On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took control of Kabul, and effectively of Afghanistan for the first time since 2001, gave international forces until August 31 to leave the country.
The Taliban are still working on reestablishing security and stability in Afghanistan following 20 years of war. However, the end of the war is not the end to the problems that the Afghan people face. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, there are 18.4 million Afghans in dire need of humanitarian assistance. There are 500,000 internally displaced persons, and over 100,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan since August. 14 million people are at risk of starvation, which is expected to increase this winter. The cost of food has increased over 50% and severe drought in the country worsens the risk of hunger. The health system in Afghanistan is close to collapsing entirely, with a third wave of COVID adding further pressure.
Within this new Afghan context, there are questions regarding accessibility of INGOs and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) operators to Afghanistan. In the worst scenario, the Taliban do not permit INGOs carrying out humanitarian assistance work.
For some insight, we can look to previous Taliban stances on humanitarian work. In the past, the Taliban has refused to permit female aid staff from working, determining who gets assistance, and where, and requiring payments (as “taxation”) to be able to carry out work. “It’s also unclear whether the Taliban will take a harder line with aid groups, imposing restrictions- especially on women- that may breach humanitarian principles”, says a reporter from The New Humanitarian. So far, accessibility for NGOs (and therefore, M&E operators) is inconsistent throughout Afghanistan; Taliban fighters in some areas have requested that NGOs’ work continues, however fighters in other areas have taken control of NGOs offices.
With humanitarian assistance work comes a need for M&E activities, what challenges may this partnership (INGOs’ work and M&E) face within the new Afghan context?
There are three main areas of concern that INGOs and M&E providers may encounter when working in Afghanistan. These are governmental suspicion, security concerns, and gender concerns. At the end of the article, we will look at some ways the international community may be able to work collaboratively to ensure ongoing access to Afghanistan for humanitarian organizations and M&E providers.
Governmental Suspicion
The Taliban are expected to have an authoritarian governance style. INGO’s work in authoritarian-led countries has been notably difficult, coming with its own set of challenges that states in insecure contexts provide. In Afghanistan, we may see the Taliban instilling heavily bureaucratic processes for humanitarian assistance groups and M&E operators wanting to operate in Afghanistan, making access more difficult. These processes could prove difficult depending on the kind of work the organization wants to carry out, and may heavily scrutinize tools used for monitoring. Oliver Walton’s working paper “Humanitarian NGOs: Dealing with Authoritarian Regimes” (2015) breaks down the different challenges that come with NGO’s work under authoritarian regimes, for a better idea of general challenges we might expect to see in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are concerned with operating within the boundaries of Sharia Law– and this applies to journalists, women’s access to work and education, and human rights activists. We can anticipate that this applies to INGOs and M&E operators as well. Therefore, if any intended work is perceived to be outside of the realm of Sharia, the Taliban may prohibit it. This might hinder what can and cannot be asked in tools used for monitoring, making comprehensive data collection highly challenging.
Moreover, after 20 years of war, the Taliban might be skeptical of anything that might be seen as intervention by a Western government. This skepticism could carry over to Western aid organizations, which the Taliban could view as an extension of Western governance and interference, thus preventing these organizations from carrying out their work. During the war, it was a common viewpoint amongst Afghans that Western NGOs were an extension of the US military. Islamic aid organizations would most likely be more warmly received in Afghanistan.
Hence, monitoring activities in Afghanistan may be especially challenging. With a government that is already skeptical of journalists and human rights activists, with a history of censorship and detention of those it believes are acting against the government’s interests, data collection may be hindered. Depending on the type of project that M&E activities are being conducted for, field workers may need to collect certain data that the Taliban would frown upon having discussed. A gender balance for field workers would be absolutely necessary, but even then, they should be prepared to not be able to get answers to all questions they ask.
Security Concerns
There are, of course, ongoing security concerns throughout Afghanistan which put INGOs and M&E staff at risk.
