ in Afghanistan: A Feminist Account of Hybridity as a Gendered Experience

Citation:

Partis-Jennings, Hannah. 2019. “The ‘Third Gender’ in Afghanistan: A Feminist Account of Hybridity as a Gendered Experience.” Peacebuilding 7 (2): 178–93.

Author: Hannah Partis-Jennings

Abstract:

This article offers a significant contribution to critical peace studies and feminist peace studies by exploring an undertheorized manifestation of hybridity and friction in Afghanistan from a feminist perspective. It focuses on female international humanitarian actors, their use of the term ‘third gender’ to describe their perceived position, and their experiences of performing their gender in hybridised ways. Using original interview data, it argues that the particularly gendered experiences of these actors are key to recognising the gendered nature of peacebuilding and the intersections between feminist approaches and critical peace concepts.

Keywords: hybridity, friction, Afghanistan, third gender, feminism, peacebuilding

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Humanitarian Assistance, Peacebuilding Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2019

The (In)Security of Gender in Afghanistan’s Peacebuilding Project: Hybridity and Affect

Citation:

Partis-Jennings, Hannah. 2017. “The (In)Security of Gender in Afghanistan’s Peacebuilding Project: Hybridity and Affect.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (4): 411–25.

Author: Hannah Partis-Jennings

Abstract:

In this article I draw on a feminist approach to hybridity to explore interview data and observations from my field research in Afghanistan. I argue that there is a logic of masculinist protection influencing the affective environment of the peacebuilding project there. The combination of a perceived patriarchal context in Afghanistan and security routines protecting civilian internationals (and Afghan elites), which rely on hypermasculine signifiers, help to create and perpetuate the conditions in which the female (for both internationals and Afghans) is marked with insecurity. I point to hybridity between the foreign and female experience, as well as resistance and reflexivity within my research. Throughout I explore fragments of power hierarchies that cut through the meaning of gender, rendering the female state a disempowering one, always referenced in some uncertain, hybrid way as protected or in need of protection.
 

Keywords: peacebuilding, Afghanistan, hybridity, masculinist protection, affect

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Masculinism, Peacebuilding, Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2017

The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security

Citation:

Davies, Sara E., and Jacqui True, eds. 2019. The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security. New York: Oxford University Press.

Authors: Sara E. Davies, Jacqui True

Abstract:

The Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace, and Security examines the significant and evolving international Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, which scholars and practitioners have together contributed to advancing over almost two decades. Fifteen years since the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), the WPS agenda has never been more salient on the agenda of states and international organizations. The Global Study of 1325 (“Preventing Conflict, Securing Peace”) commissioned by the UN Secretary-General and released in September 2015, however, found that there is a major implementation gap with respect to UNSCR 1325 that accounts for the gaping absence of women’s participation in peace and transitional decision-making processes. With independent, critical, and timely analysis by scholars, advocates, and policymakers across global regions, the Oxford Handbook synthesizes new and enduring knowledge, collectively taking stock of what has been achieved and what remains incomplete and unfinished about the WPS agenda. The handbook charts the collective way forward to increase the impact of WPS research, theory, and practice.

Keywords: WPS agenda, women peace and security, UNSCR 1325, gender and security, UN Security Council, women's rights, conflict and post-conflict

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
Part I. Concepts of WPS
 
1. WPS: A Transformative Agenda?
Sara E. Davies and Jacqui True
 
2. Peace and Security from a Feminist Perspective
J. Ann Tickner
 
3. Adoption of 1325 Resolution
Christine Chinkin
 
4. Civil Society's Leadership in Adopting 1325 Resolution
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini
 
5. Scholarly Debates and Contested Meanings of WPS
Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin and Nahla Valji
 
