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Supporting Afghanistan’s civil society: lessons learned and policy pathways
As global attention shifts away, the Afghan civil society faces new challenges. Years of inconsistent international engagement have left local organisations under strain. To ensure support remains relevant and sustainable, donors must rethink their strategies—and listen to Afghan voices on the ground. This brief offers key recommendations for those shaping aid and policy, and calls for a renewed commitment to support a legitimate, locally driven civil society.
Key recommendations:
- Ensure that engagement is based on an inclusive definition of civil society and on Afghan realities. Civil society should be supported in its own right, rather than merely being regarded as an implementation mechanism to advance external agendas.
- Advance women’s and girls’ rights through safe, locally anchored approaches, and support culturally resonant and safe spaces for women and girls.
- Foster long-term, flexible and strategic partnerships, including informal and formal civil society actors that are legitimate and grounded in the urban and rural Afghan society.
Following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the international community made significant investments in civil society in Afghanistan. The dominant model of engagement was with urban-based NGOs with little downward accountability and representation within the Afghan society. While NGOs were and continue to be crucial in providing services to underserved communities across Afghanistan, the narrow definition of civil society—i.e. formalised and often lacking deep roots in the Afghan context, tradition, and history—has implied exclusion and weakening of other expressions of civil society.
At present, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) takes a critical stance towards international NGOs (INGOs), with increased taxation, control, bureaucracy and limitations of women’s possibilities for employment and being part of elected organs. Afghan civil society organisations, especially women’s rights organisations, face shrinking space and severe repression. At the same time, there are significant decreases in international development cooperation with Afghanistan, most notably from, but not limited to, the cuts in development aid by the US administration.
In this brief, we argue that critical reflection of past approaches, and ongoing contextual changes and financial flows, force us to re-think how to support Afghan civil society. There is an opportunity to revisit our engagement to ensure it is more relevant to the current context and effectively supports a legitimate, locally rooted and sustainable Afghan civil society in its own right.
This analysis outlines the current conditions facing civil society in Afghanistan and examines several challenges that have emerged in the context of international support over recent decades. It offers policy recommendations aimed at decision-makers, researchers, and development actors, providing guidance on how the international community can help create more enabling conditions for Afghan civil society today.