Wherever you may be. I am the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center. Two years ago, the taliban seized power in afghanistan. Nearly two years ago, u. S. Forces completed their withdrawal from afghanistan. This month, the Wilson Center is producing a series of content the mark these two anniversaries. It is part of an ongoing series launched soon before the u. S. Withdrawal. Its called hindsight upfront afghanistan. The Initiative Aims to help ensure that afghanistan continues to figure in policy and public debate in washington and beyond. It will keep you informed about the future of afghanistan, its people, the region and why it matters. Ion and why it matters. For more information please see the hindsight upfront afghanistan website at afghanistan. Wilsoncenter. Org. Today i am very pleased to be joined by three prominent and distinguished afghan thought leaders who will participate in a conversation with me about taliban led afghanistan two years on. We will look at what has transpired on policy levels over the last two years and we will also look to the future in terms of what to expect in the next year and what role the International Community can reasonably play to help address afghanistans many complex challenges. Let me very briefly introduce our three panelists. Dr soraya deleo is a physician. She is also served as a visiting fellow at harvard. She is a former afghan minister of Public Health and a former afghan ambassador to the un. Were also delighted to have with us two Wilson Center colleagues dr mir wise balke is a Wilson Center fellow and a scholar of International Relations he is also a specialist on education policy and security hes a former afghan minister of education and a former afghan diplomat mr nader notary is a Wilson Center senior fellow he is also an associate fellow at the osser institute and a visiting fellow at stanford he is an expert on an advocate for human rights justice and peace building he previously served as a Senior Advisor to the president of afghanistan and was a participant from the governor government side in the doha talks with the taliban in 2020 and 2021 so thank you to the three of you for for joining me for this important conversation and lets lets get started and get right into it my first question that i will pose to you all is how would you assess on policy levels the talibans performance over the last two years and well start with you and i would invite you if youd like to describe the talibans brand of basic governance its capacity for basic Service Delivery and Revenue Generation and its use of justice and also how do you think that the talibans level of brutality compares to its time and power in the 1990s over to you. Well thank you so much good morning michael and colleagues on this call its a sad day to to remember two years on directly to a question that we do have at least two types of governance models globally known. Democratic representative governance where the People Matters most and then we have authoritarian ones where certain ideologies or biology or a political agenda through suppression is being enforced on people its rule by law its not rule of law today in afghanistan the brand of the talibans governance is the later the an authoritarian system of governance that has limited views of the governments responsibility towards its citizen. The role of citizen citizens is so many model and therefore or even not being considered in the process of Decision Making delivery of services is not considered as the prime obligation of the state or the authority in charge but obeying the orders and the rule of the of the authority basically controlling the life of every aspect of the life of the population is considered a prime obligation of the citizens. Therefore we have a very repressive system of governance applied with limited scope. Now while theres no delivery of services on health on education the basic services are denied to the population but population are expected not to raise voices and to not have the right to gather and the the right freedom of assembly and the rest of the bill of rights chapters of constitutions that have had since 1990. Over a century at the advance of being practicing most of those rights all of those are being abolished. Now there were your question about their repression and a violation of human rights that compare between the 90s and their second rule theres little difference except from the fact that they today allow media to operate with a restricted and limited level they do love now cameras they didnt in the past so thats the only change however the systematic application of suppression through a state agencies the gdi general director of intelligence and the vice virtue an institution is an addition to their ability to enforce their way of life on population. They enforce a lot extracting revenues for population there is a lot of phrases on them to say that they are collecting taxes which is on one hand they have been successful to collect taxes but on the other hand the taxes are very excessive that does not meet the economic wellbeing of the the country and would not allow the society and the economy to grow but also there are additional taxes that the religious taxes they apply theres no code that the population would know what kind of taxes they have to pay. Some of the old systems are applied some of the some of the new one while a Transparency International ranked ranked them that the corruption has gone down but i urge everybody to look deep down to some of the other indicators look at the level of liquidity that has gone down and with that theres lesser money look at the yes at the custom departments there is a lower level of leakages as it was in the past but there is also a large scale of corruption when you look at the Mining Sector and the way the mining contracts are done and other contracts are. So its a its mostly unfortunately a negative trend a discouraging situation and it needs a careful thought to be pragmatist to help the population but also to look forward for a longer term situation of of the miseries that they bring upon and the population. Well thank you very much for that nadder i want to turn to you know soraya as a Public Health specialist what what do you think have been the most serious Public Health challenges over the last two years in afghanistan and and how if at all have they been addressed you know one big Public Health challenge that we hear so much about is malnutrition so food and serious Food Insecurity what has been done to to address this over the last two years has this severe problem been eased at all and also the taliban as i understand it have backed a who Polio Vaccination Campaign soon after they came to power but they also of course have banned women from working with ngos so how have the taliban impacted international Public Health assistance and what do you think has been the impact on girls and women. Thank you michael i think for for afghanistan the past two years have been dark and not only with regards to the Public Health and Health Sector but overall. Lets lets admit the fact that health care and Health Sector as part of the overall system in any given country and its not an isolated service or system by itself. So what we have seen in afghanistan in the last two years is remarkably tragic and dark. In many fronts including in the area of Public Health. Now until two years ago more than one set of Healthcare Providers were female. The last 20 years investment and Girls Education in jobs and and Overall Development really enhance Girls Education and womens employment in afghanistan and in particular and Health SectorHealth Sectors is traditionally attractive to women in afghanistan it has been attractive for many many decades. Women in afghanistan they have been interested to become physicians or nurses or midwives or they wanted to become teachers. Although that trend has shifted in the last two to three decades they become journalists they they went into other fields for all good reasons including and