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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 06/04
Afghanistan: Women and Reconstruction
March 14, 2003
Abstract
The establishment of an Interim Administration for Afghanistan during the Bonn talks in December 2001 was heralded as offering Afghan women a chance to claim their place in public life and participate in the country's development after systemic exclusion under the Taliban. Creation of a Ministry of Women's Affairs, the commitment of substantial donor assistance to programs targeting women, and, most critically, the return of women to universities, schools, and government offices all portended a new day.
Lost in the initial euphoria, however, was attention to the critical factors that had made past reform on women's rights unsustainable and to the task of identifying strategies for mainstreaming gender issues in the development process as a whole. Without a coherent policy regarding gender and development on the part of both the international community and the Karzai government, donor assistance is being channelled to projects likely to prove at most symbolic.
