Women’s Empowerment and Sustainable Peace: Poverty, Participation, and National Unity

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

The First Lady of the country, Respected Dr. Abdullah, the Minister of Women’s Affairs, honorable members of the cabinet, esteemed sisters, the Ambassador of Italy, the spouse of the Ambassador of Italy, and all distinguished attendees of this gathering—first and foremost, I offer you the greeting of the leader of humanity: Peace be upon you, alongside the blessings and mercy of Allah!

My address today is structured around four distinct sections. My first thematic focus is that under the National Unity Government, every single day is Women's Day.

Structural Progress and National Institutional Representation

First, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) for presenting a monumental gift to the Afghan nation on the occasion of March 8th. The democratic election of Ms. Nuristani and Ms. Shinwari by a majority vote that included Afghan men proves a critical shift: leadership is no longer imposed from the top down; rather, you are electing your own leadership. Today, these two commissions have entrusted the management of Afghanistan's most critical national process into the capable hands of two women. This structural cooperation between men and women sets a clear benchmark not only at the national level but also across the region and, Inshallah, internationally, serving as an exemplary model within the Islamic world.

Secondly, your vibrant presence in senior executive portfolios today proves that the structural participation of women at the highest echelons of government has achieved remarkable progress. The people of Afghanistan are no longer surprised when a woman is appointed to a novel leadership position. Their only question now is where women have not yet been appointed. The deep-seated cognitive barriers that once stood in the way have been dismantled.

The people of Afghanistan are waiting to see the systematic, fundamental integration of women across all sectors. This positive momentum will continue, Inshallah, day by day, over the coming years and the next decade. Furthermore, women are now active stakeholders in every major national policy discourse. While the National Unity Government is proud to have facilitated this platform for your active engagement, I want to thank you for maximizing these opportunities. I specifically congratulate you on forging a national consensus on peace—a historic milestone without precedent in Afghanistan's history. Beyond Kabul, 700 women from the provinces established a unified voice and issued a comprehensive joint resolution. Congratulations to all of you!

Today, you have largely answered the burning question faced by the Afghan child. A few years ago, a decade ago, or specifically eighteen years ago, an Afghan child would ask: What will become of me? How will this society define my boundaries? What goals am I permitted to achieve, and what is forbidden to me?

Today, the answer is crystal clear. An Afghan girl can confidently look to role models like Royah Rahmani and Adela Raz and see that she can serve as our ambassador to the world's largest powers or represent us at the United Nations. She can look to leaders like Ms. Nadima Sahar, Ms. Nuristani, Ms. Shinwari, Dr. Sima Samar, or Ms. Ghazanfar and know she can lead national commissions. She can look to Ministers like Ms. Nehan, Ms. Safi, and Ms. Nazari and know she can run ministries or sit as a justice on the Supreme Court. The Afghan woman and child of today do not suffer from a lack of role models. She can be a parliamentarian, a senator, a judge, and above all, an active leader across every vital sector.

This historic transition from the dark days of systemic exclusion to our current reality did not happen overnight; it is the cumulative harvest of an eighteen-year journey. While we express our deep gratitude to the international community for their partnership in this sector, it is our sincere hope that the sustainability of this path remains unquestioned.

What gives us immense hope is that this dialogue is no longer centered exclusively on Kabul. Just last week, I traveled to Kunar, and before that to Nimruz. Yesterday, I was in Farah, and late last night I was in Kandahar. Throughout all these regions, the women of Afghanistan spoke with an incredibly eloquent, organized voice, presenting a highly articulate vision for their future. I congratulate all Afghan women, men, and citizens on this historic national transformation, and I extend a special note of congratulations to my esteemed colleague, Dr. Abdullah.

Transitioning from Advocacy to Executive Decision-Making

The second part of my address focuses on how you must deploy your current organization, unified voice, and strategic positioning. As Ms. Safi has highlighted on multiple occasions, you have successfully migrated from basic advocacy to structural participation, from participation to executive decision-making, and from the margins of power straight into the text of national policy. The question that arises now is: How will you utilize this capacity, power, and authority?

