Afghanistan in 2017: a survey of the Afghan people

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Afghanistan in 2017: a survey of the Afghan people Abdullah Ahmadzai

Country Representative, Afghanistan, The Asia Foundation

Tabasum Akseer

Director of Survey and Research, Afghanistan, The Asia Foundation

Chair: Hameed Hakimi

Research Associate, Asia Programme and Europe Programme, Chatham House

15 January 2018

Transcript

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2 Afghanistan in 2017: a survey of the Afghan people

Hameed Hakimi

Welcome to Chatham House. We’re delighted to have colleagues from the Asia Foundation in Kabul for

the launch of their report and Afghanistan – a Survey of the Afghan People 2017. The copies are there.

Help yourselves once the event’s ended. On my right, I have Abdullah Ahmadzai and we have Tabasum

Akseer.

The – thank you. The recent escalation of attacks in Kabul underscores the crucial questions of security

and economic stability in the reconciliation that is still confronting the Government. I think this is a very

good time to discuss some findings from what the people are thinking about these issues and others. So,

broadly, we will talk about, you know, the survey that you’ve done with over 97,000 Afghans since 2004

and, you know, how and why the national mood in Afghanistan has changed, and how and what might

this indicate for the long-term prospect of the country.

Before I start the event and hand over to you, some housekeeping. So, this was a Chatham House

Members’ event, which means it is on the record. We have Chatham House colleagues around here if you

need any technical assistance or help. The event, we do encourage you to tweet and have as interactive a

session as you’d possibly want to. The hashtag is #chevents when you tweet. Please keep your phones on

silent and also, once we open the floor to the Q&A, you’ll get your turn to ask questions. If you do hear a

fire alarm, it is not a drill and we’re not expecting that today. But apart from that, we look forward to

having an interrupted session after speakers speak for about seven or eight minutes each. I will open the

questions with a couple of follow-up myself and then, open the floor to the audience.

To my right-hand I have Abdullah Ahmadzai, who’s the Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in

Afghanistan. You’ve been a Former Chief Electoral Officer for the Afghanistan Independent Election

Commission and also, as the Head of this Election Commission, you oversaw the 2010 elections for the

lower house of the Afghan Parliament. From 2003 to 2004, you were an active – actively involved with

the Afghanistan Constitution Commission and also, assisted with the Emergency loya Jirga, that later

adopted – that resulted in the adoption of the Constitution 2004.

I have Tabasum Akseer, you’re the Director of – for Policy and Research at the Asia Foundation.

Tabasum provides overall strategic planning and guidance, regarding the survey and you also lead on the

overall writing and analysis. Prior to joining the Asia Foundation, she was engaged as a Consultant on

projects intersecting gender, peace, security and human rights and most recently, you were a Post-

Doctoral Research Fellow and a Consultant at the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s

University in Canada, where you obtained your PhD in Cultural Studies.

So, Abdullah, without a further ado for you...

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Thank you, Hameed.

Hameed Hakimi

…take over the…


Abdullah Ahmadzai

It’s an honour to be among friends, who not only know about Afghanistan, but also care about it.

Obviously, the Asia Foundation, as most of you probably know, has been conducting the survey of the

Afghan people for 13 years now, since 2004. And it’s one of the most reliable, you know, perception

datasets that the international community and the Afghan Government has been using in their

policymaking. And although, when it comes to the use of our survey, we have been seeing an increase in

use of the perception data by the Afghan Government, following the 2014 elections by the National Unity

Government more than any previous Governments, which is quite encouraging. And one of the other, you

know, uniqueness of our survey is that it basically has this longitudinal trends that we could compare, you

know, one year’s perception data to previous years in the past.

Usually, on the presentation aspect, the actual presentation of the key findings for our survey takes about

35 to 40 minutes, but I thought I wouldn’t bore you with the – you know, all the findings that is a

takeaway from the 2017 survey, but just provide a snapshot of what the key trends have been in 2017,

what are the differences, how they compare to previous years, and then, we could have more time for

question and answers and more discussions. The launch of this survey happened on November 14th 2017,

so it’s already in use by many stakeholders.

Now, if we look at the broader picture of the public perception in Afghanistan, I would hesitate to say that

the public optimism has increased. But when we compared the public perception since 2015 and 16, we

see that there is some level of stability in public optimism when it comes to, for example, people saying

that their country is going in the right direction. Although the increase in this optimism is not very

significant, it’s just three percentage points, almost 33%, compared to last year, are saying that the

country is going in the right direction. But if you look at the trend, since 2014 from 57%, this trend has

been coming down to 29 last year and – bit not last year, in 2016. But in 2017, it saw a little bit of

increase of three percentage points to 33. So, that’s basically a sign of optimism.

Interestingly so, when we ask respondents why they think that the country is going in the right direction,

they cite buildings and reconstruction as the main reason. Like, 51% of these respondents have cited

reconstruction as the reason why they think the country is going in the right direction and also, 50%

saying that the country is going – that the security situation has relatively improved, and then, there’s

26% about improved governance. These are the three main reasons that respondents have cited when

they say that the country is going in the right direction.

For wrong direction, it’s at 61%. 61% of the respondents say that the country is going in the wrong

direction, and the reasons they cite is basically, 60 – the countries, basically – what they cite 65.9% is the

2060 – 2016 data, while in 2017 it changed to 61, I think. So, that’s the four percentage points of

difference more, showing more optimism, hopefully. And what they cite as reasons for the wrong

direction is security or crime, and increased insecurity, 69.5%. Economic concerns is another reason why

they – that they cite for saying that the country is going in the wrong direction, and then governance

issues, in terms of issues with service delivery.

