This growing collection includes articles, reports, tools, guides, and other resources offering policy analysis, research findings, and practical guidance on critical conflict issues and approaches to preventing and resolving violent conflict.
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While other, smaller mineral resources are being rampantly looted, Afghanistan’s large Aynak copper deposit—worth upward $50 billion—has languished unexploited despite being contracted to a Chinese consortium nearly a decade ago. This Peace Brief seeks… Read more
Based on qualitative surveys and focus group discussions with communities in four Afghan provinces, this Peace Brief analyzes how nonstate actor control over small-scale mining sites and illegal extraction contributes to conflict, the local political… Read more
Afghanistan has been plagued by large-scale, open looting of mineral resources, involving significant mining operations, bulk transport of minerals along main roads, and crossing the border at just a few, government-controlled points. This mineral… Read more
Afghanistan’s strong revenue performance in 2016, for the second year in a row, is a bright spot amid the serious security, political, and economic challenges the country faces. This Peace Brief analyzes the main ingredients behind this success. In the… Read more
The 2010 collapse of Kabul Bank, at the time a critically important institution in Afghanistan’s banking system, exposed major regulatory and transaction-related deficits in the system that permitted a large degree of fraud. The involvement of the… Read more
Afghanistan experienced an impressive revenue turnaround in 2015. This brief examines the sources of the revenue increase and the actions that helped spur it, and discusses lessons learned and future challenges. Summary After stagnation and decline in… Read more
Reviving the Afghan economy during a time of intensifying violent conflict, declining external financial aid, and ongoing political uncertainty and dysfunction will be extremely challenging. But the country cannot wait for these entrenched problems to be… Read more
The election of Ashraf Ghani as president in 2014 gave Afghans and the international community hope that political reform was on its way. However, thus far, little has been achieved to improve governance and reduce corruption, especially at the local… Read more
Rich in natural resources—ferrous and nonferrous metals and strategic minerals in particular—Afghanistan faces a dual threat as international troops withdraw and international aid declines. On the one hand are inadequate government revenues. On the other… Read more
Mining operations in Afghanistan could be an important generator of economic growth for the country, but they also spark conflicts over environmental effects and perceptions that the economic benefits have been distributed unfairly. Local communities,… Read more