The core imperative is balancing continuity and transformation within the explicit framework of our Islamic and national values. The National Unity Government has consistently championed women's rights through the lens of these foundational values.

We demand nothing else. If we look for a model for women in commerce and economics, our ultimate example is Hazrat Khadija (RA). If we seek a model for women in scholarship and academic authority, our example is Bibi Aisha (RA). If we look for models of deep piety, spiritual resilience, and courage, they are Bibi Fatima (RA) and Bibi Zainab (RA).

All these historical archetypes must remain clear and explicit in our minds. Our vocabulary is an Islamic and national vocabulary. The vast majority of the Afghan population does not understand English, French, or Greek. Therefore, our terminology must be familiar, our concepts lucid, and our objectives clearly defined. I know this intimately, and we take immense pride in it.

I lived in exile for 24 years, which combines with my formal education to total 30 years abroad. Yet, whenever we communicate with our people, our absolute priority is to speak in Turkmen, Uzbek, Balochi, Pashto, and Dari, utilizing concepts that resonate deeply with them. Building seamless coordination between religious scholars and women's networks is entirely vital and mandatory to maintain this balance between continuity and progress.

In this regard, I felt an immense sense of pride during my recent town hall meetings in Helmand and Paktika. In both provinces, highly respected tribal elders stood up and asked me: Do you know what our true, underlying pain is? I was bracing myself for traditional grievances, but they declared: Our real pain is that we lack access to education, and we have failed to invest in our women so they can attend school. Communities that eighteen years ago would state they did not want education for girls were today making their primary demand: Come and urgently build a dedicated girls' academy for us in Sharana.

When a society arrives at this realization indigenously, with religious scholars and elders standing at the front lines of the movement, the progress becomes sustainable and permanent. Therefore, we must now look at the world from the perspective of Afghanistan, rather than looking at Afghanistan through an external lens. Historically, others have claimed to represent us, analyzed our problems from afar, and prescribed external blueprints. While that was part of international cooperation—which we value since we live in an interdependent global community—a nation only truly advances when it analyzes its own core challenges, formulates its own indigenous solutions, and maps out actionable roadmaps.

Secondly, every single policy debate we conduct must be comprehensively inclusive of the entire country. With the ultimate respect, Kabul is not the whole of Afghanistan, and Wazir Akbar Khan is not the whole of Kabul. Today, neighborhoods like Musayi, Char Asiab, and Khak-e Jabbar are as structurally distant from central Kabul as Kabul is from Washington, New York, or Berlin. If this critical divide between central Kabul and its surrounding districts is not bridged, and if the relationship between the capital and the provinces is not addressed fundamentally, our progress cannot remain stable.

Your greatest strength today lies in the fact that your peace assemblies are genuinely national, drawing women from every corner of the country. It is vital that our dialogues become universally inclusive, and we must ensure that both men and women possess the patience to listen to diverse perspectives. Until we foster a transparent culture of mutual acceptance and discover a shared vocabulary, we will inevitably drift toward fragmentation.

Dismantling Structural Poverty and the Economic Exploitation of Women

The critical factor we must confront is that while the individuals gathered in this room today enjoy relative prosperity, the fundamental, everyday challenge facing the average Afghan woman remains deep financial hardship. The overwhelming majority of Afghan women live in poverty. Until the financial hardship of the Afghan woman is placed at the center of our national policy, and until the reduction and ultimate eradication of poverty becomes a core national objective, the Afghan woman will remain systematically marginalized.

The woman who faces the highest risk of mortality during childbirth is the impoverished Afghan woman living in our most remote and disconnected districts. The woman who bears the heaviest brunt of domestic and societal violence is the impoverished Afghan woman. When a woman bears the sole responsibility of heading a household trapped in extreme poverty, the future of her children—especially her daughters—is placed in grave danger.

Let me share a devastating, real-world example with you. Just last week, our office received a formal petition from a woman. Through extensive efforts, we managed to track her down, which took time because her address was missing. Her husband had been martyred, and due to bureaucratic failures, her legal widow's pension had failed to reach her. She managed to survive at home for three years. By the fourth year, completely desperate, she accumulated a massive debt of roughly $120,000\text{ AFN}$. Her creditors then approached her with a horrific ultimatum: she must hand over her nine-year-old child to clear her debt.

