In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Just yesterday, on November 15 in Kabul and Washington, D.C., The Asia Foundation released the results of its 2011 Survey of the Afghan People.

The annual Survey of the Afghan People is the most comprehensive and credible nationwide poll of public opinion on topics related to national mood, governance, security, and development in Afghanistan. In 2011, the survey polled over 6,300 respondents from all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

The Asia Foundation interviewed 6,348 adult Afghans, across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan in face-to-face interviews for the 2011 Survey. Above, surveyors poll a resident in Bamyan Province.

With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), The Asia Foundation has implemented the survey since 2004. Over this period, the survey has generated a treasure trove of data and information, and the changes over time in the views and mindset of the people of Afghanistan.

The opinions of average Afghans matter a great deal in a country that continues to face enormous challenges in governance, security, and livelihoods. Good understanding among national leaders and international “influencers” of the views of the general population are also crucial as the struggling nation attempts to define its national vision while being buffeted by the inconstant waves of international intervention and regional competition.

Read more »

In Asia’s editor, Alma Freeman, interviewed 2011 Survey of the Afghan People co-author and former Asia Foundation program director for Law, Human Rights, and Women’s Empowerment in Kabul, Najla Ayubi, for her reaction to the findings of The Asia Foundation’s 2011 Survey and what they might mean for women’s rights, peace talks, and more. Ayubi is currently the Afghanistan country director for the Open Society Foundation.

As a survey author, what surprised you most about this year’s findings?

The high support for peace and reconciliation was a very surprising and important finding in this year’s survey. It’s surprising to see that 82 percent of the people support peace and reconciliation, which has interesting implications for the peace process. I also found it surprising that 74 percent of the respondents said they have confidence in religious leaders and 70 percent of respondents say that religious leaders should be consulted on problems facing an area. Also, 46 percent say that the country is going in the right direction, and only 35 percent say it is going in the wrong direction. That’s positive news, but since last year, the percentage of people who think the country is going in the wrong direction has increased by 8 percent. In 2009, that figure was 29 percent. To me, this reveals an unstable attitude of the people on whether their country is moving in the right direction.

Women respondents report lower levels of support than men for reconciliation with armed opposition groups. What do you make of this?

Women have been marginalized by the Taliban and other armed opposition groups for decades. That’s why woman don’t have much empathy for the armed opposition groups, and are not as supportive as men for the so called peace and reconciliation process which is going on with the government. In many cases, they feel they won’t get any benefit from this type of negotiation – specifically, they worry their rights will be compromised, and for me as an Afghan woman, I’m also afraid that my rights will be compromised during these peace talks. Two of the biggest issues that affect women’s lives here are the lack of freedom of movement to work outside of the home and access to education. In the current peace talks, how this will be factored in is totally up in the air. It’s very clear that women support peace, but not the kind of approach that risks compromising their rights.

Also, women are only symbolically part of the peace talks: some women have been put in high-level positions, like at the High Peace Council or at the local, provincial level in peace talk committees, but they aren’t able to actually represent women’s voices and interests there. For example, some of the women representatives in the High Peace Council have said that in many cases when there is a peace talk trip inside of the country, they are not allowed to be part of the delegation. The male representatives say that due to the security situation, women aren’t able to come. But this makes me ask, if the security is a problem for women, why is it not a problem for men? If the men can go and be protected by security forces, then why can’t the same be done for women? It’s more of a stereotype or patriarchal thinking that women are not eligible to be in peace talks rather than anything having to do with their ability.

Read more »

Religious leaders received the highest vote of confidence and optimism of the Afghan people among local governance institutions, according to The Asia Foundation’s 2011 Survey of the Afghan People. Seventy percent of respondents say that there should be regular consultation with religious leaders about problems in their area, while 74 percent rank religious leaders as one of the three most trusted institutions. This trend is the highest since 2006, when 61 percent of respondents said there should be regular consultation with religious leaders.

In Afghanistan’s history, the only consistent, “24-7″ local governance institution available to the public has been the religious leaders, known as mullahs or imams. They are positioned in the heart of each village and community in the Masjid (mosque) which exists in every village and even in some larger houses. In fact, one cannot find a single village and community in the country where there is no Masjid. As such, religious leaders have played a critical role in all stages of an Afghan’s life – from childhood to adult. When a child is first born, her first move from the cradle is to see an imam who recites the words of Azan into the child’s ears. When a child is 2-3 years old, she starts going regularly to the Masjid to learn the Quran and other faith-related books from religious leaders. A new marriage is not complete until the imam confirms the marriage contract between the bride and groom. Religious leaders also read letters from far-flung family members for people who can’t read. Finally, an imam is the last one to speak at a funeral ceremony.

