“Data and technology – including geospatial technology and satellite imagery – clearly have the potential to improve global peacebuilding and peacekeeping efforts" Sara Pantuliano, Chief Executive ODI At the invitation of HE Dame Barbara Woodward, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations , and current President of the United Nations Security Council, ODI ’s Chief Executive Sara Pantuliano addressed members of the UN's Security Coun

“We inform all farmers…that, poppy cultivation isn’t allowed after today. If anyone cultivates poppy, their land will be eradicated & the person arrested by the government. In addition: use, trade, transport, production, import and export of all types of drugs…isn’t allowed” This is like travelling back more than 20 years without any of the benefits of youth. As with the Taliban ban before, it seems to be more about geopolitics and leveraging development assistance -perhaps m

The economic crisis is wreaking havoc on the Afghan population. Since the Taliban takeover, the Afghani has depreciated by a third, the price of basic food items has more than doubled and large numbers of public sector employees have found themselves without pay. However, there is a part of the economy that is prospering, bolstered by the Taliban’s intervention. In the 1st week of December 2021, the Taliban banned the harvesting of ephedra in the provinces of Ghor, Farah, N

Since the Taliban take over in August last year, there has been increasing rhetoric on both sides around the highly contentious fence the Pakistan Government has now nearly completed along the length of its border with Afghanistan. In recent months, several social media posts have attempted to infer that the Afghan Taliban have been dismantling the fence in places where it has been constructed. These would appear to be mostly posturing. It is notable then that a video and p

The cost of the economic crisis in Afghanistan will be borne far beyond the country’s borders. The Afghan population is suffering from economic crisis and drought, with rural people especially vulnerable. They lack functioning markets for legal cash crops, public sector employment has collapsed and the private sector, once buoyed by international spending, is imploding. Many are trying to escape, leaving the country in large numbers via Zaranj in the South West of the countr

So Wrong for So Long: Estimating Insurgency Funding in Afghanistan and the Political Economy of Reporting

Up to $100 Million Up in Smoke with Further Losses Downwind. The Economic Effects of the fire at Islam Qala

Explaining the facts behind the devastating floods in Parwan provice, Afghanistan in August 2020.

In 2001, following the fall of the Taliban, people started encroaching upon the deserts of south west Afghanistan.