6. Advocacy and the WPS Agenda
Sarah Taylor
 
7. WPS as a Political Movement
Swanee Hunt and Alive Wairimu Nderitu
 
8. Location Masculinities in WP
Henri Myrttinen
 
9. WPS and Adopted Security Council Resolutions
Laura J Shepherd
 
10. WPS and Gender Mainstreaming
Karin Landgren
 
11. The Production of the 2015 Global Study
Louise Olsson and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis
 
Part II. Pillars of WPS
 
12. WPS and Conflict Prevention
Bela Kapur and Madeleine Rees
 
13. What Works in Participation
Thania Paffenholz
 
14. What Works (and Fails) in Protection
Hannah Donges and Janosch Kullenberg
 
15. What Works in Relief and Recovery
Jacqui True and Sarah Hewitt
 
16. Where the WPS Pillars Intersect
Marie O'Reilly
 
17. WPS and Female Peacekeepers
Natasja Rupesinghe, Eli Stamnes, and John Karlsrud
 
18. WPS and SEA in Peacekeeping Operations
Jamine-Kim Westendorf
 
19. WPS and Peacekeeping Economics
Kathleen M. Jennings
 
20. WPS in Military Training and Socialization
Helena Carreiras and Teresa Fragoso
 
21. WPS and Policing: New Terrain
Bethan Greener
 
22. WPS, States, and the National Action Plans
Mirsad Miki Jacevic
 
Part III. Institutionalizing WPS
 
23. WPS inside the United Nations
Megan Dersnah
 
24. WPS and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sexual Violence in Conflict
Eleanor O'Gorman
 
25. WPS and the Human Rights Council
Rashida Manjoo
 
26. WPS and International Financial Institutions
Jacqui True and Barbro Svedberg
 
27. WPS and the International Criminal Court
Jonneke Koomen
 
28. WPS and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Stéfanie von Hlatky
 
29. WPS and the African Union
Toni Haastrup
 
30. WPS and the Association of South East Asian Nations
Ma. Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza
 
31. WPS and the Pacific Islands Forum
Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls and Sian Rolls
 
32. WPS and the Organization of American States
Mary K. Meyer McAleese
 
33. WPS and Civil Society
Annika Bjorkdahl and Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
 
34. WPS and Transnational Feminist Networks
Joy Onyesoh
 
Part IV. Implementing WPS
 
35. Delivering WPS Protection in All Female Peacekeeping Force: The Case of Liberia
Sabrina Karim
 
36. Securing Participation and Protection in Peace Agreements: The Case of Colombia
Isabela Marín Carvajal and Eduardo Álvarez-Vanegas
 