We also have some significant improvements in how the Afghan National Police and Afghan National

Army are perceived. There’s basically 48%, you know, of people in con – showing confidence in Afghan

National Police’s capabilities and also, on the Afghan National Army, it’s 58%. The National Police

perception, in 2016, was 35%, the confidence in the Police and for Army, it was 54. So, there is a

significant increase in public perception about that. On confidence and public institutions, despite the

fact that there has been an increased concern about the corruption overall, there has been some slight


support or confidence in public institutions, like the National Unity Government and people’s view of it ,

in terms of doing a relatively better job, it has seen some increase. The level of confidence on religious

leaders has increased and also, on the declining trend, we have the Members of Parliament and the

Parliament as a whole, on top of the list when it comes to the least level of satisfaction. On corruption,

obviously 83.7% said that it’s a major problem in Afghanistan as a whole, while it was 75 in 2016. 69.8%

say it’s a major problem in their daily life, which is quite significant. One thing that stands out

throughout the survey since 2005 is, the level of confidence that respondents show in their religious

leaders and local community-based assurers. That’s been quite an upwards going trend.

Okay, so I will go a little faster.

Hameed Hakimi

We will get to…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Sure, yeah, we’ll get to…

Hameed Hakimi

…revisit some of these issues…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

Hameed Hakimi

…as we go through, yeah.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

One of the issues that has risen, in terms of people saying that insecurity is their major concern, what we

see is a trend that shows correlation between saying the country is insecure and the desire to migrate,

basically. Compared to 2016, the 2016 data shows that there are 39% of these respondents saying that

we’re – if provided with an opportunity, we’d like to leave the country. And in 2016 it was 29, so there’s

ten percentage points increase in this desire, basically, to leave the country, citing insecurity and

unemployment as the reason that they’re going.

Hameed Hakimi

So, this is the push factor, is it?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

It’s more of a push factor. While on pull factors, we have less of, you know, the pull factors, compared to

2015 and 16. There’s also the last point about use of television. It has increased and for the first time , I

think it’s surpassed radio ownership. But the correlation to owning and watching TV to increased support


for women’s rights and women’s rights to work, right to education, right to participate in political

processes, we see that as a significant trend going forward. So, the more people who watch TV and own

them, the more they’re likely to say that they support women basically, working outside homes, or they

have the right to educate or they have the – they should have the right to, basically, vote.

I would leave it at that and there are other points that we may discuss during the Q&A session, if you don’t

mind.

Hameed Hakimi

Perfect. Tabasum, over to you.

Tabasum Akseer

Thank you. Good afternoon everyone, it’s a pleasure to be here. So, to give you an idea of how we came

about these findings, I’ll very briefly go through our methodology. We have more information on our

methodology in the report and I’m happy to answer any questions in the Q&A about that.

So, our questionnaire itself is determined every year. We try to revise the questions, as appropriate. We

get rid of the questions that have low analytical value and we put in questions that are more relevant to

whatever’s going on in Afghanistan. We preserve the trend line questions, so that we can maintain that

over the years and as I said, we vet new questions to ensure that they meet international standards and to

make sure that they’re culturally sensitive and appropriate to the Afghan audience. In total, we have

about 150 questions. This includes demographic and substantive questions and a variety of quantitative

and qualitative questions. A qualitative question could be a follow-up question, so when we ask if the

country’s heading in the right or wrong direction, if they say yes or no, we then ask why or why not , and

then, we get a variety of open ended answers that we then aggregate, according to the various themes.

Our sampling plan is a multistage systemic sampling approach. This year, our sample size was 10,012

participants. This includes 9,086 main interviews, which is the main sample size and 926 intercept

interviews, or about 9% of the overall sample. Intercept interviews are used for areas that are inaccessible

or insecure. They’re used to collect information on individuals living in high-risk areas. They’re usually

held at intercept points, such as hospitals or bus stops or bazaars or neighbouring towns to the more –

neighbouring towns that are more secure. They’re conducted in 75 districts across 25 provinces. The rest

of the sample size represents the entire country, so across 34 provinces and it’s representative of all major

ethnic groups and most minor ethnic groups. Sample size is also representative of men and women. So,

it’s 50.1% men and 49.9% women. We weigh this to be 50/50, so that it’s gender balanced, and the data is

also proportional to the urban and rural population. So, 79.8% of the interviews are from rural villages

and 20.2% are from urban areas. We weigh this to be 75.1% and 24.9%, so that it’s nationally

representative, and we use statistics from the Afghan Central Statistics Organisation.

The surveys are conducted every year in the summer, between June and August, which is right after the

fighting season. This year it was conducted from July the 5th until the 23rd, which is a significant time,

because it was on the heels of a couple of high profile terrorist incidents, including the May 31st attack on

the German Embassy, which saw hundreds of civilians and Germans killed. As a result, we see significant

increases of fear in areas such as Kabul and this is also right before Trump’s announcement of the troop

surge.


And conducting the interviews, we rely on a third party of 929 Afghan trained Enumerators, who are

indigenous to the provinces where the interviews are conducted. Most importantly, the interviews are

gender matched. So, we have men interviewing men and women interviewing women. This is important,

because it helps us yield richer data and it also helps our participants develop a rapport with the

interviewer. And where sometimes interviews can take up to an hour, anywhere between 30 minutes to

an hour, it’s really important that both parties are comfortable, especially since they’re strangers to one

another. The margin of error is at the 95% confidence interval. It’s 1.4%. There’s more information on

that in the book, so I won’t bore you with it.

