Service Delivery in Taliban-Influenced Areas of Afghanistan
In 2018 and 2019, USIP partnered with the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), a Kabul-based research and policy organization, in an effort to understand how the Taliban provide education, health, and other services to people who live in areas where they are the dominant power. Based on a series of studies conducted by AAN in five districts across the country, the report also examines the Taliban's motivations as a governing entity and their implications for a potential peace settlement.
About the Report
This report synthesizes eight district-level studies on how the Taliban deliver services in areas of Afghanistan where they have control or dominance. Funded by the United States Institute of Peace, the studies were carried out in 2018 and 2019 by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent policy research organization based in Kabul.
About the Author(s)
Scott S. Smith is a senior expert on Afghanistan at the United States Institute of Peace. Between 2017 and 2019 he was the political director at the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and between 2012 and 2016 he was the director of USIP’s Afghanistan Program. He is the author of numerous articles on Afghanistan as well as the book Afghanistan’s Troubled Transition: Politics, Peacekeeping, and the 2004 Presidential Election (2011), and co-editor of Getting it Right in Afghanistan (2013).