Outcome AFG_D_4.2

Women are represented and meaningfully participate in all peace and security, peace-building, recovery and humanitarian processes, including formal and informal peace negotiations and forums

ACO leveraged the political opportunities when Afghan women peacebuilders on all tracks (I, II and III) needed the support most. The intra-Afghan peace talks between the GIRoA and the Taliban include four women negotiators on the GIRoA negotiating team of 24 members. The presence of women leaders in Track I, and ensuring their linkages with women peacebuilders and networks at provinces a grassroots level (Tracks II, III) remained high in the visibility and the political landscape domestically and globally. Four women negotiators managed to include challenging agenda points on the gains on women’s rights and leadership in the agenda of negotiations in Doha as well as keep the achievements high among the international community’s advocacy and lobby. ACO’s partnerships with the SMP and HCNR that solidified policies, mechanisms and enhanced process ensured women’s participation in peacebuilding priorities remained central. Other partnerships with the WPS line-ministries included partnerships with the MoIA to strengthen efforts on enabling and safe working conditions for women serving within the ANP, progressing of NAP Phase II (2019-22) with MoFA, through inter-ministerial engagement. Results were complemented by partnerships with women networks, CSO and thinks tanks to produce thematic tools, analytical briefs and data driven innovative platforms to inform a multitrack peace process that enabled grassroot /provincial women voices to directly inform formal decision-making spaces, and the Track I peace talks in Doha. The revolutionary hackathon #peacethreads campaign, Policy Space Dialogues (after collapse of the GIRoA), Initiation of establishing the young women gross-generational peacebuilding network, developments of the digital platforms of code4peace and “Bishnaw” Women Peace Circle with monthly fact-based peace briefs, “Sustaining Peace briefs” that were developed together with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Hard Talk series (bringing together national WPS experts and international community) are the flagships support for Afghan women’s peace movement before and after the Taliban takeover. Highlights also include finalization of the Gender Sensitive Conflict Analyses that UN Women together with UNAMA worked. Other knowledge products of 2021 include “Status of women in the ANP” research paper. On Humanitarian space, since May 2021, Afghanistan has been operating in a complex emergency scenario resulting from dramatic consequences of COVID 19, and the exacerbated tensions and territorial power shifts. While all population groups across the country have been drastically impacted by this change, the consequences for women and girls have been most significant due to the marginalization they already face in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban takeover on 15th August 2021 and the subsequent full international troop withdrawal, the situation in Afghanistan has been marked by escalating gender inequality and the need for humanitarian intervention more broadly. Restrictions across the country are also preventing women from participating in humanitarian interventions. A large number of women-led CSOs and women workers are reporting that they can no longer provide life- saving protection support. This is because of recent announcements by the de facto authorities, as well self- censoring by women out of fear and insecurity and increasing family-imposed restrictions on women and girls due to fear of peer policing. In 2021, ACO leveraged its influence to strengthen accountability and capacity towards gender in humanitarian action in the humanitarian response in Afghanistan by ensuring gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is central to the 2022 Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan, Humanitarian Needs Overview and the HCT Interim Protection Strategy

Women are represented and meaningfully participate in all peace and security, peace-building, recovery and humanitarian processes, including formal and informal peace negotiations and forums

There has been an overall regression on this outcome in 2022 for Afghanistan given restrictions paused on women and shrinking space for CSOs and specifically women led CSOs to operate. Nonetheless, on the Humanitarian fronts, In 2022, UN Women stepped up initiatives to enhance the participation of women in the humanitarian coordination architecture both at national and provincial levels. At the national level UN Women supported the Afghan Women’s Advisory Group to the HCT with technical support to provide guidance and information on the situation of women and girls as well as participate in both national and regional humanitarian coordination platforms led by OCHA. The Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group also consistently called on women led organizations to participate in the GiHA working group and other cluster meetings in order to contribute to the decisions, planning and analysis of the humanitarian response. In 2022, UN Women started decentralizing the GiHA working groups led by UN Women senior national staff stationed in the field. They maintained continued presence in five regions actively participating in humanitarian coordination meetings and proactively encouraging other women led organizations to join in. As of December 2022 one local GiHA working group had been set up in Northern region and two were underway in Western and Southern Regions of Afghanistan. Going forward, these forums will be sustained and given gravitas to engage with the Inter Cluster Coordination teams (ICCTs) and Regional Humanitarian Teams (RHTs), while information will be shared with women organizations and their voices raised in these forums. Conscious of the language barriers, UN Women provides translation services to ensure messages are well received by women CSO’s as well. On WPS, no national peace and security processes existed in 2022, as the peace process collapsed in 2021 after the Taliban takeover. In the absence of national platforms for women related to peace and security, UN Women, in partnership with UNAMA, undertook consultations with Afghan women across the country to feed their perspectives in UN decision-making in Afghanistan and HQ. This approach has ensured that the voices of Afghan women leaders are represented in fora related to peace, security and humanitarian issues, contributing to gender outcomes such as WPS language in the UNAMA mandate renewal.