On November 15, 2011 The Asia Foundation released the seventh in a series of public opinion surveys of the Afghan people. These are the broadest and most comprehensive surveys conducted in Afghanistan, and together they provide a barometer of Afghan public opinion over time.
Use this map to learn more about the 2011 survey, or past surveys; explore by region, year, or specific survey questions, or, download the summary data tables for a more complete picture. Survey data from 2006 to 2011 is available here for review and download.
Click anywhere on the screen to gain new insights into Afghanistan and the Afghan people.
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The Asia Foundation’s 2011 Survey of the Afghan people, the seventh in a series, attempted to measure how Afghan citizens assess their country’s situation in general. Respondents were asked whether they think things in Afghanistan today are going in the right direction or the wrong direction.
A little less than half of respondents (46%) say things in the country are moving in the right direction while 35%, the highest proportion since the start of the survey, say things are moving in the wrong direction. A significant proportion of people have mixed opinions (some things are moving in the right and some in the wrong direction) (17%).
Q: What is the biggest problem facing Afghanistan as a whole?*
The Visualizing Afghanistan site provides users with access to summary data tables for six of The Asia Foundation’s most recent annual surveys in Afghanistan – from 2006 to 2011. These data sets have been made available to further enhance understanding and research into the issues confronting Afghanistan and its people, and were made possible through the generous support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The data is provided in accordance with international open data standards, however The Asia Foundation requests that any public use or application of the data available through this site be accompanied with a relevant citation noting the data set and the source.
The survey was conducted among 6348 respondents in a single wave. Fieldwork for the survey was conducted by the Afghan Center for Socio-economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR-Surveys), Kabul, between July 2 and August 1, 2011 by a team of 589 trained interviewers (259 women and 330 men). The survey consisted of in-person interviews with a random, representative sample of 6348 Afghan citizens, 18 years of age and over and resident in Afghanistan.
The survey included both urban and rural respondents in all provinces of Afghanistan. The Sheharwali (municipal administration in Afghanistan) defines the urban population as those living within municipal boundaries. By default, the rural population comprises those who are living outside the municipal limits. Rural areas are defined neither in terms of population density nor remoteness.
The country is divided into eight geographical regions covering all 34 provinces. The sample was distributed proportional to geographic and residential characteristics of the population in each province. Within each province, districts were selected by first listing them by size of population and then applying a random selection method from this list.
For provinces with low population density, such as Samangan, Logar, Zabul, Urozgan, Nimroz, Panjshir and Nooristan, five interviews per sampling point were conducted, rather than eight as in other provinces, to offer broader geographic distribution.
The margin of sampling error is calculated at a cumulative of +/-4.1 percent at 95 percent confidence interval. The stochastic error is +/-2.4 percent while the systemic error is +/- 1.7 percent. The systemic error appears because of the areas not accessible for surveying this year. The systemic error percentage is based on the retrospective calculation of the contribution of the inaccessible areas in the data for 2008.
For more information, please download the full report at the Visualizing Afghanistan site, or at http://www.asiafoundation.org.
The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization committed to the development of a peaceful, prosperous, just, and open Asia-Pacific region. With 18 offices throughout Asia, an office in Washington, DC, and its headquarters in San Francisco, the Foundation supports Asian initiatives to improve governance, law, and civil society; women's empowerment; economic reform and development; sustainable development and the environment; and international relations. Drawing on nearly 60 years of experience in Asia, the Foundation collaborates with private and public partners to support leadership and institutional development, exchanges, and policy research.
The survey remains an impressive team effort that involved local partners and The Asia Foundation staff in Kabul working under the guidance of Country Representative Dr. V. Bruce J. Tolentino, Deputy Country Representative Sheilagh Henry, and Survey Project Manager Jehangir Gabar. Special thanks to Asia Foundation Program Directors Mohammad Osman Tariq, Najla Ayoubi, and Fazel Rabi Haqbeen for their contributions as principal authors of the survey. Staff in San Francisco and Washington, DC also greatly supported the project. We also thank Sudhindra Sharma and Pawan Kumar Sen of Inter Disciplinary Analysts (IDA) for their guidance, and Ruth Rennie for her editorial assistance. Finally, the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and its team of professionals – particularly Mir Waez Zarif – made this important research and capacity-building tool possible.
“Visualizing Afghanistan”, The Asia Foundation’s survey data mapping project, was led by John Karr, Director for Digital Media at The Asia Foundation. Steve Ubiera served as the project manager. William Wang supervised the web and information design for the project with co-developer Johan Baversjo. David Mason was responsible for survey analytics and data wrangling.
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