National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA)

In order to make Afghanistan a peaceful and progressive country where women and men enjoy security, equal rights and opportunities in all aspects of life, the government developed a national action plan for the women of Afghanistan (NAPWA) for the period of 2007-2017. The plan aims to actively promote institutions and individuals to be responsible implementers of women‘s empowerment and gender equality by providing clear focus and direction, coordinated action, and shared commitment to the Government‘s vision.
NAPWA will pursue the twin goals of women’s empowerment and gender equality. The NAPWA goals will be pursued through a three-pronged, interlocking gender equity strategy that has been adopted by the Government under the Afghanistan Compact and the Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy (I-ANDS), which is: (i) to eliminate discrimination against women, (ii) develop their human capital and (iii) ensure their leadership in order to guarantee their full and equal participation in all aspects of life. The first two strategies are preconditions to women‘s empowerment, and can be effectively pursued through partnership between women and men. The last is both an outcome and a facilitating factor for Government‘s goals of women‘s empowerment and gender equality.
Regarding the reduction of rural poverty, the NAPWA envisages to create an enabling economic and social environment that is conducive to the full development and realization of women’s economic potential. To attain this goal, the following objectives will be pursued: (i) Gender analysis of macroeconomic policies, including trade policies, to make them responsive to women‘s particular needs as economic agents; (ii) adoption of affirmative action policies in recruitment and allocation of opportunities for skill and vocational trainings and provision of financial and other business services to gradually bring parity in terms of economic opportunities available to women and men; (iii) development of gender sensitive socio-economic surveys that pay special attention to sex disaggregated data and unconventional definitions of work in order to enable counting of women‘s productive work and non-monetized contributions to the economy; (iv) development and strengthening of institutional mechanisms and reform of policies, procedures and laws to create an environment more conducive to women‘s economic empowerment and (v) incorporation of critical gender concerns into the planning, programming, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all programmes and activities designed to increase women‘s access to employment and income generating activities.
In addition, the NAPWA plans to increase the enrolment and retention rates of girls and women at all levels of education, including vocational and non-formal education, and to create an enabling environment where girls and women have equal access to all levels of education, equal treatment in the classroom and equal opportunity to complete the highest possible level and quality of education within the appropriate time period. In attaining this goal, the Government of Afghanistan will pursue the following objectives: (i) reducing the constraints to girls‘ and women‘s access to education, with special emphasis on early child marriages, sexual harassment, and physical access; (ii) increasing girls‘ and women‘s access to quality education in rural and urban areas; (iii) implementing a public outreach campaign to raise awareness in communities of the importance of female education to the well-being of girls and women, families and the development of Afghanistan; (iv) attaining equal participation of women in all positions and levels of the education system, from teaching to policy making; (v) adopting and implementing affirmative action policies for the recruitment of female teachers and for the entrance examination of girls and women in tertiary education; and (vi) strengthening the quality and quantity of in-service training for teachers, especially female teachers.
In the context of governance, the implementation of the gender strategies in the I-ANDS and other policy instruments on women is facilitated through NAPWA, which supports all ministries in incorporating gender into their respective implementation plans and sets up ministry-wide processes and mechanisms to ensure the participation of both women and men in the mainstreaming of gender. At the macro level, certain processes and mechanisms will be instituted outside of the ANDS to allow a more inclusive and in-depth discussion on women‘s situation and women‘s empowerment as necessary component of achieving gender equality as outlined in NAPWA and the ANDS. In all these processes, MOWA will act as a key partner for other ministries providing leadership and policy advice on gender mainstreaming, coordinating actions, and facilitating the flow of resources to concerned implementers whenever necessary. Government ministries and instrumentalities will be accountable for implementing gender concerns under their respective areas of operation while strategically partnering with NGOs, academia, media, religious groups, business, and the international community, among other stakeholders.