The Structural Shortcomings of INEE: An Intersectional Perspective on Young Women of Afghanistan

Given the gender-inequality index regarding education in the backdrop of protracted conflicts, the narrow “Education in Emergency” paradigm observed by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) provides the evidence for institutional and policy failure to understand the structural intricacies as well as socio-political temporalities in a contextual manner (Shuayb, 2018). INEE’s drafts for the educational policies designed amidst the conflict without a sound epistemological approach give the impression that the definition of their progress and sustainability is reduced to mere statistical data. The theoretical conceptualizations seem to be apolitical and don’t use a contextual and intersectional feminist lens producing a wide longitudinal research gap. This study intends to explore these research gaps in the policy frame analysis of INEE through a gendered lens and contextualizes the case study of Afghanistan. It hypothesizes that the de-politicization, exclusiveness, repatriation, and short-term vision of INEE policies are responsible for not achieving the desired results. A comprehensive consideration and mapping of geopolitical and biopolitical realities of Afghan women along with a structural understanding of socio-cultural realities, however, might lead to the better drafting of educational policies for women during the conflict and crisis.