Read more »

For the first time since 2007, respondents in The Asia Foundation’s 2011 Survey of the Afghan People cited reconstruction and rebuilding as the most important reason for optimism.

The level of optimism for reconstruction and rebuilding is high across all 34 provinces, but particularly so in the West, Central/Kabul, South East, South West, and East regions and urban areas. The level of optimism is nearly the same for men and women, as well as all ethnic groups, except Hazara who reported slightly lower figures.

Respondents in the 2011 Survey who reported the need for reconstruction as a reason for pessimism is at the lowest level since the Foundation first conduced the survey in 2004.

The finding highlights a link that respondents perceive between the direction of progress in the country and the ability of government to provide essential services and support for development projects. Respondents report the highest level of satisfaction with the availability of education for children, with almost three quarters (73%) saying this is quite good or very good in their local area. A similarly high proportion of respondents say the same about the availability of clean drinking water (70%) and freedom of movement or their ability to move safely in their area or district (70%). More than two thirds (69%) of respondents say the security situation is quite good or very good in the area where they live.

On the other hand, people are least satisfied with the availability of jobs. More than two thirds (70%) of respondents say the availability of jobs in their local area is quite bad or very bad. Almost two thirds (65%) say the same about the supply of electricity. Although procurement of electricity is an ongoing focus of President Karzai’s administration, including some success at bringing in electricity from neighboring countries, local potential for greater electricity supply has not been tapped. The delay has resulted in lost of revenue for the country and potential infrastructural construction job opportunities.

Read more »

In September, my colleague William Cole and I wrote about a revolution in data analytics that is affecting how many of us in the development field manage and analyze information. In that blog post, we expressed support for the growing open data movement that is an integral part of this transformational moment. So, with that in mind, in conjunction with the November 15 launch of The Asia Foundation’s 2011 Survey of the Afghan People, we released data from six years of public opinion survey research in Afghanistan in a machine-readable format, accessible to anyone with an interest in the data. Available for download at an interactive mapping and data visualization micro-site connected to The Asia Foundation website, Visualizing Afghanistan: A Survey of the Afghan People, presents data to anyone who wishes to explore, analyze, or republish it.

We are excited not only about the promise of “open data” but also because of the changes we see in how researchers and data scientists are handling and exploring large, open data sets. Data visualization and processing tools are coming into their own and further fueling the data revolution. In fact, some of these new and powerful tools for visualizing data are on display at Visualizing Afghanistan. We’ve structured the experience in such a way that users can intuitively explore key survey questions using Google Maps, move through six years of data, and disaggregate data in a variety of ways to see and analyze trends. Users can map responses by region, compare national or regional totals on a year-by-year basis, or expand and explore supplementary data.

The Open Data Movement, the notion that certain types of should data be “open” and available to all for analysis and evaluation, is an idea that’s creating new opportunities to strengthen development efforts across many fields. For The Asia Foundation, we see opportunities in areas like transparency, accountability, and good governance where open data can help enhance efforts to build more responsive and effective institutions of governance.

We developed Visualizing Afghanistan to bring even more accessibility to our survey data in Afghanistan. We invite you to have a look, download the data, and build your own visualization. If you do, please share it with us at digitalmedia@asiafound.org. We hope your own exploration of our data resources on Afghanistan sheds new light on a complex region.

John Karr is The Asia Foundation’s director of Digital Media. He can be reached at jkarr@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On November 15, The Asia Foundation will release findings from “Afghanistan in 2011: A Survey of the Afghan People” – the broadest and most comprehensive public opinion poll in the country covering all 34 provinces. Candid, first-hand data was gleaned from face-to-face interviews with more than 6,300 Afghan citizens on a variety of contemporary issues, including security, corruption, women’s rights, the economy, development, and the Taliban. Survey launch events are scheduled for November 15 in Kabul, and in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Institute of Peace, on November 18 in New York, and November 22 in London.

Stay tuned for next week’s In Asia, where we’ll be featuring analysis of key survey findings from The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Afghanistan, Bruce J. Tolentino, and survey authors Mohammad Osman Tariq, Najla Ayoubi, and Fazel Rabi Haqbeen.

This brand-new slideshow captures some of the 6,348 interviews as they took place, with pollsters traveling long, arduous distances to survey community members across all 34 diverse provinces.