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Afghanistan has been inhabited for many thousands of years. Known today for its exports of carpets and dried fruit, the country has served humanity as a vibrant continental crossroads and a hub of culture and trade. Its environment has been a source of great natural wealth – from precious minerals to life sustaining agricultural and forest products, representing a wide variety of traditional livelihood opportunities for its people. These opportunities, however, were shattered by nearly thirty years of civil war, international conflict and occupation. The resulting instability has brought widespread insecurity, displacement, poverty, and environmental devastation. It has eroded the rule of law and undermined structures of governance. The United Nations Environment Program took on the task of assessing the environmental impacts of the war on people’s lives, livelihoods and security, and recommended ways to address these issues during the reconstruction process.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_in_Afghanistan.pdf
Keywords: Afghanistan, Development, Development. Poverty, Environment, South Asia, Sustainable development,

The 20th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies (ECMSAS), is to be held in Manchester from 8-11 July 2008. The ECMSAS is the largest gathering of South Asia oriented researchers in Europe, covering all fields from the humanities and social sciences to technology, natural sciences and medicine. The conference is held biannually under the aegis of the European Association of South Asian Studies (EASAS), a professional, non-profit organisation of scholars engaged in research and teaching concerning South Asia with regard to all periods and fields of study. The objectives of EASAS are to support and promote South Asian Studies in all countries of Europe.
http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/ecmsas/
Keywords: Afghanistan, Asian area studies, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, South Asia, Sri Lanka,

A greater Central Asia partnership for Afghanistan and its neighbors / S. Frederick Starr. - Stockholm : Silk Road Studies Program, Institute for Security and Development Policy, 2005. - 38 p. (Silk Road paper) This paper proposes that progress in Afghanistan has opened a stunning new prospect that was barely perceived, if at all, when Operation Enduring Freedom was launched. This prospect is to assist in the transformation of Afghanistan and the entire region of which it is the heart into a zone of secure sovereignties sharing viable market economies, secular and relatively open systems of governance, respecting citizens’ rights, and maintaining positive relations with the U.S..
http://www.isdp.eu/images/stories/isdp-main-pdf/2005_starr_a-greater-central-asi...
Keywords: Afghanistan, Central Asia, Conflicts. Terrorism, Nordic Perspective, Publications, Security, South Asia, Sweden,

A study of the Norwegian-led PRT in Meymaneh, Afghanistan, and it's contribution to security / Lill-Hege Nergård. - Tromsø : Institutt for sosiologi, statsvitenskap og samfunnsplanlegging, Universitetet i Tromsø, 2009. - 100 p. (Master's thesis) Today, Norway contributes to the ongoing international operation in Afghanistan, in order to fight insurgency and to reconstruct and contribute to development for the Afghan population by building a democratic state built on the principles of human rights and the rule of law. However, the political and strategic rationale for Norway to be present in Afghanistan must also be seen in light of our engagements as a NATO allie and as a means in order to protect our selves and western allies from happenings such as the September 11, 2001 ever happening again. This assignment will therefore focus on the conflict in Afghanistan and how civil-military cooperation, through the use of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), and then especially the Norwegian led PRT in Meymaneh, Faryab province, has become an important part of the security dimension. Analytical tools used in this thesis, will be the state security concept, with a widening and a deepening of the security concept moving towards societal and human security. Here, the use of human security will be of most focus when analyzing the PRT Meymanhes contribution to security.
http://www.ub.uit.no/munin/bitstream/10037/1957/2/thesis.pdf
Keywords: Afghanistan, Conflicts. Terrorism, Nordic Perspective, Norway, Publications, Security, South Asia,

Achieving durable peace : Afghan perspectives on a peace process / Hamish Nixon. - Oslo. - PRIO : 2009. - 44 p. (PRIO paper) The joint Chr. Michelsen Institute - United States Institute of Peace - PRIO project 'Achieving Durable Peace in Afghanistan' seeks to identify and clarify through research and dialogue key domestic issues and options for Afghanistan to move towards durable peace. The first phase involved a secondary source review on political reconciliation in Afghanistan to clarify existing understanding and gaps in knowledge, and 122 primary interviews with a broad range of Afghan stakeholders on their understandings of the conflict and key substantive and process issues confronting a peace settlement. This phase is now completed, and the findings from the interviews are published in this PRIO Paper. Several themes are prominent among the interviewees’ understandings of what drives the conflict in Afghanistan. The first is that it is a widespread perception that the conflict is driven by a combination of external and internal factors that interact in complex ways. However, as the conflict has gotten worse, the impact of the presence and behaviour of NATO troops and the illegitimacy of the Afghan government have become increasingly important, alongside longer-standing issues grounded in regional politics or factional competition. Afghans across different groups perceive the United States a key party to the armed conflict, with its own interests, rather than solely the supporter of the Afghan government or people that it projects in public discourse. This view calls into question the sincerity and effectiveness of the US emphasis on the “Afghan-led” reconciliation strategy, and indicates the need for clearer US policy and signalling if Afghan stakeholders are to take the prospect of a negotiated settlement seriously. There is also a crosscutting perception of the capture and division of the government among a small elite who act with a combination of ethnic, factional, economic and criminal motivations, and parts of this system develop interests in continued conflict. In this sense the conflict is not only a struggle for state power and resources between competing parties, it is also a legitimacy crisis stemming from a system of power and patronage distribution that is proving unable to manage societal and elite conflicts. It is also a widely held view that this capture and the widespread illegitimacy of many in power have allowed leaders of all ethnic groups to stoke existing perceptions that other groups are benefitting disproportionately in the current dispensation. Such attitudes are seen to exist among all groups, generating an increasingly ethnic “negative-sum” politics. The 2010 National Assembly elections and the discourse of “political reconciliation” of the Government of Afghanistan has heightened these readings, deepening grievances the Taliban can exploit and exacerbating the potential for ethnic conflict.
http://www.prio.no/upload/halvor/Nixon,%20H%20(2011)%20Achieving%20Durable%20Pea...
Keywords: Afghanistan, Conflicts. Terrorism, Nordic Perspective, Norway, Peace-building, Publications, South Asia,

