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A year after the Taliban barred women from universities, many remain bereft of options

Jan 2, 2024
The World Bank has warned the ban on educating women will hurt the country’s prospects for economic growth. 
Male students stand in front of a poster ordering women to wear hijabs at a private university in Kabul in March 2023. Women have been unable to attend universities in Afghanistan since December 2022.
Wakil Koshar/AFP via Getty Images

2 years after fall of Kabul, thousands of Afghan refugees are stuck in legal limbo

Jun 8, 2023
Many Afghan refugees are in the U.S. as parolees, without a clear path to citizenship. Their parole is set to expire within months.
An Afghan refugee family passes temporary housing at a New Jersey Air Force base in December 2021. Many Afghans are in the U.S. as parolees without a clear path to citizenship.
Barbara Davidson-Pool/Getty Images

The costs of banning women from education in Afghanistan are felt everywhere

Jan 6, 2023
The World Bank estimates the costs of not educating girls through high school is between $15 and $30 trillion dollars in lost lifetime productivity and earnings. But the costs go beyond the financial.
Afghan women and girls take part in a protest in front of the Ministry of Education in Kabul on March 26, 2022, demanding that high schools be reopened for girls.
Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP via Getty Images

After Trump-era cuts, refugee agencies have rebuilt to accommodate evacuating Afghans

Nov 10, 2022
Trump Administration-era cuts scaled back refugee programs, but the resettlement of 88,000 Afghans prompted them to ramp up and expand.
The rapid resettlement of Afghans over the last year left many refugee agencies scrambling. Above, a person wears a vest reading "Welcome" in Persian and English at an Afghan refugee camp in New Mexico.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images

How to revive Afghanistan's economy? Taliban reforms, country's ex-central bank says.

Aug 16, 2022
About $7 billion in Afghan Central Bank assets remain frozen in the U.S. Could those funds be used to relieve the country's humanitarian crisis?
Poverty, acute hunger, and inflation have soared since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021. The nation's former central bank governor says until the Taliban makes changes to policies the international community opposes, the economy will remain at a standstill.
Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images

What is the current state of Afghanistan's economy?

Feb 23, 2022
Afghanistan was on the precipice of a humanitarian disaster, and it fell off that precipice, said Madiha Afzal at the Brookings Institution.
People shop at a vegetable market in Kabul in January. Since the Taliban takeover, an estimated 22.8 million Afghans are facing life-threatening food insecurity.
Mohd Rasfan/AFP via Getty Images

How Afghanistan's money exchangers "grease the economy"

Sep 23, 2021
The informal network of exchangers are making money available in ways banks can't, says Cambridge research fellow Nafay Choudhury.
“Given the instability in the country, money exchangers are going to become very important, again, in playing an important role to meet financial needs,” says Nafay Choudhury, research fellow at the University of Cambridge.
Javed Tanveer/AFP via Getty Images

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What Taliban rule has meant for an Afghan American, personally and professionally

Sep 20, 2021
Homa Sorouri spent years working with international aid organizations in Afghanistan. It's "dreadful," she said, to see the work they did disappear.
People wait to withdraw money outside a bank in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Banks were temporarily closed after the Taliban seized power, adding to the chaos.
Javed Tanveer/Getty Images

The tech economy needs minerals and metals, and Afghanistan has got a lot of them

Sep 3, 2021
Journalist and book author Guillaume Pitron explains the barriers to getting those minerals out of the ground and putting them to use.
A copper and cobalt mine in Kolwezi in the Democratic republic of Congo in 2018.
Samir Tounsi/AFP via Getty Images

The Taliban lacks the skill to run an economy, expert says

Sep 1, 2021
Afghanistan's economy needs the help of regional forces and countries, economist Asad Ejaz Butt says.
Images of women at a beauty salon in Kabul are defaced with spray paint.
Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images