Research

Conflict and Fragility

Reports and papers

Ignoring complexity - donor understanding of Afghan politics

04 Aug 2016 - 18:23
Bron: Wikimedia Commons

How donors understand and influence legitimate and inclusive politics in Afghanistan.

This report, which can also be accessed as web pub, presents an analysis on how donors seek to understand Afghan domestic politics, how donors feed such understanding into their development activities, and what recommendations can be distilled from the present state of affairs, which can be relevant for new, more 'politics-oriented' strands in the development discourse, such as 'thinking and working politically' or 'doing development differently'. 

The author specifically focuses on how donors seek to understand and improve the legitimacy and inclusivity of Afghan domestic politics as part of their corresponding commitment under the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States.

Its main conclusion is that donors generally have a modest and one-sided understanding of the nature and dynamics of Afghan domestic politics as expressed through the key premises of its political settlement, a narrow outlook on what type of activities constitute support for the promotion of more legitimate and inclusive politics, and a limited suite of instruments for doing this.