Suraya Pakzad

Afghanistan

“They’re not down in the village talking with the local community. So they build clinics in areas with no safe water, and one out of five children still die before the age of five.”

I spent the week of International Women’s Day in Washington, DC, taking part in a number of observances and meeting with officials from the State Department and all kinds of agency heads. I had tea at the White House with President Obama and Mrs. Obama. They all listened respectfully to what I had to say. They gave me time to share. No one ever said, “That won’t work.” They wrote it down and said they will try to change things. But I wonder, will there be any change? They’re not always good for action.

I told them that we are grateful for any help we receive, but US aid money goes through too many levels before it reaches the people. The Afghans see that Americans hire their own people to do most of the real work. The international staff need guest houses, staff, cars―so many costs―and soon there’s nothing left.

Generally the aid project idea is not so bad, even though it’s designed in some pretty building in Washington by people who have never been in the field. We need safe water, clinics, and schools. But they have to be in the right places and in the right order. The aid officers don’t know the real priorities, because they’re not down in the village talking with the local community. So they build clinics in areas with no safe water, and one out of five children still die before the age of five.

You are lucky to have a group of strong women like Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Melanne Verveer. But the Ambassador’s Small Grant Fund that Melanne administers is $27 million for women’s capacity building in Afghanistan. The ministry in Afghanistan has 54 branches and 54 directors. There are 12 to 13 million women in Afghanistan, and 34 provinces, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has no credit in any of them. The provincial offices have no computers, and no one who speaks English. They need capacity building, and it is not happening.

Will they put women at every table, or will they put women in a corner and give them $5 million? The US should not support any project, with any amount, where women are not strongly present. This condition should also be imposed by whoever funds the Peace Jirga that’s coming up in April. They keep saying security is the number one issue, but how can they provide security while ignoring half the population?

Most of the women’s organizations do what the donors tell them to do, and no one funds advocacy, even when it’s done carefully with full explanations. It takes advocacy and human rights education to change a culture.

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Suraya Pakzad is the founder of Voice of Women in Afghanistan, an internationally recognized women’s rights advocate, a longtime Peace X Peace member, and a recipient of our 2009 Women, Power, and Peace Award. In 2009 she was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most important people in the world.