37. WPS and Women's Roles in Conflict-Prevention: The Case of Bougainville
Nicole George
 
38. Women in Rebellion: The Case of Sierra Leone
Zoe Marks
 
39. Protecting Displaced Women and Girls: The Case of Syria
Elizabeth Ferris
 
40. Donor States Delivering on WPS: The Case of Norway
Inger Skjelsbæk and Torunn L. Tryggestad
 
41. WPS as Diplomatic Vocation: The Case of China
Liu Tiewa
 
42. Women Controlling Arms, Building Peace: The Case of the Philippines
Jasmin Nario-Galace
 
43. Testing the WPS Agenda: The Case of Afghanistan
Claire Duncanson and Vanessa Farr
 
44. Mainstreaming WPS in the Armed Forced: The Case of Australia
Jennifer Wittwer
 
Part V. Cross-Cutting Agenda? Connections and Mainstreaming
 
45. WPS and Responsibility to Protect
Alex J. Bellamy and Sara E. Davies
 
46. WPS and Protection of Civilians
Lisa Hultman and Angela Muvumba Sellstrom
 
47. WPS, Children, and Armed Conflict
Katrine Lee-Koo
 
48. WPS, Gender, and Disabilities
Deborah Stienstra
 
49. WPS and Humanitarian Action
Sarah Martin and Devanna de la Puente
 
50. WPS, Migration, and Displacements
Lucy Hall
 
51. WPS and LGBTI Rights
Lisa Davis and Jessica Stern
 
52. WPS and CEDAW, Optional Protocol, and General Recommendations
Catherine O'Rourke with Aisling Swaine
 
53. Women's Roles in CVE
Sri Waiyanti Eddyono with Sara E. Davies
 
54. WPS and Arms Trade Treaty
Ray Acheson and Maria Butler
 
55. WPS and Sustainable Development Goals
Radhika Balakrishnan and Krishanti Dharmaraj
 
56. WPS and the Convention against Torture
Andrea Huber and Therese Rytter
 
57. WPS and Climate Change
Annica Kronsell
 
Part VI. Ongoing and Future Challenges
 
58. Global Study: Looking Forward
Radhika Coomaraswamy and Emily Kenney
 
59. Measuring WPS: A New Global Index
Jeni Klugman
 
60. Pursuing Gender Security
Aisling Swaine
 
61. The Challenge of Foreign Policy in the WPS Agenda
Valerie M. Hudson and Lauren A. Eason
 
62. Networked Advocacy
Yifat Susskind and Diana Duarte
 
63. Women's Peacemaking in South Asia
Meenakshi Gopinath and Rita Manchanda
 
64. WPS, Peace Negotiations, and Peace Agreements
Karin Aggestam
 
65. The WPS Agenda: A Postcolonial Critique
Swati Parashar
 
66. The WPS Agenda and Strategy for the Twenty-First Century
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat
 
67. The Challenges of Monitoring and Analyzing WPS for Scholars
Natalie Florea Hudson

 

Topics: Civil Society, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Conflict, Conflict Prevention, Displacement & Migration, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, International Law, International Organizations, LGBTQ, Peacekeeping, Peace and Security, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Weapons /Arms Regions: Africa, MENA, West Africa, Americas, South America, Asia, East Asia, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Oceania Countries: Afghanistan, Australia, China, Colombia, Liberia, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Syria

Year: 2019

Gender, Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia

Citation:

Singh, Shweta. 2017. "Gender, Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia." Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 4 (2): 149-57.

Author: Shweta Singh

Abstract:

This article provides an overview to this special issue of JASIA, entitled ‘Gender, Conflict and Security: Perspectives from South Asia’. Gender intersects with conflict and security and yet remains at the margins of academic theorizing, policy priority and practitioner perspectives in South Asia. This special issue puts forth fresh insights into how and why the lived experiences of women in South Asia (particularly from areas of protracted conflict such as Nepal, India and Sri Lanka) are different? And how and why these impinge on the global discourse on security? It argues that this analysis is pertinent not just from the standpoint of academic theorizing on security but also from the perspective of international security policy like the United Nations led Women, Peace and Security Agenda. This is the 17th year of the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, and only Nepal and Afghanistan in South Asia have a National Action Plan. This special issue also critically examines the key gaps in the international policy on Women, Peace and Security Agenda and how it ‘speaks’ or ‘not speaks’ to the contextual reality of South Asia.

Keywords: Gender, conflict, security, South Asia, women peace and security, UNSCR 1325

Topics: Conflict, Gender, Women, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Peace and Security, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Year: 2017

The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan

Citation:

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). 2005. The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan. Geneva: United Nations. 

Author: Deniz Kandiyoti

Annotation:

Summary:
“The central objective of this paper is to put the discussion of women’s rights in Afghanistan in the context of the multiple transitions entailed by the process of post-conflict reconstruction: a security transition (from war to peace), a political transition (to the formation of a legitimate and effective state) and a socioeconomic transition (from a “conflict” economy to sustainable growth). These transformations do not occur in a social vacuum but build upon existing societal arrangements that condition and limit the range of available opportunities.

The first section contextualizes current attempts at securing women’s rights in the troubled history of state-building and state-society relations in Afghanistan. The latter were marked by tensions between a rentier state bolstered by foreign subsidies, which had a relatively weak engagement with society, and a rural hinterland that both resisted the incursions of the state and attempted to represent tribal interests within it. Attempts at modernization, including the expansion of women’s rights, were instigated by a male state elite whose bids to centralize power were thwarted at various junctures. The issue of women’s rights was used as a bargaining counter in contests between social forces whose geopolitical entanglements produced sharp swings of the pendulum between extremes such as the Soviet backed socialist experiment under the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and the Islamist policies of the Pakistani-backed Taliban. However, in a context where the state’s interface with local communities, whether in terms of the legal framework, revenue collection or service delivery, was always limited, attempts to analyse women’s rights with reference only to government policies suffer from serious shortcomings. It is, rather, to the profound transformations brought about by years of protracted conflict that one must look for a better appraisal of obstacles to and opportunities for more genderequitable development in Afghanistan.