One of the most important things with our research is quality control. So, we take a variety of measures to

ensure that our data is reliable and credible. One of them is to engage third party organisations to

monitor our Enumerators. So, we send out about 68 independent third-party Monitors to the field to

ensure that our Enumerators are going to the areas where they’re supposed to be going and that – to

ensure that our Enumerators are using the methodology that we’ve asked them to use. And on top of that,

once we get our dataset, we employ another third-party company to apply logic tests to our data. So, what

a logic test is, is if a participant responds that their gender is male, but then, for occupation, they say

housewife, we know that that’s illogical and so, that interview is removed and if an Enumerator has more

than two interviews removed, then we get rid of all of their interviews. In total, we had to withdraw 144 or

140 cases of surveys that failed the logic test and the rest of our surveys that did pass, we used those.

And so, because of the vastness of our data, as I said, we have almost 150 questions, in our report we’re

unable to run all the analyses, so we only provide a limited analysis. What we do instead is, we make the

report available to you online and also, on hardcopy we have some there, and most important is that we

provide our dataset to you for free. So, you’re more than welcome to run your own analyses, you can use

our interactive platform, where you just put in the different variables that you want to analyse, or you can

download the dataset and then import it to ASAS or Stata or whatever software that you’re using.

That’s it on my side for the methodology.

Hameed Hakimi

And it’s bang on the time as well, thank you very much. I thought I’d – before I open the floor, I asked –

because, as a Research Associate here at Chatham, I mean, I often have to deal with a lot of, you know,

quest for data issues. And unfortunately, Afghanistan, in my experience, has been one of the places where

for – as I’m sure the audience would agree, that we have had issues with reliable data. Your survey, to my

knowledge, is probably one of the most comprehensive, in terms of how it covers various things. Things

like TV ownership, for example, it’d be very difficult to find another research, at least that I’ve come

across, that looks at the things like that. But also, you guys live in Afghanistan, so I thought before I open

the floor, to ask you just an overall view, and Abdullah, you’ve been a veteran since 2001, at least, you

know, involving various cycles of governance and, you know, other issues in Afghanistan. So, give us a

feel.

I mean, particularly, I’d be interested to know a little bit about – more about, you know, how are people

feeling, you know, the Afghans generally, about the National Unity Government? What’s the level of

confidence, you know, how are people feeling about the Americans? You know, the joke going around is

that probably, Trump is the on – you know, his election was only celebrated in Afghanistan, and I know

that people in a province have just issued a gold medal to him, right? So, you know, this is very

interesting to get that view from the field, and also, youth issues and how are we seeing the youth either


feeling marginalised or whatever, what’s the view? And I’ll come to you, Tabasum, for the second one.

So, can you give me a couple of minutes, please, analysis, then I’ll open the floor.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Sure. I think overall, when we compare the situation now to 2014, when the political transition was

happening, and at the same time, the economy and the security transition was happening, the – one of the

most disputed Presidential elections that we’ve had in 2014, there was a fear, a sense of fear among people

for reversal to, you know, pre-2001. And gradually, I think we see that changing more towards, you know,

expecting the democratic processes to, you know, function. Yes, it will have significant opportunities for

improvement, but at least there is no alternative to what is set in the constitution that people try to sell

for, you know, the getting to power, basically, whether it’s parliamentary or whether it’s, you know, the

elections for a President.

When the National Unity Government completed its two years, based on the agreement that the Chief

Executive and the President had signed, there were certain provisions in that agreement that – including

elections and electoral reforms and a number of other initiatives, including loya jirga, the Grand Assembly

to take place, which didn’t take place within the first two years. So, the – there were a few efforts put in

place by the political actors outside National Unity Government to present an alternative and that really

did not get public support. So…

Hameed Hakimi

So, let me just…?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

And…

Hameed Hakimi

Let me be more precise. Is it basically, the noises we hear in the North and other places, where you have

certain, let’s say, power brokers or powerful, sort of, people, trying to raise voices about their

dissatisfaction with the National Unity Government, you’re saying that does not have the, kind of, support

that we would nor – we’re hearing about that they do?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yes, people, you know, are not satisfied with, you know, how the situation is, but at least there is more

awareness on understanding what the reasons are. If they now – the – if insecurity has increased, at least

they’re not blaming the Afghan National Army or the Police or the National Unity Government for it. I

think there’s more awareness on who to blame. If you look at our survey, the sympathy with the armed

opposition group has gone from two thou – 22% in 2005, to 5% in 2017.

Hameed Hakimi

This is just the Taliban…


Abdullah Ahmadzai

So…

Hameed Hakimi

…or is it…?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

It’s the Taliban and for ISIS it’s even less, it’s like 1%. So, these are the two groups that they cite. So, I

think there’s more awareness if situation is fluid than what the reasons are. It’s not necessarily that

everything is blamed on the governance structures. Yes, there is…

Hameed Hakimi

Americans and the youth? Sorry to interrupt you.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

And on youth, I think the main issue we have is that there is a lot of workforce that Afghanistan produces,

with 65% of its population being under 25 years of age. There was one estimate by Ministry of Economy

that we produce a workforce of about 400,000 people every year and the number of employment

opportunities that Afghanistan or the Afghan Government can create is close to non-existent. So, there is

that level of dissatisfaction and hence, why these – you know, the youths have really expressed their

desire to leave the country when they are given an opportunity and citing the main reason as insecurity

and lack of jobs. So, there is this satisfaction, but overall, more so with, you know, President Trump’s

strategy to look at Afghanistan’s security problem from regional lengths. I think that has been welcomed,

not only by the Afghan Government, but also, by the public, and the middle example was what you gave.