This is the bitter, heartbreaking reality embedded within the cracks of our society. While we were able to step in and immediately resolve this specific crisis, thousands of similar structural issues remain—particularly concerning the fate of our orphans. We have tens of thousands of orphans across this land, and we must ask ourselves: What is our collective strategy to secure their lives? My core argument is that following this upcoming year—which stands as a vital year of stabilization—the discourse around reducing and eradicating poverty among women must transition into a concrete policy of economic empowerment. We frequently employ eloquent phrases like "the economic empowerment of women," but a truly empowered woman is simply a woman who has a job. A woman who commands her own independent income possesses the tangible leverage required to defend her sacred Islamic and legal rights. We must systematically diagnose this vulnerability and confront it head-on.

Revamping Educational Quality and Enhancing Value Chains

To achieve this, we must completely transform our approach to national investment. We all frequently declare that investing in a single girl child transforms five subsequent generations. Yet, we must critically evaluate whether the current quality of our educational system has delivered on that promise. We must look inward and focus our attention on building the hard infrastructure required to provide technical, income-generating avenues for women. We cannot continuously tell our young women that they are merely being trained, only for them to find an absolute vacuum of employment opportunities upon graduation.

Today, we face a major unemployment crisis among our educated women. In Shighnan district alone, hundreds of highly educated women are currently unemployed. While we successfully provided them with access to education, they must now become the focus of targeted state investment to ensure that their training yields tangible economic returns.

State spending must look past mere superficial metrics; it is no longer enough to generate data showing how many thousands of girls are enrolled in school. Whether dealing with boys or girls, if the core quality of our education is not addressed fundamentally, their ability to secure meaningful employment and their development into upright Muslim Afghans will remain deeply compromised. Therefore, it is vital that we openly deliberate on women's structural share in the economy and maintain an equilibrium between educational access and market demand.

Secondly, we must prioritize self-reliance. Afghanistan has enjoyed an unusual era of historical fortune, receiving unprecedented levels of international aid over the past eighteen years. As Dr. Abdullah noted, we are profoundly grateful for this global partnership. However, the foundational lesson of global history is that no nation has ever transitioned from dependency to true self-reliance exclusively through foreign assistance. Through these massive inflows, we managed to transition from absolute poverty to relative poverty, and certain segments of our population reached a modest middle-class standard. Yet, the countries that successfully unlocked sustained, long-term economic growth did so by seizing absolute control of their own economic destiny. Consequently, accelerating our domestic economic growth during this stabilization phase must become a core priority in which every woman in Afghanistan is actively engaged.

Fortunately, we have moved past the acute economic crises that the National Unity Government initially inherited. The necessary macroconditions are now in place. This year brings a profound blessing as we witness some of the highest levels of rainfall in our history; however, I witnessed the inverse of this blessing just yesterday while surveying the severe flash floods in Farah and Kandahar. Thousands of our families have been displaced, their livelihoods disrupted, and they require our collective solidarity and grief-sharing.

Yet, during my visits to Kandahar and Farah, I witnessed something that fills me with immense national pride and hope. In Kandahar, everyday citizens, the private sector, religious scholars, and our proud Afghan National Army and security forces completely unified to rescue stranded families. The exact same spirit was on display in Farah. What left a profound impact on me during my meeting with the flood victims in Farah was their remarkable perspective. They looked at me and said:

"Whether you provide us with immediate emergency relief or not is entirely up to your discretion. However, we demand one fundamental, structural action from your administration: manage the waters of the Bakhshabad Dam and the Farahrud River. We ask nothing else from your government."

Our people possess a sophisticated understanding of our natural wealth. We have an incredibly dignified nation; even when their homes have been swept away, when they are living in open fields or dependent on neighbors while waiting for emergency tents, their focus remains fixed on our long-term, strategic national assets.

