U.S. Commitment to Afghan Women: The U.S.-Afghan Women's Council

Fact Sheet Office of the Senior Coordinator for International Women's Issues
Washington, DC
January 1, 2006

In January 2002, President George W. Bush and President Hamid Karzai announced the creation of the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council. The Council promotes public-private partnerships between U.S. and Afghan institutions and mobilizes private sector resources to help Afghan women.

Specifically, the Council seeks to identify concrete actions to bring real and practical benefits to the women of Afghanistan and to enable them to participate and take leadership roles in the political and economic life of their country. To this end, the Council focuses on four areas: political leadership and legal awareness, economic empowerment, education, and health.

The Council meets twice a year, alternating between Kabul and Washington, DC, to discuss programs and priorities for assisting Afghan women and to review progress. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky co-chairs the Council with the Afghan Foreign Minister and the Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs.

Since the Council's inception major accomplishments include:

As announced in 2003, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is committed to building 17 Women's Resource Centers in Afghanistan. Since then 11 Centers have been completed, and six are under construction with completion scheduled in 2005. Through the Council, women executives of AOL (Time Warner) donated $60,000 for the construction of the resource center in Parwan. USAID formally contributed $2.5 million in 2005 to support the network of Women's Resource Centers and the Ministry of Women's Affairs. The Council also committed $1 million in education and exchange programs for the centers. Programs at these centers focus on basic education literacy, microfinance and small business opportunities, human rights education, and the development and management of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Afghan Women Leaders Connect (AWLC) ($30,000)

is supporting the Afghan Women Judges Association by providing 80 Afghan women judges and lawyers with training in Afghan civil law/civil procedure codes and international conventions on civil rights. In association with this grant, some of the participants will attend Harvard Law School in 2006. AWLC has also supported the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation and International Afghan Judges Association.

U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs/USAWC Department of State Grants ($750,000).

Five grants were awarded to organizations for proposals that include: business and political leadership training (grant to World Learning); entrepreneurship training (grant to Women for Afghan Women); education and literacy training (grants to American Council for International Education and Institute for Training and Development); and women's leadership training (grant to University of Delaware). For example, in July 2005, the non-government implementing organization, World Learning, conducted leadership training for six Afghan women at Bluefield College in West Virginia. Three of the six were candidates for parliament. Each grantee will help organize training in Afghanistan to provide leadership and advocacy training to 71 Afghan women. The remaining grants will be implemented within the year.

Political Training and Leadership.

USAID and the Department of State sponsored an Afghan women's delegation to attend the 49th plenary sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women in March 2005 at the United Nations and for a week long program in Washington, DC.

The Council views microcredit as an important means of helping women gain self-sufficiency through starting their own businesses. Through an original $10,000 donation to the Council from Daimler-Chrysler, the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA), a leading non-governmental organization in microfinance, helped start two village banks in Herat. Daimler-Chrysler contributed an additional $25,000 in February 2004 to construct another five community banks to support microfinance loans for women in Herat province, with additional funding of $29 million from the U.S. Government and other donors, FINCA announced in October 2005 that it would expand the program to assist more than 30,000 clients in Afghanistan over the next 3 years.

"Artemis" Project at Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management.

The Artemis project, which was initiated by a Council member, brought 15 Afghan women entrepreneurs to Thunderbird University's Garvin School of International Management (Phoenix, Arizona) for a 2-week intensive business seminar in January 2005, and linked each entrepreneur to an American mentor. Each of the participants owns a business and is committed to creating jobs for women, and to serving in turn as mentors inside Afghanistan. See the April 4, 2005 Financial Times business section for a complete story about Artemis.

Global Summit of Women.

The Afghan embassy in Washington, DC and USAID funded an Afghan delegation of entrepreneurs to the June Global Summit of Women in Mexico City and USAID funded a similar delegation for the May 2004 Global Summit in Seoul, Korea, to discuss trade opportunities and receive entrepreneurship training.

Arzu Carpets ($1.2 million) is a program that provides training and literacy skills to Afghan women in the hand-knotted carpet industry. Over 1150 people are currently in the program and Arzu has expanded its operation to Bamyian Province. With support from USAID, Arzu has more than doubled initial investments. Arzu has been profiled in Time magazine's Global Business World Briefing, the Financial Times, Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal and was featured in Town & Country and Traditional Homes.