So, there is some public support for that change of strategy by President Trump.

Hameed Hakimi

Thank you, and before I open the floor, Tabasum, how should we best read this report, this survey that

you guys produced? Because I happened to be in Kabul last year when it was launched, and I could hear

various types of – so, various media organisations would pick on various elements of it and then promote

a particular narrative, because of what you survey would say. So, you know, the Asia Foundation and

yourself leading on the overall analyses of this, what is the best way for us, as Researchers and for others

as people interested or caring about Afghanistan, how should we read the survey overall?

Tabasum Akseer

I think it’s important to keep in mind that it is a perception report, so people’s perceptions can change

over time and it can change from the morning to the evening. It’s just that, it’s perception. So, it’s – not

only is it important to keep that in mind, but it’s also important to see how relevant that is to what’s going

on in the country. So, when we see that fear spikes up in Kabul following the May 31st attack, we know

that people are perceiving fear and we know that that is a reality that they’re experiencing. Or when

they’re saying that corruption is a part of their daily life, we know that that’s a part of their reality. So, it is

a perception study, but it’s also, it’s a great resource for knowing what people are actually experiencing in


the rural areas and districts that are experiencing the presence of AOGs, and it’s an important tool. It can

be a really important tool for policymakers, if a policymaker wants to know how a road that they’ve just

built is being perceived or whether or not it’s being used. This is a report that will help them understand

how that road that they’ve constructed is being perceived.

Hameed Hakimi

And are you planning to increase the, kind of, thematic focus you have, particularly, for example, for me

it’s very interesting to see, you know, of course there’s one trajectory to look at how people watch TV and

then their perception of the women changes, but also, we understand that there are various kinds of TV

channels. I know – we know, for example, that there are some fanatic TV channels. You know, so to –

what kind of viewership do you get? Do you get, sort of – do you branch out further? Are you planning to

increase your – the depth of your questions or the thematic focus of your survey, or would you like to keep

the same set of questions for the next survey as well? How do you define – redefine that decision?

Tabasum Akseer

Well, the questions change every year and, I mean, not the whole questionnaire, otherwise we’d lose all of

our trend lines. We adjust it, depending on what’s politically and socially relevant. So, this year, for

example, we put in new questions on procedural justice or on prison sentencing for offenders. Next year,

we might put something different in there and depending on what’s going on, and a lot – at a lot of these

forums, we do receive feedback on the questionnaire. So, last year, one of the questions – well, some of

the feedback that we received was because we didn’t identify – when we’re talking about AOGs in one of

our questions, it’s, “Why do you think that they’re fighting?” we don’t differentiate between the Taliban

and ISIS and so, in this year, we branched that out to, “How do you – why do you think the Taliban are

fighting and why do you think ISIS is fighting?” So, we’re constantly seeking feedback on our questions

and we’re – we changed it – we change it as necessary. But for the most part, we do want to keep the

trend lines in there, just so that we can have that longitudinal understanding of what’s going on.

Hameed Hakimi

Thank you very much. So, I’m going to open the floor. Just a couple of reminders: please introduce

yourself, your affiliation, if possible, please, beyond your membership of Chatham House, if you are a

Chatham House member. Keep your, if you’re making a remark, as succinct as possible and also, your

questions as precise as possible and hopefully, relevant to the survey. So, yes, can I have the first

questioner, please? Yes, and please wait for the mic and then you can make the question.

Hanif Ahmadzai

It’s not a question, but just to thank the Asia Foundation and your colleagues for the tremendous work

you have done. As a representative of the Afghan Embassy here and also a Civil Servant in the

Government, I’m pleased to see that optimism has been increased in Afghanistan, in terms of the

government’s performance and the situation there. Despite we all know that you said push factor, the

security concerns that partly contributed to the lack of Government’s ability to deliver services to the

citizens, that was a tough year, 2017, we all know, and looking forward to your next survey, in terms of

having any interesting developments happening in Afghanistan in the region. But I would say that in the

next surveys it will be more beneficial for our partners, and also for the Government, to focus on

infrastructures and more how citizens see the situation in there, in terms of our regional connectivity and

other parts of the Government’s service delivery.


Hameed Hakimi

And sorry, your introduction, briefly, please, for the audience to know?

Hanif Ahmadzai

Yes, I’m Ahmadzai, I’m the Political Counsellor of the Afghan Embassy in London.

Hameed Hakimi

Thank you. Next? Do you want to…?

Male Member

My name is [inaudible – 31:16] and I’m an Independent Consultant Researcher focusing on Afghanistan,

mainly state and nation building. The survey’s very broad and actually, gives a very clear prospective of

what’s going to happen in Afghanistan over the coming few years. What really, I was looking for is the

international community commitment from the Afghan people, how they feel what happened in the past

15 years and what they think the international engagement has put in their lives as improvement. And

one of the commitments were that we will provide security and establish a state and stabilise it and then,

we will go into nation building, where Trump said that “This is not our job to build nation – to start

nation building in countries like Afghanistan, where the state is itself weak and cannot provide us enough

criteria that they are putting as conditionality, which is not going to happen in a good way.” So, what is

the mood of people, in the past 15 years, on international engagement, in terms of nation and the state

building, have they agreed that international community provide them the better opportunities to build a

peaceful state and country?

