The Government’s goal is to eliminate discrimination against women, develop their human capital, and ensure their leadership in order to guarantee their full and equal participation in all aspects of life.

Five-Year Strategic Benchmark

By end-2010: the National Action Plan for Women in Afghanistan will be fully implemented; and in line with Afghanistan’s MDGs, female participation in all Afghan governance institutions, including elected and appointed bodies and civil service, will be strengthened.

Key Policies and Coordination

To achieve the Constitutional mandate of equal rights between men and women, gender mainstreaming will be the Government’s main strategy.  The participation of women in all levels of policy and decision-making is an integral component of gender mainstreaming.  Gender mainstreaming will be supported by a public awareness and advocacy campaign to ensure that the population supports the vision of gender equality as an important contribution to the development of the country.  To reduce gender disparities, the Government also supports positive measures that promote policies and resource allocation for women-specific programs.  Priority areas are female education, reproductive health, economic empowerment, access to justice, and political participation.  Every government instrument is mandated to incorporate gender concerns into its operations and to establish clear benchmarks and indicators for measuring achievement. 

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) has overall responsibility for leading and coordinating Government efforts to advance the role of women.  MoWA is mandated to ensure that policies and programs are reviewed from a gender perspective.  The Ministry presides over the meetings of the Advisory Group on Gender and has appointed gender focal points to liaise with the MoWA on issues and policies relevant to women.  These gender focal points are directed to assist the mainstreaming efforts in their respective ministries as well.  Women’s departments have also been created in the AIHRC and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to handle gender-related concerns and programs in their respective offices.  A gender working group will be set up in all ministries to work with the MoWA on gender mainstreaming.  Afghanistan’s Minister of Women’s Affairs has been active in legislative reform and provides expert advice on legal issues concerning women’s rights.  Support will be provided to this office to strengthen its functioning.  Its relationship with MoWA will be further clarified and reinforced.  To mainstream gender into statistical work, the Government has also established an informal inter-ministerial Working Group on Gender and Statistics.

Promoting gender equality and protecting women’s rights is not only the responsibility of all government agencies, but also civil society, the private sector, and the individual citizen.  Government will strengthen its relationship with the private sector in order to improve economic opportunities for women.  Civil society organizations will remain key partners in advancing the role of women.  MoWA is planning to establish a multi-stakeholder Gender Mainstreaming management system that serves as a mechanism to monitor government actions relating to women’s concerns, as well as changes in the lives and situation of women.  Just as women are represented in the National Assembly, so they will serve in all representative bodies to oversee gender equality investments in all government programs.

Strategies

Strengthen efforts to mainstream gender.  A 10-year National Plan of Action for Women will be developed to support gender mainstreaming.  Each ministry will establish a unit to facilitate the monitoring of its implementation.  Particular emphasis will be given to monitor the gender-related MDGs and targets.  MoWA’s capacity will be significantly enhanced so that it can coordinate the National Plan of Action for Women, provide technical assistance and gender training to the various ministries, and monitor overall implementation.  The Ministry will strengthen its own mechanism and capacity for gender mainstreaming, particularly as a gender mainstreaming technical resource to ministries.  Its monitoring mandate, particularly with respect to the MDGs, likewise will be enhanced and recognized at the inter-ministerial level.  Government is also looking to strengthening the provincial offices of MoWA and the role of gender focal points in line ministries.  In addition, mainstreaming will require all ministries taking on responsibility for gender concerns in consultation with MoWA.

Focus on promotion of women leadership capacity building for gender analysis and women in poverty; communication; negotiation and advocacy; gender budgeting; and drafting policy recommendations, planning, and monitoring.  The government will undertake programs to assure the participation of women in all representative bodies to oversee the implementation of gender equality.  Capacity building will include enhanced efforts to improve the collection and use of sex disaggregated data to inform policy, planning, and pilot studies to address gender gaps in education, health, and other priority areas.  Sex disaggregated data are important to document women’s and men’s involvement in decision-making, as well as to enable the monitoring of benefits from interventions and investments.  Data gathered on women’s contribution to the economy should be reflected in the Government National Accounts.

Undertake a National Advocacy Campaign.  To enhance understanding of women’s roles and gain support of the nation’s citizens, Government’s initiatives will be incorporated by MoWA into a national advocacy campaign.  In partnership with development partners, ulama and spiritual leaders, media, and civil society, this will focus on reproductive health, the importance of girls’ education, ongoing violence against women, poverty, and the impact of early marriage.

To reduce gender disparities, the Government also supports positive actions that focus on policies and resource allocation for specific program for women.  The following highlights just some of the main priorities:

Improve women’s access to health services, in particular to reproductive health services.  Government will increase the number of skilled female health workers, above all in rural areas, in order to minimize the social and cultural constraints to accessing such services.  The Government will also raise awareness of reproductive health and reproductive rights among men and women, take steps to increase gender sensitivity among medical staff, including awareness of violence against women, and undertake efforts to incorporate women’s concerns into the delivery of health services.

Increase the enrollment and retention rate of girls in primary and secondary schools.  Recognizing the acute shortage of educated female human resources, the impact of literacy on overall well-being, and the continuing constraints to girls’ progress to higher levels of education, the Government will provide non-formal and accelerated learning programs with a particular focus on girls and married women.  It will also conduct a national literacy campaign for women.  The number of female teachers will be increased and more educational facilities for girls constructed.  Government will develop gender-sensitive curricula and teacher training programs.  Ways of addressing other constraints to women’s access to education, such as security and transportation, will also be identified and implemented.  This should be supported by adequate resources to build schools that are both safe and close to residential communities.

Promote Women’s Economic Empowerment.  Women play an important role in many economic activities, particularly in the agricultural and livestock sector.  However, women’s labor in these and other economic activities remain within the non-formal sector, and thus, their invisible, but vital contribution to household economies is non-monetized.  The Government will address the barriers to women’s full economic participation and to their increased productivity.  It will assist them through facilitating access to capital, marketing, and skills development.  With large regional variations, women are disadvantaged in terms of security of tenure and security of other social and economic assets.  The Government will ensure, as part of a demand-driven and community-based approach, that women are especially targeted in the provision of extension services, training, and expanding marketing opportunities.  In the implementation of micro-credit schemes, the Government will continue to pay particular attention to women, aiming to expand the number of female beneficiaries relative to men and encourage mechanisms for group savings.

Address Vulnerable Women.  Many widows and other female-headed households have no or inadequate support.  The fact that this population is among the most likely to be living in extreme poverty is a serious concern.  The Government is committed to address the difficulties of the poorest and most vulnerable women by providing skills training, by assisting in job placements, by taking string measures, to enforce their rights, and by making provisions for them in social protection and welfare schemes.

Enhance Women’s Rights and Political Participation.  The Government accords priority to increasing the representation of women in managerial, policy, and decision-making positions.  The Government will enhance legal reforms to reflect gender equality in line with the new Constitution of Afghanistan; ensure the implementation of law reforms particularly in family, inheritance, and property law; eradicate all forms of violence against women; promote legal awareness; and enhance the accessibility of legal services particularly for the poor and illiterate.  Human rights training, including women’s rights, will be incorporated into the school system.  Gender and women’s rights trainings for police officers and members of the judicial and penal system will be conducted.

Improve women’s access to community representation, particularly through the NSP.  Government will continue its efforts to increase the participation of women in the political process as well as encourage and provide incentives to increase the participation of women in the political process as well as encourage and provide incentives to increase their share of decision-making positions.