Terrorist activity in Afghanistan is expected to increase in the coming months. Al-Qaeda has had ties to the Taliban since before 2001, and despite the fact that the 2020 Doha agreement between the US and the Taliban requires the Taliban to prohibit any terrorist organizations from residing, recruiting, and training in Afghanistan, this is yet to be seen. Furthermore, ex-Al-Qaeda fighters have taken rank in the Taliban government. Some fear that Al-Qaeda will take advantage of the lack of international forces to restrengthen and recommence attacks against the West. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) has also taken advantage of the lack of international forces. One of the most notable attacks was in late August outside of the Kabul airport, where ISKP attacked the mass of Afghan citizens trying to flee the country. There have been attacks since the withdrawal of international forces, largely at Shia mosques located throughout the country. Some mosque attacks have not been claimed by any group, but the threat exists nevertheless.
Infrastructure throughout the country is also less than secure. Photos posted by journalists in Afghanistan show collapsed bridges and roads with large holes in the middle of them. The previous government had cleared roads of desert sand, which the Taliban are not yet doing, which also makes travel by road dangerous. This could prove dangerous if driving at night, on roads that are not well lit. Journalists like Steph Glinski (@stephglinski on Instagram) and Afshin Ismaeli (@afshinismaeli on Instagram) have been posting photos during their travels, documenting road conditions as they change locations.
Moreover, there are still mines and explosive remnants of war (ERWs); approximately 20% of the country has not been cleared, and these are still a major source of civilian casualties. The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) is still working to clear the remaining mines and ERWs. You can read more about this effort on the UNMAS webpage.
In addition, there may be limited or no internet access in parts of the country where M&E is needed, making remote Third-Party Monitoring (TPM) challenging or impossible. This concern is heightened in light of reports that the Taliban may not have the funds to keep paying for broadband services. The World Bank estimates that 13.5% of Afghans currently have access to the internet, with most users living in urban centers. For remote surveys, it may be difficult to get responses from civilians in rural areas, skewing the data or making data collection in remote situations impossible. There are also reports of the Taliban still turning the internet on and off in various locations, which poses further challenges to remote monitoring efforts. It seems that now, though, the Taliban are working on fixing the internet services that they previously cut off before the takeover, though this is an ongoing process.
Finally, there are ongoing security concerns for journalists and human rights defenders being threatened and beaten and instructed to only work under what is permissible under Sharia Law; we do not yet know if this would extend to humanitarian aid workers, as well. Local NGO staff face the most pressure – many employees want to flee Afghanistan, and many have applied for resettlement programs for those who worked in relation to the USA at all during the war. Some NGOs believe that they are able to protect their employees, but some of these employees may have other, independent reasons to fear the Taliban (for example, they may have worked with the Afghan military, or they may come from a targeted tribe).
While reports largely discuss INGOs, the same risks apply for M&E staff. The field workers will have to use caution when collecting data, and should pay attention to any governmental or organizational warnings about safety conditions or imminent attacks. Though they may seem extensive, the security risks should not be overlooked; the safety of field staff is of the utmost importance when conducting M&E activities in any area.
Gender Concerns
Lastly, there are concerns about the rights of women under the Taliban, which applies to female staff of INGOs and M&E providers. The UNHCR estimates that 80% of Afghans displaced this year are women or children, meaning that this population needs to be accessible to INGOs and M&E providers. Often, in Islamic countries, TPM providers will have mixed-gender field workers to ensure that men and women in the target location are able to be interviewed in line with cultural customs. This is the case especially in conservative communities in Afghanistan, and it is crucial that women are able to continue humanitarian assistance work to be able to reach those most in need.
We are still waiting to see how exactly the Taliban permit women to work. Will female staff be able to work in the field without a male chaperone?
While the Taliban says that women will be permitted to work, we can already see that the extent of this permission is uncertain. The Taliban gave written assurances to the UN about the safe passage and freedom of movement for humanitarian workers, ensuring that “[…] aid agencies would be able to operate independently of the government, their safety preserved, and agencies would be free to employ women”. At the moment, however, permission for aid organizations to work seems to be dependent on the individual provinces- where they are doing the work, and what sector they are working in. Some provinces are permitting female workers and giving more access, and other provinces want more direct and concrete policy/guidance from Kabul. This is the nature of a transitional government, so it will likely take some time to get concrete, country-wide guidance.