Hameed Hakimi

Shall we take that and then, we go to the next questioner, please?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

S0, just to react to the last question first, on public perception about the aid effectiveness, so to say, and

support from the international community, we have not really asked that – the question with that level of

specificity, but what we’ve asked is basically, if people believe that the Afghan National Army and Afghan

National Police need support from the international community, and more than 80% of them say yes.

The Afghan National Security Forces still need to be supported and funded, you know, by the

international community. So, that’s one aspect of it.

The second element we had in our survey was on the recognition of development programmes and who

actually funds them. Up until 2014, most of the recognition went to the United States of America, USAID

and then, the second was, I think, Japan, because of their focus on infrastructure projects and their

visibility. Following the 2014 transition, we changed that question from, you know, focusing on donor

visibility, but to test how the Government is viewed, and in terms of its ability to deliver services. And

donors like USAID and Japan and others, they really came down to number five or four or three or two,

but number one was the Afghan Government. Like, if the question was, “Who implements the

development project in your village?” Then the answer from the respondent came, “The Afghan

Government.” So, the change in approach and supporting more Afghan Government implemented


programmes, have really paid off, in terms of, you know, people’s perception about it. Off budget projects

versus on budget projects and also, reduction of direct funding that the provincial reconstruction teams

were providing at the provincial level.

I think, to Mr Ahmadzai’s comment on regional infrastructure programmes, I do see a trend and quite a

lot of focus, you know, by all stakeholders and the people, on how this regional connectivity projects could

help improve the lives of people in the country. And that is one of the main reasons why we consult all

stakeholders every year, to basically see what the priorities are, in terms of their needs for public opinion.

And if then, our regional trends were seen as something that they really wanted more information on, we

could certainly look into that. There’s so much that we could include in our survey, unfortunately.

There’s that respondent fatigue that we want to take into consideration. We have over 100 questions that

we ask a respondent and it takes them 35/40 to 50 minutes, depending on their ability to understand

what the questions are. So, yes, what we could replace would be the main question, rather than what we

could add into our existing questionnaire.

Hameed Hakimi

And do you want to add anything?

Tabasum Akseer

No.

Hameed Hakimi

Okay, alright. Can I give the gentleman over there who raised his hand?

Mike Gulley

Thank you.

Hameed Hakimi

Thank – please.

Mike Gulley

And Mike Gulley, UK Civil Service. Thank you for the talk. Just a couple of questions, if I may? With

regards to – do you have any insights on the security perception between the areas in the North, you

know, the border with Tajikistan, or in the East near the border with Pakistan and how they differ from

areas that are more, potentially, secure? ‘Cause obviously, you have a respondent rate of 70% unsatisfied

for security is quite high. I’m curious if it gets higher in regions that border Tajikistan and Pakistan.

And secondly, when you launched the survey, how much interest did you have from some of the more

regional powers, like, for example, Iran, Uzbekistan, and even Russia and Pakistan, to a certain degree,

how much interest have you had on the survey from those countries?


Hameed Hakimi

Thank you. Do you want – shall I take another one? Can I get a female questioner, please? In the back,

over there. Thank you.

Anna Staevska

Hi, my name’s Anna Staevska and I’m from Albany Associates. I’ve got a question with regards to

obtaining data, including how difficult it is to do it in the more rural areas, and I just wanted to check if

you managed to reach all the provinces, or are you looking at a select few?

Hameed Hakimi

Okay. Yes, please?

Male Member

Thank you, and my name is [inaudible – 37:41] and I just wanted to ask Mr Ahmadzai in relation to what

has happened last year, Government’s peace negotiation [inaudible – 37:48], in the next round of talks, as

we’ve been hearing, taking place in Istanbul, Turkey. I mean, what has happened to the talks with Taliban

in Doha? And is already.

Hameed Hakimi

Thank you. Thank you very much. Shall we answer these and then go back to the floor? If I can start

with you, so, security perceptions in various regions in the country, how do they vary from the North to

the South and the rest, yeah?

Tabasum Akseer

The short answer is, it’s in the book. The long – it is in the book. But generally, the areas that are more

secure, we use intercept interviews for those areas and we don’t include it in the overall sample size.

What we do find that’s an interesting trend is that in the more insecure areas there tends to be, obviously,

greater fear for personal safety, the desire to migrate. And, in certain cases, we also see either more or

less support for women’s rights or access to education and it just depends on where you’re looking. There

is – I think the other question on the provinces…

Hameed Hakimi

The interest from the regional – so, in your survey, do you get interest from the regional countries and the

region, sort of, regional institutions, let’s say, but just broadly from the regions: Iran, Pakistan,

Uzbekistan and others? Am I reflecting that question correctly so far?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yes.


Abdullah Ahmadzai

We have not looked into that breakdown, in terms of, you know, regional countries really using or, you

know, basically referencing survey of the Afghan people. But globally, this year, the reactions have been

very, very positive, in terms of making reference to the Asia Foundation’s surveys. On our website, I think

we have a breakdown of, you know, how many downloads and who has viewed them, who has basically

made reference to them. So, from the top of my head, I won’t be able to give you an accurate answer, but

globally and nationwide use of our survey for 2017 has increased quite significantly, compared to…

Hameed Hakimi

This data on who…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

…previous years.

