New Asia Foundation Afghanistan Survey to Launch in New York on Friday
Tomorrow morning in New York City, Asia Society hosts a launch event for the new Asia Foundation survey Afghanistan in 2011: A Survey of the Afghan People. Billed as the "broadest, most comprehensive" public opinion poll conducted in the country, Afghanistan in 2011 spans all 34 provinces and summarizes data gleaned from face-to-face interviews with nearly 6,500 Afghan citizens on governance, security, corruption, the status of women, development and negotiations with the Taliban. The Asia Foundation's website offers comprehensive multimedia on both the survey's findings and the process behind it.
Friday's New York event follows on launch events in Kabul and Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, with an additional program scheduled for London on Tuesday, November 22.
The survey hasn't lacked for press coverage since its release. Two Asia Foundation trustees, Theodore L. Eliot, Jr. (U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978) and Karl F. Inderfurth (Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs from 1997 to 2001), summarized its findings in a New York Times op-ed. Al Jazeera, meanwhile, has focused on the skepticism prompted by some of the survey's results, in particular the claim that "73 per cent of the population is satisfied with the government's performance."
Want to make up your own mind? For those unable to attend Friday's event in person, a free live video webcast will be streamed on AsiaSociety.org/Live from 8:45 to 10:00 am ET on Friday morning. Online viewers are encouraged to submit questions to [email protected].
(And don't forget Homeland Afghanistan, the Asia Society website that tells the country's story through 75 video episodes, featuring experts as well as hundreds of archaeological finds, paintings, literary works, music, photographs and documentary films.)