آزاده نجفی

Empowerment is a process that by facilitating the increase of self-awareness of a person, it causes the discovery and institutionalization of individual capabilities, through which a person has the possibility to make informed decisions in relation to his life, which can improve the social situation by influencing the society. Un-empowered women and girls, as half of the society's population, need to be empowered. Therefore, the role of international institutions and their performance evaluation in this field is very important. The study assessed the performance of international institutions related to the empowerment of women in Afghanistan in order to achieve peace and human security. The evaluation of the performance of international institutions with an emphasis on the cognitive empowerment of women for the period of ۲۰۰۳-۲۰۲۳ was done in general and specifically in Afghanistan. The reason for evaluating the performance of international institutions with a theoretical view to cognitive empowerment was that the concept is the basis for the achievement of other empowering donors, which could set international institutions on a path toward the promotion of female survivors in Afghanistan. The results showed that international institutions in the field of women empowerment have been working to improve the quality of life in education, income, health and reducing public poverty, but these efforts have only limited casualties on the condition of women in Afghanistan. Empowering Afghan women and girls is important to help build peace and improve human security in Afghanistan; therefore, in the declining state of women and girls, the action of international institutions to support and fight systemic gender discrimination is very important; because the insufficient efforts of international institutions increase human insecurities and advance related risks to other societies. Therefore, it is necessary to take a serious and practical look at the issue of empowering women and fighting against gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Despite all the efforts that international institutions have made to improve the status of women and empower them in Afghanistan; there is still a gap between the current situation and the desired situation. This distance is caused by the policies of some big powers, the implementation of programs that do not match the conditions of the target country, and similar programs for several countries, regardless of the different lived experience of women in different regio   Therefore, in order to reduce this gap, it is necessary for international institutions to try to implement independent policies and implement programs that are suitable for the situation of girls and women in Afghanistan.