The second section discusses the implications of the far-reaching changes in social relations brought about by years of war and displacement following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A predominantly rural country whose population achieved relatively self-sufficient livelihoods was transformed into a fragmented polity where a significant proportion of the economy is based on illicit, criminalized networks of trade in drugs (opium poppy, in particular) and commodities such as timber and emeralds, smuggling of goods and human trafficking. The central argument put forward in this section is that routine violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan are determined by analytically distinct but overlapping and mutually reinforcing sets of influences: the dynamics of gendered disadvantage, the erosion of local livelihoods and growing poverty, the criminalization of the economy, and insecurity due to the predations of armed groups and factions. Particular combinations of new pressures (such as poverty, indebtedness and predation by local strongmen) and existing practices (such as the early marriage of girls against the payment of brideprice) create outcomes that may easily be misidentified as unmediated expressions of local “culture”, thus detracting critical attention from the full nexus of influences that deepen the vulnerability of girls and women.

The third section focuses on processes of institutional development and reform since the Bonn Agreement in 2001.The national machinery set up for the advancement of women consists of: the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA); the Office of the State Minister for Women (OSMOW), set up to provide policy guidance with particular reference to legislative and judicial reform processes; the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), tasked with the advancement of women’s rights under one of its five programme areas; and the Gender Advisory Group (GAG), a donor-government co-ordination body that assists in formulating a national framework and budget for gender mainstreaming. The most tangible gains so far have been achieved in the area of legal rights, which were enshrined in the new Constitution of January 2004 and provide legal guarantees for women’s equality as citizens and for their political representation. Many unresolved questions remain concerning the respective roles of Islamic and tribal laws and the stipulations of international treaties to which the government is a signatory (such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women/CEDAW which was ratified without reservations in March 2003). Without a process of consensus-building through political normalization and reconciliation, the risk that women’s rights will be held hostage to factional politics remains high. The expansion of women’s formal rights cannot, in any case, translate into substantive benefits in the absence of security and the rule of law. Moreover, women’s formal rights to civic participation may have limited impact in a context where they remain wards of their households and communities and where their most basic entitlements to education and health continue to be denied.

The conclusion draws attention to crippling disjunctures between different facets of post-conflict transition. Legal and governance reforms have advanced at a faster pace than has been achieved in the security sector or the transition to sustainable livelihoods. There is also a disjuncture between, on the one hand, the time frames adopted and outputs expected by international actors driving the women’s rights agenda, and on the other, the length of time required for non-cosmetic changes in societal relations to develop as a result of peace-building. Since the issue of women’s rights continues to occupy a highly politicized and sensitive place in the struggles between contending political factions in Afghanistan, this disjuncture may itself produce unintended effects, with disempowering consequences for women.” (Kandiyoti 2005, vi)

Topics: Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Girls, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Peace and Security, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Women's Rights, Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2005

Leading the Operationalisation of WPS

Citation:

Hutchinson, Susan. 2018. "Leading the Operationalisation of WPS." Security Challenges 14 (2): 124-43.

Author: Susan Hutchinson

Annotation:

Summary:
"This paper considers how an intervening security force can implement the relevant components of the suite of United Nations Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). The analytical framework of the paper is a generic operational cycle comprised of preplanning, planning, conduct, and transition. Specific tasks identified in the resolutions are organised in this generic operational cycle. The tasks are those commonly led by security forces, or directed by government, and include: conflict analysis or intelligence; deliberate planning; force structure; population protection; female engagement; support to the rule of law; security sector reform; and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. This paper focuses on the experiences of the Australian Defence Force, with additional examples from militaries of Canada, Ireland, Sweden and the United States as well as organisational experiences from NATO and the United Nations. The paper draws on operations including, but not limited to, in Afghanistan, Rwanda, Yugoslavia and East Timor. Overall, the paper makes a unique contribution to the military operationalisation of the WPS agenda" (Hutchinson 2018, 124).

Topics: Armed Conflict, DDR, Gender, Women, Governance, International Organizations, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Security, Security Sector Reform, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Balkans, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Rwanda, Sweden, Timor-Leste, United States of America, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2018

Women and Nation-Building

Citation:

Benard, Cheryl, Seth G. Jones, Olga Oliker, Cathryn Quantic Thurston, Brooke K. Stearns, and Kristen Cordell. 2008. Women and Nation-Building. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation.