Women's Conservation Corps. A division of the Afghan Conservation Corps, this $1-million initiative trains vulnerable and unskilled women to rehabilitate Afghanistan's environment by growing flowers and vegetables and planting trees

U.S. Department of Agriculture Cochran Fellowships. Twelve women representing five provinces came to the United States in Spring 2004 for job training as managers and technicians in agribusiness.

Handicraft Training ($130,000). The Global Summit of Women (July 2002 in Barcelona, Spain) donated approximately $10,000 for job-skills training for women. Through this program, Shuhada, a local organization, is training women in weaving skills. At the conclusion of the program, the women will receive their own looms to produce textiles for market.

Agricultural Entrpreneurship Program ($72,000). The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the University of Nebraska, and the U.S. Department of State in 2005 initiated a training and exchange program that provides training for women in agriculture, and provides micro-loans.

Afghan Women's Business Federation. On October 2, 2005 the Afghan Women's Business Federation was inaugurated in Kabul thanks in large part to a $250,000 grant from USAID. The Federation will provide critical information for new entrepreneurs.

Since 2003, Public Broadcasting Services (PBS), through USAWC auspices and with private donations, has trained Afghan women journalists who work for AINA, a Kabul-based media training non-governmental organization and donated modern digital video production and editing equipment for the women video filmmakers to use in Afghanistan. AINA was an implementing partner for a U.S.-funded documentary film oral history project in 2002 with The Asia Foundation that produced an award winning film called "Afghanistan Unveiled" and trained 14 aspiring women film makers. PBS broadcast the film in November 2004. The women trained for this project made a second film, "If I Stand Up" that toured Afghanistan via mobile vans in the months before the October 2004 elections.

The $5-million Rural Education and Community Health Care Initiative (REACH) provides health-related accelerated learning and basic literacy training for women and girls. Training takes place in the Women's Centers and targets provinces with the highest maternal mortality rates such as Ghazni, Baghlan, and Badakhshan. In April 2004, REACH graduated its first 25 midwives from the program, after they completed an 18-month program in Jalalabad. The goal is to train 700 women by the end of 2005 and 1,830 in 2006. For each new midwife, the U.S. is supporting a lifetime of lives saved.

Afghan Family Health Book.

In Fall 2004, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson initiated the roll-out of the "Afghan Family Health Book" across Afghanistan. This "talking book" provides useful and practical information about health practices and hygiene, focusing on health promotion and disease prevention. The books are being distributed via hospitals, clinics, and women's centers. The project was developed with Leapfrog Enterprises Inc., a developer, designer, and manufacturer of technology-based educational products.

Located at Kabul University, the Women's Teacher Training Training Institute opened in September 2004. In cooperation with USAID, the First Lady announced the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council Initiative to establish a Women's Teacher Training Institute in Kabul at the opening of UNESCO. The first program, the Afghan Literacy Initiative, is underway and is designed to help teach basic literacy to Afghan women in rural areas of Afghanistan. The Institute's second program, Learning for Life, has also started.This innovative program is an accelerated health focused literacy project designed to reduce maternal and child mortality. Additionally, MicroSoft facilitated a donation by DELL Computers in March 2! 005 of $100,000 worth of computer equipment and software with teaching applications to support the Women's Teacher Training Institute, the International Association of Women Judges, the Ministry of Education, and the Women's Resource Center in Kabul.

Fulbright Scholarships.

Since the resumption of the program, nine Afghan women have received Fulbright scholarships for academic years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.

Afghanistan Teacher Education Project.

Since 2002, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Exchanges (ECA) and the Council have supported a multi-year project at the University of Nebraska -- Omaha to provide training for 85 women educators and teachers. The program enables small groups of teachers to upgrade their skills in English teaching and curriculum and materials development, and acquire basic computer literacy and train-the-trainer skills in six/eight-week seminars in the U.S. By the end of 2005, the 85 alumnae will have trained 500 local teachers through in-service workshops in Afghanistan.

U.S. Leadership Management and Computer Education.

The Council's first major program, in September and October 2002, brought 14 women from various Afghan government ministries to several cities in the United States for an educational exchange program. During their 4-week stay, they received training in computer skills, proposal writing, communications, and leadership management. Each participant received a laptop computer to use while training in the United States and to take home to use in Afghanistan. In Austin, Texas, they observed the interaction among federal, state, and local entities