Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 82, Fall 2001, p. 9-10
A Development Studies alum runs into difficulty trying to get Afghan women to work on a UN survey.
Recently, I left the UNICEF Office in Mexico to take a similar post in Afghanistan. Waiting for me in Islamabad, where UNICEF’s main office is located, was the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey for 2000 (hereafter, "survey") to be conducted within Afghanistan.
This household survey is meant to fill gaps in the data necessary for reporting on the situation of children and women at the end of the millennium. This also will provide a baseline from which it will be possible to measure changes in the coming decade. The World Summit for Children, held in New York in September 1990, established the need for this assessment. Around the world, countries pledged themselves to a Declaration and Plan of Action for Children.
Many international organizations helped develop this most recent survey questionnaire. My task was to redesign the standard questionnaire in accordance with local culture and tradition and to formulate a reasonable sampling strategy. Also I was to train and supervise suitable interviewers.
UNICEF invited experts from other UN agencies and NGOs to form a steering committee that would ensure consistency and avoid duplications in the survey. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) was asked to lead the process of preparing and implementing the survey. Technically, the process was smooth: the questionnaire was modified to suit the Afghan context, a stratified sampling strategy was adopted, and interviewers were trained.
It soon became clear, however, that access to women in the survey, both as interviewers and interviewees, was a problem. Afghan women would not meet male strangers who knock on their door, so local female enumerators were needed. Yet, Taliban authorities did not allow Afghan women to be engaged in paid work, except in the health sector.
In June 2000, the Director of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) came to Islamabad to attend a meeting with UNICEF and GTZ. In this meeting, the CSO Director verbally approved of the survey. Therefore, we sent a survey team from Peshawar as enumerators. This included Afghan men and women working in the health sector. In spite of obstacles, data collection was completed in 22 of 97 districts selected by random sampling. For the most part, the districts where data collection was successful were in the eastern and southeastern regions of the country.
However, another Taliban edict was issued in July 2000, which prohibited Afghan women from working with the UN and other foreign NGOs. Since Afghan women were an integral part of the survey team as enumerators, data collection was suspended in the central region of the country. Meanwhile, we argued that the survey was health-related and should be exempt from the edict. Though the CSO Director agreed with us, and took the case to the Supreme Court, the Court denied our request and expressed concern regarding the security of Afghan women.
The CSO Director then asked the Council of Ministers to exempt the survey from the edict. In response, the Council of Ministers appointed a subcommittee to review the request. After the review, the subcommittee recommended that the data collection should be allowed to continue. The Council of Ministers agreed with this recommendation and requested the Ministry of Justice to formally approve work on the survey. At the end of September 2000, however, the Minister of Justice rejected the request, citing that the survey was neither urgent nor curative. He also accused foreign assistance agencies of continually trying to find alternative employment opportunities for Afghan women.
In August 2000, we received a letter approving the work on the survey from the President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (the "Northern Alliance"). Because of the escalation of fighting among factions in Afghanistan, though, we have not been able to send a survey team to the northeastern region.
In spring 2001, I traveled to meet with the governor of Kandahar, the effective seat of the Taliban government. There was a breakthrough when the second-highest ranking member of the Taliban finally was convinced that the survey was necessary. I was referred to the Director of Public Health, who promised to allow his female health workers to become interviewers for the survey. These women were trained, but events subsequent to the September terrorist attack on the United States led to withdrawal of the survey team.
With the data we were able to gather in the eastern regions of Afghanistan, we produced a report: "2000 Afghanistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey: Volume 1." We hope there will be "Volume 2" in the near future, for it remains critical to assess the situation of Afghan children and women in all parts of the country so that aid may have a better chance of success.
[Currently, Afghanistan is ranked 170 out of 174 under the 1995 UNDP Human Development Index and is also at the bottom of the 130 countries on the UNDP Gender Development Index. Maternal mortality in Afghanistan, estimated at 1,700 per 100,000 live births, is the highest among developing countries—ed.]
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Dr. Katsuma received his Ph.D. in Development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997. Currently, he is the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, UNICEF Afghanistan (Islamabad). Soon he will be transferred UNICEF Japan (Tokyo), where he will be the Program Coordinator for resource mobilization and advocacy.
Copyright © 2001 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
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