Hameed Hakimi

…downloads and who uses, is that available to somebody like him to down – to look at on the website?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

I believe so. We could provide that, yes.

Tabasum Akseer

I could provide it to you if you just send me an email.

Hameed Hakimi

Okay, so that’s for the after event, perfect. So, the other one is the question from the back of the room,

how difficult is it to conduct research in rural areas, in particular? And of course, this is an ongoing

question. This is actually tied up, if I can qualify it a little bit more, for instance, for a lot of the

international Researchers, when we try to do work in Afghanistan, increasingly, we are required to do

various kinds of insurance, kind of policy taking and all of that stuff. So, it’s increasingly challenging,

really, to travel across the country and do meaningful fieldwork, whether that’s by various kinds of

requirements put on us because of our citizenship of the United Kingdom, or I would say Western,

another Western country, or other reasons. So, how difficult is it for your local teams and for yourselves,

even, do you get to visit the rural areas? How does it work?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

It’s – I mean, insecurity is basically, the main reason why we are unable to access a number of districts.

But our focus is to ensure 100% coverage of all the 34 provinces. That’s what we do and that’s what we

have achieved. In certain provinces, we haven’t been able, as Tabasum earlier said, to get access to certain

insecure areas and that’s where, from a methodology standpoint, we at least found a solution for it to

intercept men who basically, visit the City Centre from those insecure areas and basically, interview them.

We do not include the findings, from those intercept interviews, in our report, but that’s a separate set of


data that we keep, in case, you know, there’s need to look into it. It’s close to 10% of the whole geography

that we were unable to access, and we adapted this intercept methodology for it.

Hameed Hakimi

And is this security threat – sorry, if I can follow this up…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Sure.

Hameed Hakimi

…broadly because of insurgency, or is it just generally that, you know, you have other kinds of obstacles?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

It’s mainly insurgency. There are some logistical challenges, but with the timing of our service, as we’re

doing it in summer, between August – July and August, then, you know, the issues like climate and

snowfalls and those sorts of things, do not necessarily affect our survey work anymore.

Hameed Hakimi

Did you want to add anything, just…?

Tabasum Akseer

Sure, and it’s really important to work with Enumerators that are indigenous to the area where they’re

collecting the data, so you have a Pashtun interviewing a Pashtun or an Aimak interviewing an Aimak.

Like, it’s – it helps, as I mentioned earlier, it helps develop a rapport and the gender element is also

extremely important. So, a woman, it would be inappropriate for her to be alone with another male for up

to 60 minutes, just talking to them about very sensitive questions, such as whether you think the country

is heading in the right or wrong direction or if you support the President. So, I think gender and ethnicity

helps us yield richer data and I think that’s something that if you apply it to other research studies, it is –

it will make a huge difference, in terms of the quality of responses that you receive.

Hameed Hakimi

And the last question, if I – if you can respond to that briefly, please, which is because it’s – I think it’s out

of the survey issues.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yes.

Hameed Hakimi

So, Doha Hezb-e-Islami Turkey footage has just been leaked of – potentially showing Taliban speaking to

the Afghan Government, so a quick response to what’s going on with the peace process?


Abdullah Ahmadzai

At least, I mean, the short reaction to this is that it’s – something is happening, we – on the peace front.

The process was basically, put on halt and we did not know what was going on, whether the Doha office

was really engaged in any meaningful negotiations with the Afghan Government. And now there’s a

change of approach, where a meeting happens in a third location in Istanbul, I think regardless of, you

know, what it means for Doha, at least for Afghanistan it means that there is, you know, some start to the

peace negotiations, which was halted for quite a while. And again, it resonates with our survey, where

there’s 70%, or over 70%, people saying that the peace negotiations will basically result, and they are quite

supportive of it, will result in some meaningful outcome. That is basically, the public reaction to it. So,

the – yes, there is support for peace negotiations with the armed opposition groups, Taliban in particular.

The Government’s approach, in terms of where they want to hold those talks, I think, you know, the next

day it could be another city, but at least there’s hope that it’s happening.

Hameed Hakimi

Maybe you can add a question next year to how people feel about Hezb-e-Islami and Hekmatyar. That’s

for next year…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Well…

Hameed Hakimi

…probably.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

…no, I think we want to live for a while.

Hameed Hakimi

You want to leave that.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yes.

Hameed Hakimi

Okay, please, next set of questions. If I can have the lady at the front, please, and the gentleman here.

Suzanne Granfar

Susanne Granfar…

Hameed Hakimi

If you don’t mind kindly waiting for the microphone, please.


Suzanne Granfar

Thank you. I’m Suzanne Granfar, with King’s College, and a PhD Researcher there. I have two questions.

One is regarding women’s rights. You said that the television is placing an enhanced focus on that and I

wonder if there is – if you look at diverse strata of society, female, representations there, if ladies, for

example, born in the 1950s appear to be more open to enhancing women’s rights because they benefitted

from a more liberal upbringing?

And the other question, regards migration. You said that there was a significant 25% increase within just

one year of wishing to migrate, despite the fact that Europe is now closing its borders, increasingly and

my understanding is that a very large amount of the immigrants going to Germany were of Afghan

descent. Is there any effort to reverse that, to maybe bring – to do a reverse brain drain, to bring

successful migrants back to invest, especially entrepreneurs, in view of the fact that there’s basically,

nothing being done for the 4/500,000 entering the market every year? It sounds disastrous, a disastrous

recipe…

Hameed Hakimi

So, you mean…

Suzanne Granfar

…for the future.