they become and in media and journalism and and business and military and security and the area of law and Law Enforcement etc. However Health Care Provision was still an attractive field and discipline for many many young women in afghanistan. So what has happened is the the impact of the policies in the last two years has greatly affected healthCare Provision in terms of the supply side but also in terms of the demand side in terms of the supply side we know that many educated people have had to leave the country and of course the Healthcare Professionals are not outside that cohort so we have a Health Workforce shortage. We used to have a Health Workforce shortage but with the brain drain that has become severe. We also had covid19 pandemic worldwide and that affected the Health Workforce in any country whether its in north or in west i mean whether its in in global north or global west. So we we i know my colleagues physicians Healthcare Providers who have been died because of the covid19 infection so that was another burden on on Health Professionals so but but also the supply when you cannot provide regular salaries when you cannot provide continued training when when theres no job prospect Career Development opportunities theres tendency for the Healthcare Providers and professionals also to to be less encouraged and to think of other options and pathways including migration. So thats on the on the supply side on the demand side there has been systematic discrimination to reduce demand especially for girls and women for example province local authorities few months ago they issued a formal letter saying that no woman can come to the clinics or hospital without having a male a companion or a relative. Thats severely restricts womens access to health care. The the letter also went beyond that and they say no doctor or no physician in the clinic or hospital is allowed to treat a female who is presenting herself without a male relative so you see how systematic the the discrimination is when this becomes part of the policy of the system itself. For example in herod one of very progress problems progressive province there was an order a letter in the herod provincial hospital that ultrasound and diagnostic medical sonography is forbidden for women its totally forbidden. Now you see that so the the the restrictions the on board supply and demand side compound the overall access to Care Provision of care and it impacts Child MortalityMaternal MortalityFamilies Health communities wellbeing etc etc. Now that is on top of the on top of the context which is deteriorating Economic Situation that has drought and flood and other natural disasters and overall Food Insecurity. That is when sometimes borders are closed and then you have that affects trades of goods and and supplies and so on and so forth so i think the situation in health is quite complex and unfortunately dark and disappointing. Thank you very much for that very sobering appraisal. Thank you i dont expect this your assessment to be any more optimistic than the others but let me ask you and i know that you wear two hats as an educationist and also someone that focuses on security so two two different sets of questions the first one to you mayor wise on this broader issue of assessing the last two years why do you think the taliban have imposed Girls Education bands and what else stands out for you about the talibans approach to education policy over the last two years and on security the taliban claim that they have weakened Islamic State coruscant which is really the only militant rival of the taliban in afghanistan do you agree with that that they when they say they claim theyve weakened this group and also how have the taliban dealt with al qaeda and other taliban alive terror groups in afghanistan so over to you. Thank you very much michael well before going into the root of while taliban imposing a ban on Girls Education afghanistan i think its better to define taliban then it would be easy to understand why they are imposing that such ban. For me always i i say that the definition or the clear clear definition of taliban is that they are an ideological armed radical groups dominantly with tribal background. So for such a group in any parts of the world not only in afghanistan banning or imposing any rights on women serves not only ideological but also as a means. Because if you go to the decrease of the Supreme Leader of taliban if you go to the the book written by hakani which is forwarded by the mullah it clearly says that there is no any primary concern or primary rules and regulations or obligation of islam or sharia to to deliver education for girls up to the needs. That is why ideologically it is an end to the taliban its an objective not to allow any education opportunity to the women and girls in afghanistan. And also as a means a taliban their looking for ground legitimacy among the fighters among the sympathizers and followers who have fought in the same front with the taliban against the government of afghanistan and against the International Troops and one of the legitimizing factor in the past 20 years was that see they the government of afghanistan and the International Community in afghanistan they are coming to afghanistan to westernize the women of afghanistan or to demoralize the people of afghanistan so since the legitimizing factor has given a legitimacy among few tribal people especially or with deprived background in afghanistan in the rural areas now they know that if they allow Girls Education in afghanistan they will lose that that legitimacy and the rival group in the other radical group isk is trying somehow to gain the same legitimacy to to their own fighters in afghanistan and they are now criticizing taliban for being westernized for dealing with the u. S and they know that if they if they remove that imposing a ban from girls and women or from education then these fighters they will leave the taliban france and and they will join their isk. So means and at the end both serves the taliban and that is why some of the moralistic or some of the the the news or expectations that i have seen from some western diplomats that theyre saying taliban are somehow trying to justify in a way that the taliba the Afghanistan Society is not ready to transform in a way that they or the people they accept Girls Education we have to give time and give space to the taliban that is completely a very optimistic expectation from taliban and that will not happen. And not only that as nadiri was pointing the taliban so far in the past 20 years what they are doing is not any policies or implementation for the development of education or any sector of the society they have done anything they have not done anything except what they are doing is somehow trying to issue a decrease so that they can fulfill their dreams which were not fulfilled in the 90s. That is why on the Education Sector we are always witnessing issuing decreased rules and regulations to impose more limitations to girls and women in afghanistan. Suppose recently though they banned the secondary education the High School Education the universities for women and girls but also recently they have also stopped girls who have little bit higher heights. 10 years old girls not to go to school even at a fourth standard fifth standard though it was supposed to be until sixth standard so this way they are somehow trying to even put a ban or impose a band on on same sex Elementary Education for girls and for daughters. So that is what we have nowadays on Education Sector especially im a little bit concerned that more things i think we have to expect yet from the taliban because so far what they have done is kind of imposing the structural ban on education but for the content also they are somehow trying to to bring changes and transformation for example on curriculum except those subjects which were eliminated from the curriculum system of afghanistan education nowadays they have tried a Pilot Project of illiteracy program to to ideologize or to somehow inco