Book excerpt: Afghanistan has become home to one of the largest gender-focused aid interventions in the aftermath of 9/11, with foreign aid agencies using Afghan women as a barometer of social change and political progress. Through the lens of gendered aid intervention, this book seeks to understand how the promise of freedom has largely fallen short--for both men and women. Topics include the tenuous relationship between social indicators and aid dynamics; the advancing of the gender agenda through Afghanistan's 2005 parliamentary elections; and the journey from policy formulation to interpretation to implementation through the voices of policy-makers, policy implementers, NGO leaders, Afghanistan specialists and ordinary Afghan women and men.