When U.S. or NATO soldiers need to communicate with Afghan villagers, they rely on translators provided by private contractors. But for various reasons, translators in Afghanistan often don't relate everything they hear. And what is lost in translation can hurt efforts by NATO and the U.S.-led coalition to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. In the worst cases, innocent civilians can be arrested or wrongly targeted.

Afghanistan has now laid the foundation for a market-based economy. A new economic system, based on the state as a regulator, not a producer, of goods, with a clear separation between the public and private sectors, stands in place of the centralized economy of the past. An independent central bank, a liberalized foreign exchange system, and laws permitting foreigners to wholly own property characterize the new economic landscape. A doubling of the gross national product and per capita income, a more...

The UN Refugee Agency reports that with the fall of the Tailban regime almost 1.2 million Afghans were internally displaced and now most of internally displaced have returned to their place of origin.

The majority of the IDPs in Afghanistan returned spontaneously and some 98,838 families (489,507 individuals) were assisted by UNHCR from 2002 to February 2008 on the basis of a MoU signed between the Government of Afghanistan, UNAMA and UNHCR giving UNHCR a lead support role in relation to IDPs more...

This book is the outcome of a long process ofworking at one of the frontiers of governance studies and governance practice: the involvement of local governments in issues of peacebuilding. Published by VNG International on the occasion of the first World Conference on City Diplomacy, June 2008 in The Hague, the editors are: Arne Musch (principal editor), Chris van der Valk, Alexandra Sizoo and Kian Tajbakhsh. The publication's authors are Alexandra Sizoo, Arne Musch, Antonio Papisca, Martijn Kl more...