Source description last updated: 7 January 2020

In brief: The German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt, AA) is Germany’s federal ministry responsible for the country’s foreign and European policy.

Previous coverage on ecoi.net:

Progress reports on the situation in Afghanistan (this report series was discontinued in 2014).

Mission/Mandate/Objectives:

“The German Government issued progress reports on Afghanistan from 2010 to 2014 to keep the German Bundestag informed about the situation there during the last five years of the ISAF mission. […] The German Government’s progress reports on the situation in Afghanistan were prepared […] by the ministries involved in Afghanistan under the direction of the Special Representative of the Federal Government for Afghanistan and Pakistan. […] The Government’s first report in 2010 took stock of Germany’s engagement in Afghanistan. Thereafter, interim reports were issued each summer, with comprehensive progress reports appearing each winter. The progress reports were divided into three parts to reflect the key priorities of international engagement in Afghanistan during the ISAF mission, namely governance, security and development. The last progress report was issued in November 2014 as the ISAF mission was drawing to a close. It contains a review of engagement in Afghanistan since 2001 and draws some lessons from events over that period.” (AA: Progress report on Afghanistan, undated)

The Progress Reports are published by the Feder Press Office of the German government (see, for example, AA: Fortschrittsbericht Afghanistan 2014 einschließlich einer Zwischenbilanz des Afghanistan-Engagements, 1 November 2014, p. 2).

Funding:

German government budget.

Scope of reporting:

Geographic focus: Afghanistan.

Thematic focus: political system and governance, security, reconstruction and development.

Methodology:

While the Progress Reports do include some references to public sources, they are mainly based on non-referenced information collected by German government institutions (see, for example, AA: Fortschrittsbericht Afghanistan – Zwischenbericht Juni 2014, 26 June 2014). The security situation is evaluated by using “an assessment methodology developed by a German government inter-ministry Working Group for the Evaluation of Afghanistan’s Security Situation”. The “qualitative and general evaluation is carried out by means of a variable evaluation matrix based on three primary categories of influence (threat, protection and perception of the security situation). Secondary factors of influence such as political institutions, socio-economic and external influences” are “taken into account where their impact on the security situation is known to be significant.” There are five possible evaluation levels of the security situation: “controllable security situation”, “predominantly controllable security situation”, “sufficiently controllable security situation”, “predominantly uncontrollable security situation” and “uncontrollable security situation”. (see, for example, AA: Fortschrittsbericht Afghanistan 2014 einschließlich einer Zwischenbilanz des Afghanistan-Engagements, 1 November 2014, p. 33, working translation by ACCORD)

Language of publication:

German

Further reading / links:

AA: Afghanistan, undated
https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/regionaleschwerpunkte/afghanistanzentralasien

 

All links accessed 7 January 2020.

Methodological note:

ecoi.net's source descriptions contain background information on an organisation’s mission & objective, funding and reporting methodology, as well as on how we cover the source. The descriptions were prepared after researching publicly accessible information within time constraints. Most information contained in a source description was taken from the source itself. The aim is to provide a brief introduction to the sources covered regularly, offering information on relevant aspects in one place in a systematic manner.