Furthermore, now that our national exports have officially crossed the one-billion-dollar threshold—with a firm target of reaching two billion dollars next year—my explicit request to the women of Afghanistan is to aggressively integrate themselves into our domestic value chains. We must focus on how to dramatically increase the operational role of women in value creation. A vast percentage of the agricultural products we currently export depends on the labor of women, who perform the essential work of harvesting, sorting, and processing.

Finally, the balance of national revenues and expenditures must be treated as a core duty of citizenship. Every single Afghani that is wasted or embezzled represents a direct national loss. Conversely, every single Afghani that is properly collected and transparently spent strengthens our sovereignty. Under the National Unity Government, we successfully increased domestic revenues by ninety percent, yet this remains insufficient. We are currently collecting only about thirty-five percent of our total estimated revenue potential.

Your civic responsibility can no longer be limited to basic advocacy. My central message to the proud women of Afghanistan is that your era of mere advocacy has achieved its objectives; you have won your seat at the table. Now, your era of structural participation must deliver tangible results for all Afghans—men and women alike—through the clarity of your management, your strategic leadership, and your innovative intellect.

The Architecture of a Hundred-Year Peace

My final remarks focus on the realization of a sustainable, dignified peace. The National Unity Government is proud to have rescued the peace process from being a marginalized, unrealistic concept and placed it squarely at the absolute center of national policy. Today, Afghan society, our regional neighbors, and the wider international community are all actively discussing peace.

Never forget that our administration meticulously carved out this political landscape through patience, diplomatic discipline, and strategic foresight. To echo Dr. Abdullah’s point: this is not about electoral campaigning; it is about our grave historical responsibility. A dignified, lasting peace is the non-negotiable demand of the absolute majority of the Afghan people.

Let it be entirely clear: whenever Afghans unite around a shared national vision with absolute agreement, our most complex crises are resolved. Today is our historic moment to unite around the architecture of peace. Dr. Abdullah and I are not negotiating a peace agreement for our personal benefit; the sovereign people of Afghanistan will determine the path forward.

However, our structural responsibility is to ensure that this peace is not built to last for a single day, but for a hundred years. Designing a hundred-year peace demands a completely different caliber of strategic foresight and discipline. A truly sustainable peace will unlock the stability required to achieve all the national development goals we have discussed today, allowing us to maximize our natural resources and human capital.

Peace must be comprehensively national; it cannot be treated as the exclusive property of a single ethnic group, a specific region, or a particular political faction. Peace belongs equally to every single citizen of Afghanistan. If, God forbid, any segment of our population is left outside the framework of this peace, the resulting agreement will inevitably fracture and fail to survive.

The historic achievement of the National Unity Government lies in transforming peace into a legitimate national discourse. Today, from every corner of Afghanistan, we hear a unified call for solidarity, accord, and strategic discipline. In this context, we extend our thanks to our international partners who engaged with us at our formal invitation. We have shattered long-standing political taboos. We deliberately stated to our international partners that while the timeline and presence of international forces in Afghanistan is a legitimate topic for negotiation, we must look at the other side of the equation: When will the Taliban's relationship with Pakistan be placed on the international negotiating table?

While the Taliban's ties to transnational terrorist networks have been addressed to a certain degree, when will their deep entanglement with the illicit, criminal conflict economy be openly confronted? The international relationships and dependencies maintained by the sovereign Government of Afghanistan are entirely legal, fully transparent, and grounded strictly in international law. In contrast, relationships that are ambiguous, dark, and conducted behind closed doors must be dragged into the light.

The ultimate guarantee demanded by the Afghan public is that peace must result in comprehensive, nationwide security. Historical precedence demonstrates that when a peace process is not meticulously planned and calculated, it brings about alternative, more volatile forms of insecurity rather than stability.

I sat in intense operational briefings with the leadership of the 205th Heroic 'Atal' Corps until midnight. Our security forces have preserved the sovereignty of this soil with their blood. This nation will never tolerate the dissolution, degradation, weakening, or insult of the National Security and Defense Forces of Afghanistan. For this reason, I want to express my profound gratitude to the women of Afghanistan for standing as a powerful voice of solidarity for our soldiers.

Long live Afghanistan!