International Conference on Afghanistan: Progress or Platitudes?

By Jessica Zimerman

World leaders met in Bonn, Germany on December 5, 2011 to lay “the foundation of the ongoing partnership between Afghanistan and the International Community, and to renew our mutual commitment to a stable, democratic and prosperous future for the Afghan people.” Aptly scheduled on the 10th anniversary of the initial Bonn Conference and its subsequent Bonn Agreement that formally ended the Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan, the International Conference on Afghanistan brought together delegates from 85 countries and 15 international organizations, including members of this Network.

The potential of the conference to make measurable headway on key issues, such as reconciliation, was limited by several pre-conference developments, including the September assassination of the Chairman of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani. Further, just days before the conference, a NATO airstrike that resulted in 24 Pakistani casualties pushed Pakistan to boycott the conference completely.

In its outcome document (available here), the conference established joint commitments on the following issues: governance; security; peace process; economic and social development; and regional cooperation.

The 2001 Bonn Conference established a Ministry of Women’s Affairs in addition to the Afghan Human Rights Commission, so Bonn 2011 represented major opportunity to further enshrine gender equality and human rights in Afghanistan’s post-2014 order. While certain significant steps forward were taken in this regard – mainly that there was notable female representation on the official Afghan delegation (13 out of 40 delegates were in fact women) and women’s rights were formally recognized on several occasions in the Conference Conclusions – the outcomes of the conference could be interpreted as more symbolic than substantial. To read more about the role of women at Bonn, please click here.