Talk on The Shifting Political and Socioeconomic Landscape in Afghanistan after 2021

Cambridge Central Asia Forum invites you to a talk

 on

The Shifting Political and Socioeconomic Landscape in Afghanistan after 2021

by

Hameed Hakimi, Chatham House & University of Cambridge

Date: 17 October 

Time: 11am-1pm

Venue: Room 119, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DT

Online Zoom registration link: 

https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/AQ50hWn8SNqeWDZGwPjUQg 

Everyone is welcome. 

Abstract: Afghanistan featured heavily in the western media headlines after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. The collapse of the former internationally recognised Afghan government followed the precipitous American-led NATO military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which enabled the Taliban to succeed. The Taliban regime has established control across the country even as it has faced international isolation and domestic resentment. Meanwhile, the human rights situation in the country, particularly the worsening conditions for Afghan women and girls, has deteriorated. The United States, in partnership with its western allies, remained the single most significant international actor which propped up the Afghan state for nearly 20 years. Under the second Trump presidency, however, US foreign policy towards Afghanistan has been radically redefined. This shift has resulted in an almost complete suspension of aid, further deepening the socioeconomic crises facing Afghans. Humanitarian agencies are increasingly confronted with the closure of aid programmes, health and food systems are in collapse, and millions face rising food and environmental insecurity. In the absence of American and other western engagement with Afghanistan, Taliban leaders navigate a web of competing and complex relations with neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, a cautious economic outreach to India and Central Asia, and tentative engagements with China and Russia. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s environmental vulnerability, resource depletion, such as diminishing reserves of drinking water, banking crisis, and forced returns of millions of Afghans from the regional countries, create multilayered and intersecting challenges. These issues could foment longterm humanitarian and security problems that will not be confined to Afghanistan alone.

This presentation will trace the dual crises facing Afghanistan: socioeconomic collapse and political uncertainty. Drawing on primary research and recent publications, the presentation argues that while US disengagement deepens Afghanistan’s fragility, it has also created space for the Taliban regime to pursue more autonomous external engagement and seek realignment of its regional alliance. However, the long-term political, socioeconomic, and infrastructural challenges — coupled with threats such as environmental degradation and a lack of meaningful oppositional movements — will be key to whether Afghanistan achieves prosperity in the future.

Biography: Hameed Hakimi is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. With over 15 years of experience in research design, policy analysis, and project leadership, his research has focused on the conflicts, politics and society within South Asia with a primary emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 2013, his work on the South Asia and Central Asia regions has centred on the nexus between development, state-building, economic integration, peace, violence and security. He has an established track record in leading multi-stakeholder strategic dialogues, high-impact consultative roundtables and institutional partnerships. He has designed projects that combine rigorous methodologies, innovative practices, and multidimensional approaches, drawing on the importance of grassroots engagement and non-Western understandings of complex contexts. Among others, Hameed was a specialist adviser to the UK’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, has advised governments and international organisations, and has extensive fieldwork experience across multiple contexts. His doctoral study at the University of Cambridge critically examines conceptions of security and securitisation in Europe with an emphasis on the intersection of methodological approaches for knowledge production.