New Delhi, Aug. 15 -- Five years is long enough to understand what the world has decided about Afghanistan's women.

the $1.7 billion humanitarian appeal it launched for Afghanistan has received just 25 percent of the funding it requires. The organisations quietly running the last viable services for women in the country, including health clinics tucked into residential compounds, informal tutoring rooms, and vocational programmes constituting women's only remaining legal economic activity in many areas, are approaching their closure dates.

UN Women surveyed 74 of those organisations this year. More than half said they could suspend operations or close within twelve months, Al Jazeera reported. "Support for women's programmes must contin...