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    Narratives of agency : Afghan refugee background students' experience of schooling in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2018) Abd Rahman, Mastura
    Little is known about the experiences of refugee background students in New Zealand high schools, and more specifically we lack narratives from more recent groups like those from Afghanistan. Research about Afghans in New Zealand does not address the experiences of how young Afghan students engage with schooling and education in the new environment. As schools are often a challenging navigational space during the transition and adaptation for these students, it is imperative to reflect on their experiences for transformative purposes. This study aimed to understand those transitional experiences through the lens of the students’ sense of agency. Data were drawn from a phenomenological research approach that included in-depth interviews with six senior high school students who were former refugees from Afghanistan. The study examined the role and ways in which a sense of agency helped these students to succeed in achieving their educational goals, by identifying the factors that provided impetus for the development of their sense of agency in the educational context. The study’s conceptual framework was built on an ecological model. The ecological perspective illuminated the links between the students’ agency, their funds of knowledge, and their socio-cultural capital. The findings highlighted multiple contexts in which the students illustrated their capacities for agency, and how that ultimately helped them to navigate ways in which they believed, decided and acted. The findings also underscored the need to recognize as well as leverage on refugee background students’ agency and their agentic resources. These students’ narratives can inform and reform underlying premises of current policy, practices and pedagogy for refugee students, which can lead to a more engaged and authentic understanding about their learning and experiences.
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    Walking with broken crutches : exploring the effects of host-state fragility upon refugees : a research project presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Development, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (The Author, 2015) Foreman, Mark
    This research report explores the relationship between state fragility and the hosting of refugees in the context of the protracted Afghan refugee crisis, where fragile state Pakistan hosts Afghan refugees. The reality for the majority of the world’s refugees is that their hosts are neighbouring countries which are in varying conditions of state fragility. Some states are bearing the brunt of the global refugee burden despite their general struggle to provide basic services and livelihood opportunities for their own citizens. For these ‘fragile hosts’, providing for an influx of refugees would be untenable without significant international assistance. Following a comprehensive literature review looking at the complex interplay between conflict, state fragility, underdevelopment and forced migration, the report case study is prefaced by background chapters surveying the factors which triggered Afghan forced migration, and Pakistan’s fragile status as host respectively. This report then offers an analysis of two region-specific UNHCR documents which explores the relationship between Afghan refugees and Pakistan as ‘fragile host’. Various host-state incapacities were found to entrench endemic poverty and insecurity in the Afghan refugee population in Balochistan due to a lack of livelihood opportunities, and availability and access to quality services. These issues have also created barriers to local refugee integration, and the fluctuating interest of international donors has historically served to exacerbate these challenges. This report argues that a much-improved understanding of the multi-layered and complex regional, national and local relationships between protracted conflict, state fragility and refugee-host dynamics is needed in order to approach a sustainable solution.
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    Microfinance in postwar Afghanistan : towards a conflict-sensitive approach : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2006) Harvey, Michael David
    It is well established that microfinance has become a key tool to reduce poverty in developing countries. Previously unable to gain access to credit and savings products from formal providers such as banks, poor people can now take small loans to support income-generating activities, or build up small savings accounts for important expenditures. These services are offered by microfinance providers (MFPs), semi-formal institutions which often have development as well as financial goals. Because poverty tends to be widespread in countries emerging from war, the provision of microfinance is being increasingly recognised as crucial to post-conflict economic reconstruction. Most writers on post-conflict microfinance (PCM) have outlined the considerable challenges which MFPs face in these unstable situations, and have offered valuable operational advice on how to meet those challenges. However, little has been written on how PCM has impacted upon the clients themselves, or whether it has assisted them to re-establish viable livelihoods. Secondly, even though postwar situations are unstable due to unresolved sources of tension, most PCM literature lacks a systematic treatment of how the microfinance could be 'conflict-sensitive'. 'Conflict sensitivity' can be defined as taking preventative measures to reduce the possibility that development intervention will exacerbate tensions, and implementing pro-active strategies to help build peace. This study constructs a conflict sensitive system whereby microfinance goes beyond its traditional role of poverty alleviation to that of conflict mitigation. Afghanistan serves as context within which the concepts of conflict-sensitive microfinance are explored. Since the defeat of the Taliban in 2001, much of Afghanistan has enjoyed a period of relative peace and reconstruction after 22 years of intrastate war. However, the country still faces a number of challenges which could contribute to renewed violence, including poverty, inter-ethnic tensions, weak local governance, and the largest opium sector in the world. This study examines what role the young microfinance sector is playing in addressing these issues and what impact it is having on Afhgan livelihoods and society. The sector's success in helping to alleviate poverty and build peace depends on the extent to which MFPs in Afghanistan expand their services, coordinate efforts among themselves, and collaborate with other development and government actors in holistic, conflict-sensitive interventions.
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    How have women been empowered by gender-focussed development projects in post-Taliban Afghanistan? : reviewing the literature which incorporates the critical consideration of two gender focussed development projects : a research report presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Development in Development Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (The Author, 2014) McMillan, Robert Melville
    This research report examines the empowerment approach within the Gender and Development (GAD) discussion, providing an emphasis on women’s empowerment as an instrument of post-conflict reconstruction in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Utilising a comprehensive literature review, the report establishes the framework of Naila Kabeer as a consistent base for the comparing and contrasting of two gender-focussed development programmes in Afghanistan. The contextual background of empowerment programmes pursued over the past decade in Afghanistan are presented with an examination of the challenges and opportunities encountered pursuing women’s political, economic, social and psychological empowerment. A specific consideration of the New Zealand-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, and the Community Development Council initiative within the Afghanistan National Solidarity Programme is undertaken. The report concludes that while there have been enormous symbolic advances for women’s political empowerment in the national sphere, the more private and local the sphere examined: the less decision-making agency Afghani women are empowered to exercise. While seeking to provide opportunities for women’s economic empowerment the programmes have made little practical change to women’s income or financial agency. The two gender-focussed programmes examined have made significant compromises to the extremities of the local context, and are considered ‘gender accommodating’ rather than ‘gender transformative’. The large body of literature concerning Afghanistan substantiates that the road to gender equity will stretch across the generations and is necessarily gradual to remain sustainable. As Afghanistan enters further political turmoil, the empowerment attained by Afghani women in the past decade must be expressly guarded.
