Afghan Women Speak Out: Mariam Nawabi on Development, Jobs, Obama's Policy, and Corruption

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As part of its mission to highlight and promote the stories and perspectives of Afghan women, CODEPINK has launched an ongoing series of print, audio and video interviews "Afghan Women Speak Out," conversations with leading international women activists and policymakers.

For the third interview in the series (view our first and second interview here), CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans interviews Mariam Nawabi, an Afghan-American attorney, social entrepreneur, and activist about Afghan women and Congress' rush to pass another $94 billion for war this week. Nawabi is a founding member of the Afghanistan Advocacy Group, a national network of Americans who wish to engage in dialogue with policymakers regarding development and security in Afghanistan. She served as senior adviser to the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce and Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce from February 2006 until April of 2007. From January 2004 to January 2006, she worked at the Embassy of Afghanistan, serving as Commercial & Trade Counsel.

 Jodie Evans: What would you advise Obama to do?

Direct more money into economic development and the creation of jobs. To end the violence, the money needs to reach villages -- if the money doesn't get to the village itself, there is no change and the young men are left without support and become fodder for the Taliban.

Whether we call it democracy or not, there is no difference in (Afghan) way of life (under the Taliban or US troops), they still living in the crossfire between Taliban and U.S. forces. If the U.S. wants the Taliban out they are going about it backwards.

JE: Should we negotiate with the Taliban?

This whole notion of trying to negotiate with different members of Taliban might be too late. In the beginning, we went against groups we could and should have talked to; we should have talked to them then. When we labeled Taliban as the enemy and sided with warlords, we created categories and ended up creating enemies.

Once you create economic stability, you can have peacekeeping. That is part of the equation and it has to be sequenced in the right order. There may be different areas of the country that require different strategies because of where and who they are.

JE: But the U.S. has invested some money in development?

What the U.S. does now for economic development is mostly wasted. Capacity building is needed and good models of the public/private working together. When we leverage money with private sector we begin to get more efficacy. When you have advice and trainings without tools, nothing happens.

There is a plan to send 4,000 outside-civilian advisers, but these advisers go in for a year and are barely acclimated and then it's time to go. Instead they should send expats back in, they won't have as many language issues, and can be more effective at delivering real support. Afghanistan has had a huge brain