Authors: Cheryl Benard, Seth G. Jones, Olga Oliker, Cathryn Quantic Thurston, Brooke K. Stearns, Kristen Cordell

Annotation:

Summary:
"The challenge of nation-building, i.e., dealing with the societal and political aftermaths of conflicts and putting new governments and new social compacts into place, has occupied much international energy during the past several decades. As an art, a process, and a set of competencies, it is still very much in an ongoing learning and experimentation phase. The RAND Corporation has contributed to the emerging knowledge base in this domain through a series of studies that have looked at nation-building enterprises led by the United States and others that were led by the United Nations and have examined the experiences gained during the reconstruction of specific sectors. Our study focuses on gender and nation-building. It considers this issue from two aspects: First, it examines gender-specific impacts of conflict and post-conflict and the ways in which events in these contexts may affect women differently than they affect men. Second, it analyzes the role of women in the nation-building process, in terms of both actual current practices, as far as these could be measured and ascertained, and possible outcomes that might occur if these practices were to be modified.

The study team first surveyed the broader literature on women in development, women and governance, women and conflict, and women in nation-building. It then focused on the case of Afghanistan. This case study was chosen for three reasons: First, it is contemporary, and it offers a longer nation-building “track record” and thus more data than does Iraq, the other contemporary case. Second, the relevant debate and decision line is easy to track because gender issues have been overtly on the table from the beginning of U.S. post-conflict involvement in Afghanistan, in part because of the Taliban’s equally overt prior emphasis on gender issues as a defining quality of its regime. Third, in contrast to earlier cases of nation-building, the issue of women’s inclusion is presently an official part of any development agenda, so that all the active agents in the nation-building enterprise have made conscious choices and decisions in that regard which can be reviewed and their underlying logic evaluated.

The study concludes with a broad set of analytic and policy recommendations. First, we identify the gaps in data collection and provide specific suggestions for improvement. Then, we recommend three shifts in emphasis that we believe are likely to strengthen the prospects of stability and enhance the outcomes of nation-building programs: a more genuine emphasis on the broader concept of human security from the earliest phases of the nation-building effort; a focus on establishing governance based on principles of equity and consistent rule of law from the start; and economic inclusion of women in the earliest stages of reconstruction activities” (Benard, Jones, Oliker, Thurston, Stearns, and Cordell 2008, xiii).

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
 
2. The Security Dimension and Women
 
3. Planning and Implementing Programs for Women's Health and Education: Building Indicators of Success
 
4. Governance and Women
 
5. Economic Participation and Women
 
6. A Case Study: The National Solidarity Program
 
7. Recommendations

Topics: Development, Economies, Conflict, Education, Gender, Governance, Health, International Organizations, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Security, Human Security Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, United States of America

Year: 2008

A Mandate to Mainstream: Promoting Gender Equality in Afghanistan

Citation:

Larson A., 2008. A Mandate to Mainstream: Promoting Gender Equality in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU).

Author: Anna Larson

Annotation:

Summary: 
“This paper contends that gender mainstreaming, as the government’s principal strategy for promoting gender equality in Afghanistan, is not being substantively implemented in the Administration at present. Equality is an ambitious, transformative goal, but efforts to achieve this end through mainstreaming gender issues have been (as in other contexts) largely incremental. This paper explores possible reasons for this and gives recommendations as to how mainstreaming, as a potentially valuable tool, could be more effectively executed. 
 
Members of the civil service widely perceive gender mainstreaming as policy imported from outside the country, and do not generally feel they have ownership of its implementation. The word “gender” itself does not translate into Dari or Pashto, and thus is generally considered foreign terminology. This is characteristic of many other aspects of the state-building process in Afghanistan, however, and the lack of translation itself does not significantly obstruct the implementation of gender mainstreaming. 
 
This implementation could be further encouraged in various ways. Some of these became evident through a comprehensive analysis of gender mechanisms in six case study ministries: Counter Narcotics, Education, Interior Affairs, Justice, Public Health and Rural Rehabilitation and Development. 
 
The paper begins with an introduction to gender mainstreaming as a global movement. It continues with a discussion of the introduction of gender mainstreaming to Afghanistan through a process of policy transfer and of local perceptions of gender itself within Afghan ministries. It is then divided into two further sections: technical concerns and institutional contexts” (Larson 2008, viii).

Topics: Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2008

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