Gendered differentiated assistance in situations of conflict

An all too common effect of both short-term and long-term assistance is the creation of dependency among the beneficiaries The project investigate how women's needs and rights are addressed in post-war reconstruction in Afghanistan and focus on dilemmas in use of different aid strategies to include gender sensitive assistance ; e.g. the conflict between principled and pragmatic adaptation to the incorporation of human rights programming. After a review of secondary data on the policies used to during years of refugee assistance, primary data was collected by antropological fieldwork in Herat in April and May 1999. The strategies used by private NGOs and multilateral agencies to provide assistance to women under the reign of Taliban is discussed using the theorectical perspective employed by Deniz Kandioty"Bargaining with Patriarchy" ( 1989).