Leveraging Afghan youth can stop a brain drain

MUHAMMAD KHURSHID/AFGHAN JOURNALIST

Hasina Rasuli, a physician in her mid-30s, was a teenager when the dark days of oppressive Taliban rule took hold of Afghanistan. As she struggled with her studies to become a doctor, Taliban rulers dealt out brutal punishments to Afghan citizens whom they judged as violators of their strict and unusual interpretation of Islamic Shariah law. Girls and women were forced to leave their jobs and studies and spend most of their time at home. Government-approved massacres of women, children and men were commonplace during the five years of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001. One such attack on Rasuli’s hometown of Mazar-e Sharif in August 1998 saw more than 5,000 civilians murdered in a single day.

The 2001 overthrow of the Taliban helped Rasuli to continue her medical studies, which she completed in 2005. Her experience since — fighting against malnutrition and for women’s rights in her country with various national and international aid groups — illustrates how educated young Afghans can help meet the pressing needs of their country. The start of 2014, however, found Rasuli living in Ottawa, Canada, still serving Afghanistan but no longer living there.

Rasuli is among many young Afghans who have taken their education and skills abroad. Western Europe, the countries of the Arabian Gulf, the Americas and Australia are all popular destinations. This uptick in migration of educated youth has been reported by the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations. Left behind, meanwhile, is a much larger youth population — many of whom lack the means, contacts and language skills to leave. “Uncertainty about the future” is the most often cited cause of this diaspora of qualified youth.

Despite this state of affairs, Afghanistan is striving to keep its talented youth closer to home.

Strengthening Afghanistan

Shaharzad Akbar, 25, who made headlines in 2009 as the first Afghan woman to study at Oxford University, does not accept the inevitability of a doomsday scenario in which educated young people flee the country, and the rest of the population is left to the mercy of warlords and a resurgent Taliban. She views herself as just one of a large core of able young Afghans who are willing to apply their talents to rebuilding the country and sustain what they call “the achievements of the past 12 years.”

Akbar leads an organization called Afghanistan 1400, whose work is dedicated to this end.

“In the past 10 years, new generations of Afghans have come of age,” Akbar said. “They have a different vision of the country. They are more willing to work with each other, to look past their differences for a shared future. They have strong democratic values that they can’t see in the current political actors. There has to be a platform to mobilize that energy and that vision – 1400 is aiming to become that platform.”

Afghanistan 1400’s activities include efforts to involve Afghan citizens in the political process, by educating and encouraging them to vote. A successful democratic transition of government is something Afghanistan badly needs, she explained. In addition, her organization has challenged extremists at home. She described an incident in Afghanistan’s Farah province in which an explosion by a Taliban suicide bomber killed 50 villagers. Within days of the attack, she said, Afghanistan 1400 dispatched a team to the village “to offer sympathy to the victims, but also defiance and strength in the face of the attack and to show the attackers that this will not go on in the new Afghanistan.”

Understanding the Brain Drain

A trio of underlying factors can explain why some young Afghans have chosen to leave their country — as well as hold the keys to developing a healthy future for the country, according to Afghan youth activist Maiwand Rahyab. He began his career during Taliban rule, opening home-based schools for girls in Mazar-e Sharif. He helped set up Afghanistan 1400 and most recently served as deputy director for the Initiative to Promote Afghan Civil Society, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“Access to education is key to the success of Afghanistan and key to the empowerment of youth,” said Rahyab in a Unipath interview. “So we need to invest in education, both in the rural areas but also in higher education. Second, we need to be sure that we provide sustainable economic opportunities for Afghan youth so that they can be employed and contribute effectively to the economy. Third, we need to trust the youth.”

Education, said Rahyab, poses a twofold challenge in today’s Afghanistan: lack of access and lack of relevance. School enrollment increased dramatically, from 1 million to 10.5 million, between 2001 and 2013. But an estimated 3 million children remain unenrolled, a problem most notable in rural provinces. Moreover, he explained that the substantial growth in the number of universities in the past decade has not kept up with demand for admissions. “And when there is education, it’s often not relevant. The system and the content of the education are not relevant to the current needs of Afghanistan.”

Demand for quality education has drawn many young Afghans away from home, often to universities in Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe, which offer special scholarships for qualified Afghan students. That a number of them, such as Hasina Rasuli, who studied in the United States for graduate school, eventually settle and work abroad, supports Rahyab’s second point concerning lack of quality employment opportunities in Afghanistan.

Rahyab also acknowledged widespread concern about the disappearance of jobs at international companies and agencies once Afghan security forces take charge of the country. But he insisted that optimism is not hard to find among his country’s youth. He called this concern somewhat “overrated,” and said that opportunities for young people do indeed exist, including in places such as the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), which he credited with winning battles and “having earned the respect and trust of the Afghan people.”

Trust, Rahyab’s third issue, is also central to preventing educated youth from leaving.

“Youth who have been educated and have been involved in the last 10 to 12 years in Afghanistan’s development, see an increasing pressure from society — given that Afghanistan is a traditional society — that youth is not seen as influential, as not being able to contribute effectively,” he said. “We need to trust them, we need to support them so that they can realize their potential and contribute to the development of the country.”

However, as much as the old distrust the young, the young distrust the old. They can’t relate to older generations, Akbar said of today’s youth.

Future Opportunities

Support for the ANSF is a focus of Afghanistan 1400. Akbar described a Taliban attack in Kabul in which a member of the security forces was wounded, but continued to fight despite blood flowing down his leg. The scene was captured by a photographer, and 1400 proceeded to frame the image on posters and billboards across Kabul, thereby initiating “a culture of support for our security forces.”

Akbar and Rahyab emphasized the roles of the ANSF and successful elections in securing Afghanistan’s future, adding that there are now several organizations with names such as Afghan Analysis and Awareness (A3) that have missions similar to that of Afghanistan 1400, working to make the country an attractive home for the best and brightest of the country’s youth.

“A large number of youth in Afghanistan look at 2014 as an opportunity,” said Rahyab. “There is certainly need for more investment. More investment in education, more investment in health, more investment in political processes. Given that the majority of the population is youth, all such investment are going to empower Afghan youth. Also, there is a need for the international community to help the Afghan government provide more space and opportunity for youth engagement in the decision-making process. Youth need to be trusted, they need to be empowered, be engaged in the political process.”