Hameed Hakimi

…the brain drain, does…?

Suzanne Granfar

Is there anything being done to reverse it?

Hameed Hakimi

Perfect, thank you very much.

Suzanne Granfar

Yeah, thank you so much.

Hameed Hakimi

Can I get the gentleman here, please, and then Liz and then Jawed?

Male Member

I want to follow-up that peace process and I want to know how far, in detail, how far this peace process is

going on and whether the Taliban, they’re agreeing with this to negotiate with them? And how – and the

second question is, the Government had how much control or influence of the Government in – or how


many provinces they have, whether the Taliban have the more influence in the provinces or the

Government?

Hameed Hakimi

Okay, thank you. Can I get Liz and then Jawed and then we’ll go to the answers?

Lynne O’Donnell

[Pause] Thanks, and I’m Lynne O’Donnell. I was, until a year ago, the Bureau Chief…

Hameed Hakimi

Sorry, Lynn, I apologise. It’s the wrong person.

Lynne O’Donnell

That’s alright, don’t worry, David.

Hameed Hakimi

Sorry.

Lynne O’Donnell

I was, until a year ago, the Bureau Chief in Kabul for the Associated Press and I never really felt that I had

an adequate handle on the reasons behind, as you brought up, immigration. And you mention the, you

know, the GDP growth was hovering around zero, there was abs – an absolute failure to create jobs or

incentivise young men to stay in the country. So, I guess, what I’m asking is, do you think that it’s more

economic or security driven and what does that say to the countries that are deporting young men back,

as one assumes, are illegal economic immigrants? And also, vis-à-vis the last question we just had, I’m

really interested to know what you think about the really – the significance of the role of the Doha Taliban

group in the peace talks, do they represent Qatar, for instance? I’ve never got the impression that they’re

that significant. Thanks.

Hameed Hakimi

Cool, and Jawed and then we’ll go to the answers.

Jawed Nader

Thank you very much, Abdullah Ahmadzai, for the presentation and for there was some very interesting,

as always. Sorry, my name is Jawed Nader. I’m the Director of British Charities Afghanistan Group

(BAAG). So, related to charities, in the past, you asked question about how the Afghans viewed the NGOs

and/or other service delivery mechanisms. And the result was always very positive that the Afghans

trusted the NGOs, especially national NGOs, more than any other service delivery organisation in

Afghanistan. So, may I invite you to comment on that, whether there has been any changes? And

Tabasum, a very quick methodological question, in the past, social desirability bias was a key challenge,

how has it changed and has it improved? Thank you.


Hameed Hakimi

Thank you. Yes, so do you see a difference in gender perception and whether it varies across the age?

Tabasum Akseer

Hmmm, across age, depending on the question, we don’t – for the most part, we didn’t really see any

gender differences. What we do see are differences across economic status, across ethnicity, across the

regions, across the provinces. So, for example, in areas where the economy is poor, we see more support

for women’s rights, and that’s because there’s a need for a breadwinner and so, if there’s no male head of

household, they’ll send the female out to go and earn an income. But in terms of age, we don’t really see

any differences for support for women’s rights. Another indicator of support for women’s rights is access

to television, which we mentioned before. Access to television and, I think, you – right, there’s no real

difference with gender.

Hameed Hakimi

Does the migration out of Afghanistan, is it leading to some kind of a brain drain?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

I think in 2015, when the pull factor was stronger than it is being seen now, it really started a brain drain,

more so in a situation when Afghanistan need them the most. The young, educated, male Afghans were

willing to leave the country and that trend has stayed unchanged for 2017. Citing the reasons as

insecurity and lack of jobs is basically what the youth have been, you know, telling us. I think, you know,

the discussions at the policy level in the Government about creating economic development zones, or, you

know, safe zones in the eight main provinces, provisional capitals, if implemented and if really, you know,

jobs are created, the brain drain could stop. But when it comes to the natural, you know, economic

migration, which has always happened, from the East towards the West, that is what can never and will

never stop. Whether, you know, it’s people from Bangladesh, you know, looking for a better future in

Europe or India, or Nepal, or Afghanistan, so that will likely continue. But when it comes to making sure

that the push factors are, you know, reduced, those employment opportunities really need to be created.

So, it’s a priority, but how will it happen? I haven’t seen, really, something that will materialise into…

Hameed Hakimi

I think you’re answering the question from Suzanne and from Lynne at the same time.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yes, yes.

Hameed Hakimi

Just for self-promotion purposes, I actually wrote a paper on this, Drivers of Migration from Afghanistan.

There is a significant, you know, kind of, correlation we’re drawing that in Europe, as to why people leave

between – people leave for economic reasons. Because we interview them in our borders inside the

European Union, but if you actually go and speak to them as they’re travelling to Europe, or you travel –

you speak to them inside Afghanistan, you get a very different picture and also, there is a dissonance of


language. We use, kind of, language to mean one thing in Afghanistan, which we translate into something

else in English. So, those are very interconnected, but maybe a discussion for another day.

What is the status of Doha and, you know, how representative are they of the Taliban, or were they, and if

they’re close, what happens? Is that the question, Lynne?

Lynne O’Donnell

Yes, yeah, they represent [inaudible – 54:18]...

Hameed Hakimi

Right, yeah.

