This month the Development Policy Centre hosted an event discussing two major reports into Afghanistan that provide insight into the perceptions of the Afghan people in 2013 and Australia’s past and future foreign aid engagement with Afghanistan.
The first half of the event featured the Australian launch of The Asia Foundation’s Survey of the Afghan People 2013. A total of 9,260 Afghans were surveyed across 34 provinces, almost double the sampling frame of the previous eight annual surveys in the series. Citizens were asked their opinions on security, political participation, the economy, women’s rights and development. The survey revealed that while 57% of respondents though the country was moving in the right direction and that most are hopeful about the 2014 elections, 38% think the country is going in the wrong direction. 32% say that the sometimes fear for the security of their family, and 56% say that corruption is a major problem in their daily life. The presentation was delivered by Mark Kryzer and Palwasha Kakar and their presentation slides are available here [pdf].
The second half of the event featured the 2013 report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on Australia’s overseas development programs in Afghanistan. The findings of the report were presented by Chair of the Inquiry, Senator Alan Eggleston (speech available here [pdf]), who discussed the key findings and recommendations of the Committee’s informative and balanced report.
You can listen to a podcast of the event here.
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