EVALUATING THE ROLE OF NORWEGIAN AID IN AFGHAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: SWOT ANALYSIS AND THE ROLE OF ACTORS

Abstract

Afghanistan's current reliance and dependency on foreign aid is not only due to the past three to four decades of war and civil dissension but came about even before the era of conflict. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in December 2001, Afghanistan has become an engaging country in the eyes of the international community and since then has become one of the largest recipients of foreign aid. The international community has pledged a huge amount of assistance for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan. The main aim of this research paper is to attempt evaluating policy developments in Norwegian assistance to Afghanistan for economic and social development by employing SWOT analysis, understand the role of key actors involved in driving policy developments, and international agreements related to Norwegian aid assistance to Afghanistan. This policy analysis is grounded on the stages approach to the policymaking process. While the stages include agenda-setting, formulation, decision-making, implementation, and policy evaluation (Howlett, Ramesh & Perl, 2009), this paper largely focuses on the evaluation stage of policymaking.