This publication focuses on the gender dimensions of intrastate conflicts (civil wars), organised around eight key themes of gender and warfare, sexual violence, formal and informal peace processes, post-conflict legal frameworks, work issues, rehabilitation of social services and community-driven development. For each theme, the authors examine the impact on gender roles of conflict situations, the development challenges involved, and the policy options available to help build more inclusive and gender balanced post-conflict societies.

Is sustainable peace an illusion in a world where foreign military interventions are replacing peace negotiations as starting points for postwar reconstruction? What would it take to achieve durable peace? This book presents six provocative case studies authored by respected peacebuilding practitioners in their own societies. The studies address two cases of relative success (Guatemala and Mozambique), three cases of renewed but deeply fraught efforts (Afghanistan, Haiti, and the Palestinian Territories), and the case of Sri Lanka, where peacebuilding was aborted but where the outlines of a new peace process can be discerned.

This book examines the changing roles of Afghani women in the aftermath of the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime in 2001. It describes the success of women in the workforce, and evaluates how their achievements have come about in a nation that struggles to overcome years of poverty, corruption, regional conflicts, and the overwhelming destruction of war. The book also covers the unique health challenges faced by women and families living in Afghanistan, focusing on recent developments in maternal and reproductive health care, the lingering problems associated with food shortages, and the improved availability of local emergency services and basic health care. Finally, the work evaluates the impact of the 2005 resurgence of the Taliban on women and girls.

The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by United States and coalition forces was followed by a flood of aid and development dollars and “experts” representing well over two thousand organizations—each with separate policy initiatives, geopolitical agendas, and socioeconomic interests. This book examines the everyday actions of people associated with this international effort, with a special emphasis on small players: individuals and groups who charted alternative paths outside the existing networks of aid and development. This focus highlights the complexities, complications, and contradictions at the intersection of the everyday and the geopolitical, showing how dominant geopolitical narratives influence daily life in places like Afghanistan—and what happens when the goals of aid workersor the needs of aid recipients do not fit the narrative. Specifically, this book examines the use of gender, “need,” and grief as drivers for both common and exceptional responses to geopolitical interventions.Throughout this work, Jennifer L. Fluri and Rachel Lehr describe intimate encounters at a microscale to complicate and dispute the ways in which Afghans and their country have been imagined, described, fetishized, politicized, vilified, and rescued. The authors identify the ways in which Afghan men and women have been narrowly categorized as perpetrators and victims, respectively. They discuss several projects to show how gender and grief became forms of currency that were exchanged for different social, economic, and political opportunities. Such entanglements suggest the power and influence of the United States while illustrating the ways in which individuals and groups have attempted to chart alternative avenues of interaction, intervention, and interpretation.

Developing country governments and the development aid community are acutely aware of the need to find more effective ways to improve basic living conditions for the poor, as traditional approaches of delivering public support have not always led to the results intended. Results-based financing (RBF) instruments, which tie the disbursement of public funding to the achievement of pre-agreed results, are now recognized as one important piece of the aid delivery puzzle. The aim of these instruments is to enhance the effectiveness of public funding. 'Output-Based Aid: Lessons Learned and Best Practices' provides a practical understanding of the experience with output-based aid (OBA), a results-based instrument that is being used to deliver basic infrastructure and social services to the poor, including through public-private partnerships. OBA has been used in the World Bank Group since 2002, including more recently through the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid, which has a mandate to design and test OBA approaches. The authors of this book analyze nearly 200 OBA projects in water and sanitation, energy, health, roads, telecommunications, and education. The piloting phase of OBA has in general been a success and OBA has demonstrated clear advantages over traditional approaches in terms of efficiently targeting subsidies and mobilizing the private sector to serve poor households that would otherwise go without an improved service. OBA has also demonstrated that monitoring for results is possible if appropriate systems are put in place. As the first comprehensive review of OBA in eight years, this book will be an essential reference for infrastructure and social services sector experts and OBA practitioners around the world including staff of international financial institutions, public and private service providers, and NGOs as well as for donors and governments who are interested in piloting or scaling up and mainstreaming OBA approaches. As the first comprehensive review of OBA in eight years, this book will be an essential reference for infrastructure and social services sector experts and OBA practitioners around the world, including staff of international financial institutions, public and private service providers, and NGOs; and for donors and governments who are interested in piloting or scaling-up and mainstreaming OBA approaches.

Rebuilding Afghanistan in Times of Crisis provides academics and researchers interested in planning, urbanism and conflict studies with a multidisciplinary, international assessment of the reconstruction and foreign aid efforts in Afghanistan. The book draws together expert contributions from countries across three continents – Asia, Europe and North America – which have provided external aid to Afghanistan. Using international, regional and local approaches, it highlights the importance of rebuilding sustainable communities in the midst of ongoing uncertainties. It explores the efficacy of external aid; challenges faced; the response of multilateral international agencies; the role of women in the reconstruction process; and community-based natural disaster risk management strategies. Finally, it looks at the lessons learned in the conflict reconstruction process to better prepare the country for future potential human, economic, infrastructural and institutional vulnerabilities.