Afghanistan Peace CampaignAfghanistan Analysts Network
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After assuming power in August 2021, the Taleban government was initially eager to reassure the United Nations and NGOs that they could continue aid operations. First impressions were of greater access, not surprising given that the establishment of the Islamic Emirate also represented, largely, an end to hostilities and greater security for aid workers. Nearly two years on, the Islamic Emirate has introduced restrictions on a number of issues affecting how aid is provided and by whom.
These restrictions ranged from limitations on female participation in aid work to demands for information about aid workers and aid recipients. This peaked with the bans on Afghan women working for NGOs in December 2022 and the UN in April 2023. At the same time, aid workers have reported increasing attempts by local officials to influence who receives aid, who is hired to work on aid projects and how aid projects are carried out.
The Taleban’s attitude toward aid is complicated. On the one hand, aid operations are vital to delivering certain services such as health and education and they employ many Afghans. Foreign aid has been integral to keeping the economy afloat, with UN shipments of cash supporting the aid effort, injecting liquidity into the economy, stabilising the currency and keeping inflation in check. On the other hand, many government officials are deeply suspicious of aid actors and the motives of most donors, who have so far refused to recognise their government. While the government wants aid, it also wants to influence how it is spent and programmed.
This report delves into Taleban views of aid and the factors driving their suspicion and hostility, starting with exploring the roots of Taleban suspicion and distrust of aid and subsequently heads to their concerns of corruption within aid actors. The report then assesses the consequences of this suspicion and how and why the Taleban want to regulate aid, explains the existing misunderstanding between the Emirate and aid workers and looks back at the missed opportunities early on after the takeover to influence Taleban attitudes more positively toward aid.
* Sabawoon Samim is a Kabul-based researcher whose work focuses on the Taleban, local governance and rural society.
**Ashley Jackson is co-director of the Centre on Armed Groups and author of ‘Negotiating Survival: Civilian-Insurgent Relations under the Taliban’, Hurst & Co, 2021.
Edited by Kate Clark
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