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    Fighting against allies : an examination of "national caveats" within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) campaign in Afghanistan & their impact on ISAF operational effectiveness, 2002-2012
    (Massey University, 2014) Kingsley, Regeena
    During the last twenty years, it has become an increasingly common practice for national governments to impose restrictive “national caveat” rules of engagement on the forces they contribute to multinational security operations. These national caveats have regularly led to security crises within these multinational missions, most notably in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. However, due to government sensitivity, combined with the highly-classified nature of these national caveat rules, no rigorous academic analysis has ever been conducted on this problematic issue and its effects within international security endeavours. The result has been a large ‘caveat gap’ within academic defence literature. This thesis is the first in-depth, academic examination of the issue of national caveats and their effects within multinational security operations, and is focused on the multinational NATO-led ISAF campaign in Afghanistan. Drawing from new caveat information, including the revelations contained within the cache of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010-2011, this research analyses the issue of national caveats within the ISAF operation in order to determine both the extent of the national caveat issue within the ISAF mission, and the impact these caveats have had on overall operational effectiveness within the campaign, over the period of a decade of warfare between 2002-2012. The research utilises the fundamental military principle of “unity of effort”, essential for attaining operational effectiveness in any multinational operation involving disparate national forces, as an analytical lens to analyse the impact of national caveats on ISAF operational effectiveness. It analyses the impact of government-imposed, politico-military caveats on unity of effort among the ISAF’s security forces conducting security operations within the overarching counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign. ISAF security operations are critical for the success of the ISAF COIN campaign, because basic security is a prerequisite for all other ISAF stability operations to proceed along the other lines of operation. The study analyses: firstly, the ability of ISAF security forces to be unified in their tasking, given these caveat restraints; and secondly, the reality of unity of effort in practice among these forces, in the course of planning and executing on-the-ground security operations within Afghanistan. The findings are then discussed to assess the impact of national caveats on ISAF unity of effort as a whole over the decade, and subsequently, the overall impact of caveated ISAF forces on operational effectiveness within the NATO-led Afghan mission. This study found that national caveats continuously constrained approximately a quarter of the entire ISAF force between 2002-2012, regardless of fluctuations in total force numbers over the decade. An extensive range of more than 200 caveats were imposed by various NATO and Partner nation governments on ISAF forces over this time period, which hindered ISAF security operations throughout Afghanistan and led to a resultant loss of time and progress along the critical security line of operation within the campaign. Combat caveats, in particular, seriously compromised the ability of ISAF security forces, including large Lead Nation contingents in the northern and western ISAF sectors, to conduct the full range of operations necessary to protect the Afghan population from insurgents, and to achieve the mission of bringing security and stability to Afghanistan. In addition, these combat caveats have: disunified the ISAF coalition; fractured the NATO alliance; geographically and operationally divided the ISAF operation; and enabled the insurgent Enemy in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the existence of caveated national contingents within the total ISAF force has not only seriously and fundamentally compromised unity of effort within the mission, but has also had a detrimental impact on the operational effectiveness of the ISAF operation as a whole, characterised by the delayed attainment of mission objectives and an ineffective prosecution of the COIN campaign. Government-imposed national caveat rules of engagement have thereby compromised the multinational ISAF operation for over a decade within the Afghan theatre of war, and jeopardized the operational effectiveness and success of this important multinational security campaign. In conclusion, national caveats are potential guarantors of disunity of effort and operational ineffectiveness within every multinational operation in which they are present.
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    Humanitarian directed violence in Afghanistan : neutrality and humanitarian space : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy in the Institute of Development Studies at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2007) Gifford, Andrew George Cameron
    The increased violence towards humanitarian workers represents an insidious trend throughout Afghanistan. Humanitarian workers have become legitimised targets since the 2001 US led invasion of Afghanistan in Operation Enduring Freedom. The increased identification of NGOs with Western military forces and the Afghan government makes the aid community a target by association, whether it is a real or perceived association by the belligerents. Neutrality for NGOs in Afghanistan has been lost. Overwhelmingly, authors and aid practitioners make clear statements about NGOs being legitimised for violence due to the perception of complicity, propagated by either the armed forces themselves or Coalition political leaders. However, army officers involved in the civilian-military relationship are dismissive of the NGOs plight and believe the issue of NGO neutrality to be overplayed. Indeed the Coalition’s Provincial Reconstruction Teams and the NATO commander in Afghanistan believe that the lack of co-ordination or pooling of NGOs’ resources with the military or one another is an impediment to development and improving the security in Afghanistan. The Taliban have gained de facto military control over a growing number of provinces, emanating from the South with humanitarian space in that environment diminished so as to be non-existent. The civilian-military relationship is not responsible for the loss of humanitarian space in its entirety. Opium production, warlord-ism, banditry, corruption, conflict of cultures, religion, and external funding of terrorism marry to produce a uniquely hostile environment not conducive to humanitarian intervention. The lack of heterogeneity between what NGOs agree is acceptable collusion in a civilian-military context also makes it unlikely that accepted operating procedures will be adopted by the civilian humanitarian community as a whole.