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Well, I…

Lynne O’Donnell

…and is there any difference?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

There was recently, you know, a report where, you know, some of the Taliban Commanders have sent a

letter saying that we want Hibatullah, the Taliban leader, to be removed from power. He’s unable to lead,

and those sorts of things. So, we see some kind of a split, I think, in the Taliban leadership, the power

brokers, that might be how it gets reflected into Istanbul versus Doha. So, that representation, I think, is

now, there’s a question mark next to it, whether it’s able to deliver or not. But I think it’s too early for us

to, you know, reach a conclusion at this stage, because it’s really shaping up and hopefully, in the next

weeks or months, when there are more meetings between the Taliban and the Afghan Government, we

will know what the Doha office will actually look like, in terms of their ability to represent the Taliban.

But they have been seen as being side-lined. That’s basically, the point of view of…

Hameed Hakimi

So, to the question on the bias of social desirability as a challenge and the perception of the NGOs,

especially Afghan NGOs, have you got any response to Jawed’s question on that?

Tabasum Akseer

Not particularly to the NGOs, but just overall, the social desirability bias will always be there with every

research study. There’s no way to get inside a participant’s head and, kind of, understand whether they’re

being truthful or not. What we do is the logic tests and at times, the logic tests who help – do help us

identify certain surveys where something’s just not adding up. But overall, the social desirability bias, you

can’t – you can only mitigate it. You can’t reduce it entirely.


Jawed Nader

And did you have that ghost institution question about – I mean, last time you asked if people were happy

with one particular institution, which did not exist, and a lot of people, about 30 people, said they are

happy with this institution. Was this asked again?

Abdullah Ahmadzai

I’m not sure if we had that specific question…

Hameed Hakimi

Maybe you can discuss this…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

…but we could discuss it offline…

Hameed Hakimi

…yes, after the...

Abdullah Ahmadzai

…and refer to the report if we have it as part of our questionnaire. But to your point on NGOs, the one

area where we could find some linkages is that men’s supporting – men’s support for women to work

outside home. NGOs do not necessarily fall under the top three institutions where women – men want,

you know, women to work. So, it’s either a girl’s school or a clinic or a hospital. That’s basically, what

men’s preference is, in terms of work environment for women, but not NGOs.

Hameed Hakimi

I have one last question space. Is it okay, one minute? Yes, please? Very, very brief, please.

Edward McBride

My name’s Edward McBride, I’m with the Economist. I was just wanting to make sure I’d got –

understood correctly what you’d said about the methodology, regarding the insecure areas. So, you have

these intercept interviews, but they’re not included in the data that’s published. And what indication do

you give – oh, sorry, well, you know, what sense do you have of how systematically – I mean, you would

assume that the places where you can’t go to survey people are the places where people are most

dissatisfied with Government, they feel most insecure. Perhaps they have, you know, the least, sort of,

cosmopolitan views about women’s rights, and so on. How systematically biased, you know, to a more

rosy view of things, is the data, as a result of the exclusion of the people in areas you couldn’t access, do

you think?

Hameed Hakimi

And that’s the last question. If we can get both of you to respond, thanks.


Abdullah Ahmadzai

Yeah, I think Tabasum will respond.

Tabasum Akseer

We wrote a blog on this piece and it’s called Life Under AOGs and we compare what life in those intercept

interviews is like to life in – throughout the more secure areas. For the most part, there’s obviously more

fear. We also see the social desirability bias, because you’re – if you’re in an area that’s controlled by

AOGs, you tend to be more paranoid and so, your answers are – they can either go one way or the other

way.

I welcome you to read that blog from our complete picture of what’s going on. The reason why we keep

the intercept interviews out of the main sample is because it’s not a randomised sample and because we’re

not following the same data collection procedure for the overall sample, and because they’re also, all men.

You seldom see women from the insecure areas at a hospital or a bus stop and even then, it would be

culturally inappropriate for you to go and approach them, let alone talk to them for half an hour. What

you could do is, because the whole dataset, including our intercept interviews, is available to you online,

you could go online and do your own analyses and your own comparisons between the two groups. The

sample size is rather small. It’s about 900 and some odd. So, it wouldn’t be enough – it’s obviously not

enough to reach saturation, so you can’t really draw inferences, but it gives you a good idea of what’s

going on in those insecure areas.

Edward McBride

But even the intercept interviews are, you know, as you said, for reasons you describe, they’re not a truly

randomised sample, right? So, you…

Tabasum Akseer

No.

Edward McBride

I mean, I’ll read the blog post with interest, but it’s relying on the idea that the intercept interviews are

representative, which...

Tabasum Akseer

They’re not. They’re not representative, which is why we don’t include it in the main sample. The main

sample of 9,086 of whatever the number is, that main sample is, it’s saturated, it’s representative and it

gives us a complete credible picture of what’s going on. The intercept interviews are not, which is why we

don’t include it in there, but we do give you the data, so that you can do your own analyses with it. It’s

just the inferences that you make are not really statistically credible, so it’s good to give you an idea, but

you can’t draw those inferences with it.

Edward McBride

Alright.


Hameed Hakimi

Sorry to interrupt that very interesting exchange, but we’ve come to the end of the event. Thank you very

much for your time…

Abdullah Ahmadzai

Thank you.

Hameed Hakimi

…Abdullah, thank you, and Tabasum, as well [applause]. Thank you [applause].

Afghanistan in 2017: a survey of the Afghan people

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