Ayesha Wolasmal, a humanitarian consultant working in Afghanitan, says that “Today it feels like Afghanistan, ironically, is a safer place for international women than it is for Afghan women”. This is problematic, when most staff working on the ground in Afghanistan are locals. It also underscores a need that international field workers may be required in the interim, which may be complicated depending on where these field workers are coming from, and what the Taliban will allow.
Female staff in some locations have only been allowed to work in certain sectors, and reports from an Afghan NGO say that female staff there are mostly working remotely. So far, the assurances to the UN have not meant overall approval for INGOs and/or female staff of those organizations to work across the entirety of Afghanistan. Furthermore, women recently have been ordered to stay home in Kabul. Interim Mayor Hamdullah Namony told the women who worked for the city government to not return to work, only giving permission for women to return if their jobs cannot be replaced by men.
Another senior Taliban leader, Waheedullah Hashimi, told reporters that Sharia Law does not permit women to work with men, and that women will be allowed to work where they are needed, but that they cannot be government officials, and that “if there is no need for women to work, we will not let them.”
Another problem is the question of humanitarian assistance sector. Are all programs able to resume, including those dealing with gender-based violence (GBV) and/or family planning? Or will those types of sectors be prohibited by the Taliban? As of now, this seems to be differing on the provincial level, and has implications on where women will be permitted to work, and where women’s work will be essential.
How do we proceed?
In the words of Heather Barr, “The international community’s tool kit is limited, and their political will is questionable.”
One possible means for the international community to ensure that INGOs and, by extension, M&E conductors are able to carry out work in Afghanistan is to try to find leverage that would make the Taliban want to permit this work to continue unhindered. Some possibilities for this would be strategic sanctions against Taliban leadership, or possibly using ‘acceptance’ of the new leadership as legitimate governance as tools to get the Taliban to permit humanitarian assistance. Afghanistan is also a signatory of the Rome Statute, meaning it is under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The international community could use the ICC to pressure Afghanistan into adhering to International Humanitarian Law. Article 7 of the Rome Statute deals with Crimes Against Humanity, meaning acts such as murder, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law, torture, and enforced disappearance of persons. The ICC could investigate and choose to prosecute any of the parties who committed a crime, and in theory could bring them to the Court for a trial. The UN and UN Security Council (UNSC) could also prove useful. Chapter VII of the UN Charter permits the UNSC to consider actions to take (such as imposing sanctions), if it feels that the situation is severe enough. The UNSC already has the Taliban sanctions regime, where sanctions are applied to certain people and entities, but this can be expanded.
Other suggestions include trying to use other States to work with Afghanistan to try to help the country as a whole. Josep Borrell has urged Qatar to use the ‘privileged contacts’ that it has with Taliban to try to moderate the group’s behavior. António Guterres has urged the international community to engage with the Taliban to try to get money into the Afghan economy in order to help people. “Countries that want to help Afghans but reject the Taliban and all it stands for face a big dilemma. For people to be able to work to earn money, to live and to eat, the Taliban has to run a viable state in Afghanistan,” writes Jeremy Bowen of BBC.
How does the Taliban want to appear to the international community? Does the Taliban have any motivation to garner respect from the international community? These will be important questions that we need to answer to when trying to ensure that humanitarian assistance and all that comes with it will be able to work in Afghanistan. The fact that the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement in February 2020 is already an indication that they are willing to work with international actors, at least to some degree. During their first press conference, they also repeatedly insisted on the Taliban leadership being less severe this time which, even if it proves to be untrue, shows that the Taliban want acceptance from the international community to some degree. Furthermore, the Taliban need international sanctions to be lifted for the country to economically survive; otherwise, the Taliban will not be able to run a functional country.
Humanitarian work and M&E activities in Afghanistan have a challenging road ahead, but their work is crucial to Afghanistan’s post-war recovery.
About the Author
Kelsilyn Norman is a Junior Officer who recently joined the Business Development department. She is currently pursuing her Master of Arts in International Security from Sciences Po Paris, with concentrations in Global Risks and the MENA region.
Learn more about Kelsilyn on LinkedIn.