Organisation dedicated to providing independent news and information for and about Afghanistan. Access to independent information is the basis for a functioning democracy - Afgha.com provides news stories and links, articles, maps and pictures relating to the country. Website managed by expatriates
http://www.afgha.com/
Keywords: Afghanistan, News, News. Media, Press, South Asia,

Afghan Communicator started as a magazine in 1997. As of 2002, AC became a non-profit organization and stopped printing the magazine. By the time of our decision to change course from a magazine to a community based non-profit organization, we had produced 13 magazine issues. Afghan Communicator organizes a number of projects annually, some of which are reoccuring but some are unique to their area and time.
http://www.afghancommunicator.com/Home.asp
Keywords: Afghanistan, Culture, Politics and society, South Asia,

Afghan News from around the world including recommended reading on Afghanistan
http://www.aopnews.com/
Keywords: Afghanistan, News, News. Media, South Asia,

CMI report R 2007:1 The situation in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan is characterised by a substantial military and political uncertainty. Violent acts could at any moment hamper the humanitarian and development efforts. At the same time the risk is great that Norwegian development actors might be associated with a provincial administration, a police and a judicial system the population regard as corrupt, oppressive and inefficient. It is a great challenge to balance this relation and at the same time assist in developing these governmental bodies to strengthen their professionalism and legitimacy. This is one of the main findings in the risk assessment assessing the conflict and actors in Faryab. The report further point out that relation and the balance between the central state in Kabul and the local authorities on provincial and local level are of utmost importance for any future developments. The report recommends a clearer demarcation between the Norwegian military involvement and the humanitarian and development activities. Questions related to governance are both important and challenging. Not least given a rather unclear situation where some governance bodies draw their legitimacy from the constitution, others grow out of development programmes while the traditional structures often continue to hold the strongest legitimacy in the population. The report underlines that the ethnic dimension constitutes a possible line of conflict, not only in Faryab but generally in Afghanistan. Lack of information in the local population about the mandate of the Norwegian military presence through the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) should also be viewed as a challenge for the humanitarian engagement. A wider dissemination of information on the PRT Mandate and activities financed by Norway needs to be secured. Violence against women has a high occurrence in Faryab. Norway should prioritize to make work outside the homes available for women and to strengthen the availability of higher education.
http://www.niaslinc.dk/gateway_to_asia/nordic_webpublications/x506029076.pdf
Keywords: Afghanistan, Conflict resolution, Conflicts. Terrorism, Ethnic conflict, In Focus, In Focus 2008, In Focus 2008 Week 04, Nordic Perspective, Norway, Publications, South Asia,

Afghanistan : state and society, great power politics, and the way ahead : findings from an international conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2007 / ed. by Cheryl Benard, Ole Kværnø, Peter Dahl Thruelsen, Kristen Cordell. - Santa Monica, Calif. : RAND. Center for Middle East Public Policy, 2008. - 108 p. Five years after the U.S.-led coalition initiated its attack on al Qaeda training camps and the Taliban government in Afghanistan, peace is yet to be won. The rapid collapse of the Taliban regime created a security vacuum in vast parts of the country that was soon filled by local warlords and mid-level commanders. The lack of international military presence in the periphery, especially in the South, provided a safe haven for the retreating Taliban to rebuild and expand their power base. In May of 2007, the International Security Assistance Force, led by NATO, took over coordination of international activities in Afghanistan. Transitional power sharing and coordination, along with the tactical, logistical, and managerial necessities of the mission, introduced novel challenges. In addition to these organizational shifts, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces have been continually challenged by the Taliban-led insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan, illicit opium production, developed security structures, lack of political control in the provinces, and large-scale corruption within governmental institutions. Nation building, a core goal of the ISAF mission, has focused on overcoming these challenges through development of a viable state infrastructure. Reforms in the areas of security, governance, justice, and economic stability have been advanced through partnerships between ISAF and local actors on the ground. An example of nation-building success can be seen in the presidential, parliamentary, and district elections, which have been held in a country characterized by decades of political instability. Advances in gender equity can be seen across sectors, as girls enjoy growing access to education and women take their place in governmental institutions and democratic processes as voters, elected officials, and administrators. The nation-building effort has made many achievements, but it also faces a host of old and new challenges. It was against this backdrop of advancement and transition that in June 2007, the RAND Corporation along with the Royal Danish Defence College hosted an international conference entitled “Afghanistan: State and Society, Great Power Politics, and the Way Ahead.” This twoday event, held in Copenhagen, was attended by more than 100 politicians, scholars, academics, officers, and representative of both governmental and ongovernmental institutions frommore than 20 different states. The aim of the event was to address problems and obstacles and to suggest solutions.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2008/RAND_CF238.pdf
Keywords: Afghanistan, Denmark, International relations, Nordic Perspective, Politics and society, Publications, South Asia,